perfidy

This weed can eat pesticide for breakfast, resist the Mexican army for lunch, and kick your ass for dinner.

There was a time, several years ago, when my life was all vodka dinners and spite. Yep, those were good days back in the music business. To take our minds off the spite, me and some friends got together and did stupid shit. Some in this situation get into fights. Some guys play rugby. Some golf; some collect stamps or fly to Singapore to perform acts of unspeakable beastliness.

We, we screwed around with media.

There's a tape out there in the world somewhere, that features -- yes -- me and Jenna Jameson. But not in the way you think. No; think the opposite. It's real funny.

And there's also the following, recorded shortly before Christmas, the year 2000, by the Jersey City Taberknuckle Choir. That's me on lead vocals and drunken bass.

It took me several hours to finally assemble the table, and to repair the desk. After that intensely annoying labor, my office was looking nice. I was feeling good. So, I took a break from work to go hook up the washer and drier. Turned on the washer, and it leaked through what is apparently a huge hole in the bottom of the washer. It must have broke in the move. And there's no drain in the basement. I am pissed. Mrs. Buckethead is pissed, because she's going to have to go to a laundromat to wash the clothes.

But hey, at least I've got high speed internet.

For thinking this was quite witty:

Unpacking is, I now believe, more draining than packing. When you're packing, things go in boxes. While you can make some effort to ensure that like things end up in the same box, the end result is a constant and familiar. Fill a box til it's full, tape it shut, repeat. There is also the reassuring feeling of progress as you see the ever larger pile of boxes. You can look at the pile of boxes and say, "Look at all that shit I packed!"

The reverse is more daunting. You might think it'd be something like a grand scale Christmas, but you'd be wrong. You open a box. What's in this one? Kitchen stuff. But you opened it in the wrong place. Move the box to the kitchen. Then you've got a pile of boxes and you have to figure out where that stuff goes. You get more boxes, and despite all the stuff you've put away, there are still boxes. And since you've put all the other stuff away, you can't see it and you don't feel like you (or in my case, your wife) have accomplished anything at all.

Then there's the stuff that breaks in the move. I have a nifty correspondance desk that was hand made by my step-grandfather. It is, I discovered, rather fragile, as one of the feet broke when it was unloaded. So, I went to my local hardware store, and got the 4" screws I needed to reattach the foot more strongly than the original wood glue. I got out the drill, drilled the pilot holes, and reattached the foot. I felt all handy and competent. So, I flipped the desk so that the weight of the desk would help the wood glue I also applied set better.

And the leg snapped.

Tonight I get to attach new hoses to the washing machine, and reassemble the table that didn't have any nuts or washers. It didn't have nuts or washers because in an apparent fit of insanity, I did not screw them back onto the table legs after I disassembled it. Instead, I carefully packed them into a ziploc bag, and then lost the bag.

At least I've got high speed internet.

Newsweak is reporting that Iraq's economy, despite all the bombings and blood and death, is booming. According to one measure, 17% this year and projected for 13% next year. Amazing, really. I would imagine that a fair chunk of that healthy growth rate is the result of starting small - the first part of the growth curve is easy. Still and all, the fact that things are getting together enough for this sort of thing to happen is encouraging, especially in the face of the constant reminders that things are very, very bad indeed.

No, really. I mean it. Rock is dead. Ahmet Ertegun has passed from this world, meaning the single most influential, visionary, and musically aware record label chief of the past century is no longer with us. In every sense, this marks the end of an era.

I was going to eulogize him at length, but everything that needs to be said has already been said, by Reason's Jesse Walker:

To sign Ray Charles, and to refuse to sign Jackson Browne -- Ahmet Ertegun was a man with taste.

Rest in peace, my favorite Turk

JohnL, from TexasBestGrok, pings me with a meme. He thought he was being all sneaky by doing that after not posting for weeks. However, I read that post on the day he posted it, and the only thing I missed was the fact that he tagged others, including me, for his meme.

So, here is my Christmas Questions post:

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Whiskey
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Why bother wrapping coal? Seriously though, Santa wraps presents in attractive post consumer recycled gift bags and places them gently under the tree for the cats to knock over.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I don’t, or at least, haven’t, decorated the outside of my house. Someday, perhaps.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Never. Kisses are icky, so my son tells me.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually somewhere around the first weekend in December. Typically, we are traveling in Ohio over the T-day weekend. This year, decorations will go up this weekend, the delay thanks to an inconveniently timed move.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Stuffing, the way my Grandmother did, and now my mom and favorite aunt do it.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child: Depends on what you mean by favorite. Most cherished memory is all the Christmases I spent at my grandparent’s 150 year old farmhouse in the country. There are many others, too numerous to mention. Some are favorite in that they make good stories, but weren't particularly pleasant at the time.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Somewhere around age five, I deduced that Santa was fake. I have hated the world ever since.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Sometimes
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I am a firm believer in the eclectic school of tree decorating. I was given some ornaments by my mom – seed ornaments like John mentioned, and slowly added to that stockpile over the years. When my grandmother died, I also got a bag of ornaments from that tree. Since I’ve been married, my wife and I buy a couple ornaments a year. We did buy a bin of red glass ornaments one year. So first, put on multiple strings of colored lights, then hang about 200 ornaments, then put up the ugly angel on the top. It has a rubberband to hold the wings on, but I wouldn’t trade it for nothing.
11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it. Christmas just ain’t right without snow. In Columbus, Ohio, where we usually spend Christmas, it’s about 50-50 chances.
12. Can you ice skate? Barely.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I don't know what my favorite gift is. I loved them all, and thank all the people who got them for me. I never did get a BB gun, though.
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Grandma’s sugar cookies, made by me. Seeing the fam. Ruthless competition in the five dollar gift exchange. Watching my son go totally bug eyed at the gifts.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Sugar cookies, made by me. Pumpkin pie, made first by granny, and now by my cousin Marianne. Though the wife's pies are getting better.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Pulling out one of my Nat King Cole Christmas albums (I have backups) and starting to decorate. Baking the cookies. Making the beans. The five dollar gift exchange. I can’t decide.
17. What tops your tree? A hideously ugly half century old plastic angel with a funky hairdo. It was once electric, with lights and shit. Now, its broken and has a fat rubberband holding it together. One year, the ugly angel got impaled a little too much by the top of the tree, and split her up the sides.
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Getting. Though I don’t mine giving. This question reminds me of Rainbow Randolph’s song in Death to Smoochy.
19. What is your favorite Christmas song? Any of the songs on Nat King Cole’s Christmas album. Probably O Tannenbaum, because it's so funky listening to Nat sing German. I’ve also become partial to the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas Album, Django Bells, and a couple Aimee Mann Christmas tracks we have on a compilation.
20. Candy canes: Candy sucks.
21. Favorite Christmas movie? Without question, The Christmas Story. You’ll put your eye out, kid. Although Bad Santa left a powerful impression last year. Not good for the kids, though I wouldn’t mind meeting Mrs. Santa’s sister.
22. What do you leave for Santa? Sugar cookies and a glass of milk.

Other Christmas thoughts? It's really all about the food. Most of my fondest memories, and most of the current family traditions, center on food rather than gifts. One of the greatest controversies in my family was over whether it was appropriate to introduce new recipes for traditional dishes. After some acrimony, the traditionalists won out. If you're going to change something, it has to be an addition rather than a replacement, because everyone wants what they expect - something else might be a nice bonus, but there damn well better be the right kinds of stuffing, gravy, rolls, green beans, cookies and pies.

As much as I like, and indeed treasure, the Christmas music that I listen to at home, I despise and detest the never ending crappy Christmas music that everyone else plays.

Sometimes it's hard to find good gifts - and while it is considered a cop out in my family to get gift cards, it is awfully nice to get them.

Having kids makes up for the fact that you're too grown up to get cool toys much anymore.

Traveling over Christmas is too damn expensive, but worth it. This year I won't be travelling, but I am going to really miss the rest of my family that I won't see as a result.

I'm not going to nominate anyone to participate, because that's not my idiom. But feel free to participate.

[wik] Another of JohnL's nominations has put one up.

[alsø wik] Ministry Crony and filthy Druid Rocket Jones has weighed in.

No less august an institution than the Smithsonian has recklessly and without evidence declared me, and by extension the entire ministry, to be SPAM LIKE CONTENT. This is, apparently, a total and permanent judgment, if I am interpreting their missive correctly:

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 12): 550 Error: SPAM LIKE CONTENT

Needless to say, I disagree violently with this assessment. Hell, I never send an email to more than five recipients. And it's never about penis enlargement. Okay, very rarely about penis enlargement. But never about Viagra. Even I have standards. Low standards, to be sure. But they are standards.

I think I'll have to write a letter.

This just hit my inbox:

__________________________________
NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal

Dec. 13, 2006
Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota suffered a possible stroke Wednesday and was taken to a hospital, his office said. If he should be unable to continue to serve, it could impede the scheduled Democratic takeover of the Senate. Democrats won a 51-49 majority in November, but South Dakota's governor, who would appoint any temporary replacement, is a Republican.

For more information, see:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116604516212049325.html?mod=djemalert

__________________________________

And it occurred to me that, in the unfortunate event Senator Johnson is unable to continue to serve, I'd consider it rather shitty for South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds to appoint a Republican to the slot.

Hey, I'm all for what I consider the potentially less-damaging of the two parties controlling the Senate, but I'm more in favor of respecting the voters' wishes. And the voters elected a Democrat in 2002, so they should have a Democrat in that Senate seat until 2008.

Or am I looking at this too simplistically?

[wik] "Mr. Johnson won his 2002 bid for reelection in the predominantly Republican state by just 524 votes out of more than 334,000 votes cast." So there's that. But a win's a win, and a miss is as good as a mile.