All the patron saints in the world! Catholicism must be terribly interesting to those who have never had the misfortune to be bound by it.

I think I am going to adoptSt. Dominic of Silos, patron saint against insects.

A poll! In all cases, this is for people a) who do not live with the person in question, b) who are not estranged from the person in question, and, of course, c) for whom the person in question is still alive:

How often do you talk to:

1. Your parents
2. Your siblings
3. Your grandparents
4. Your aunts, uncles, and cousins

I got free cat food with my morning paper. So what do I do with it? Leave it in the lobby with a note: "Cat owners: help yourselves"

ETA: Further problem: My newspaper smells like cat food

I've lost like three blog entries. And I have a zit under the nosepad of my glasses.

I tend to comma heavily. The person who edits most of my work at work tends to comma lightly. Since he is responsible for editing my work, he tends to remove any commas that are not strictly necessary. As a result, I'm starting to find myself inclined to remove any commas that are not strictly necessary when revising my own work! GAH! My commaing habits have been corrupted!

I wonder if there have been any attempts at airplane terrorism since Sept. 11?

On MASH, they got some newspaper's and it's a big deal. Everyone is swarming the newspapers asking for the sections they want. One guy says "Give me the classifieds, I need a job!"

Um, you're in the army, you have a job...

Malheureusement, I find myself thinking about US politics again. Three points:

1. I find it strange that quite a few political critics point at US politicians and say "I don't see your kids in the military!" as though having kids in the military is a demonstration of the politician's virtue. Now, I realize that someone whose kids are in the military is likely to be less frivolous about military deployment, but the fact remains that a politician's children are completely separate people from the politician. They are not some artificial extension of their parents. An adult child's career path is in no way a manifestation of their parent's virtue or lack thereof. What the critics should be focusing on instead is the politician's own career path. "I don't see you on the front lines!" I wish they'd stop making an issue of politicians' children's lives, so that the poor kids can live their lives on their own terms instead of being pressured to live in a way that's politically appealing.

2. Canadians: I'm sure you've noticed by now that any time anyone publicly utters anything that's anything less than audulatory of any US policy, someone writes a letter to the editor screaming "ANTI-AMERICANISM!" Have you ever noticed that the vast majority of these things that are being decried as anti-American are things that we'd just laugh at if they came out of the US?

3. Bloggers have probably alread seen it, but this article is particularly interesting. You'd think that if someone was going to forge a document as typewritten, they'd either a) use a typewriter, or b) use a font where all the letters have equal spacing (and I know there's a cool word for that, but I forget). More valuable commentary here.

Fw:

My feet hurt.

I got these lovely comfy new shoes. There was a bit of extra space, so I
thought I needed insoles (it's one of those things that my parents drilled
into my head: YOU NEED INSOLES IF THERE IS EXTRA SPACE IN YOUR SHOES). So I
got lovely comfy gel insoles. I put the insoles in my shoes and set off to
work.

As I walked down the street, I noticed that my feet hurt. It seems the
insoles had made the space inside my shoes too short, vertically speaking,
so the tops of my feet were pressed against the "roof" of the shoe. It was
raining so I couldn't sit down on a bench, and you don't just take your
shoes off on the subway, so I couldn't take the insoles out until I got to
work. And by the time I got to work blisters had formed on the top of my
toes, and then burst open.

So now I have open weeping sores on the tops of my toes, and all my shoes
cover that particular part of my toes, so I'll have to be in pain for a few
days, unless I decide to drop out of society and stay home with my feet up,
which is becoming increasingly tempting by the moment. And I'm seriously
considering dropping my class just to avoid the pain of walking the block
and a half from the nearest subway station to the building where my class
is. That's one advantage of taking classes - four days a week, the amount
of walking and stair-climbing I do daily is increased by 50%, which is a
good thing unless your feet are in constant pain.

This is probably the most pain I've been in as a result of shoe problems,
which is ironic considering that these shoes are perfectly flat, made of
leather, and have good supportive straps. I would have been more
comfortable if I had worn my 4-inch heels.

A poll: you're wearing khaki pants and black shoes. Your socks might show when you sit down. What colour socks do you wear?

I'll be back when the day is new
And I will have more ideas for you
And you'll have things you'll want to talk about
I will too
- the closing song of Mr. Rogers

Odd, we always ended up talking about the things he wanted to talk about, we never got to talk about the things I wanted to talk about.

Too hot. Too too hot. Shouldn't the humidity have had the decency to break by this hour?

A discovery: turning on the fan above the stove (which is located right by the ceiling) helps cool the apartment, presumably by sucking out some of the hot air.

Things I don't understand about American politics:

1. Why do presidential candidates' families need to be so visible? Why are
people entitled, or even required, to give a speech at a party convention
just because they happen to be related to a candidate?

2. A lot of the commentary I'm seeing about the Republican convention says
they're trying to shift to the centre, but there's concern that the more
right-wing neocons will feel alienated. Why are they concerned about that?
Who else do they think the neocons are going to vote for? It seems to me
that if all the parties are to the left of you, you don't really have any
choice but to vote for the right-most party.

3. There seem to be some people saying that John Kerry was not entitled to
protest the Vietnam war. But it's a fact of public record that he was in
the Vietnam war. If fighting in combat in a war doesn't give a person the
right to protest that war, by those people's standards, what does?

A Tourist's Guide to Glengarry by Ian Mcgillis.

A nine-year-old boy tries to write a book by writing down everything that happens in one day. However, the day he chooses turns out to be one of the most eventful days of his life. I love this book because everything that happens is perfectly realistic and captures the perpetual confusion of being nine. Quite often, books where children have adventures give the protagonists an excessive amount of freedom and insight. This book does not fall into that trap, and is the better for it. The only thing the protagonist can do that I couldn't at age nine is wander freely around his neighbourhood at any time of the day or night, but that's perfectly plausible for his era and his location. A really sweet story, and a quick read at just over 200 pages.

If you threw a party, and invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say "Thank you for being a friend."

- Theme from The Golden Girls

When I was a kid, I thought this was a plausible situation. But as an adult I look at it and wonder under what circumstances a grown adult would be giving a party for themselves where everyone brings gifts. Birthdays, maybe, maybe not. Strange

It's too hot and my air conditioning is broken! (Fun fact: every possible way you can reasonably typo the word broken ends up looking Scandinavian). I've been diligently cooling my apartment the best I can using The Power of Science! (TM), but the people downstairs don't seem to be doing the same thing. I can feel the heat radiating up from the floor! GAH, stupid convection!

This morning, I heard parts of that American Republican Convention thing on the radio. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's because I've never been to a party convention, maybe it's because I was hearing the audio without seeing the images, but it sounded an awful lot like what I'd imagine frat boys at a football game sound like.

Is that really what people want in a political party?

From the Brilliant Ideas That Will Never Work file:

People who intentionally infect others with HIV should, as part of their punishment, be required to get I AM HIV POSITIVE tattooed on or near their genitals, in such a way that it can easily be read and is not obscured by body hair.