Thursday, May 31, 2012

Wow. John Edwards already has dates with three jurors. He's still got it!
The truly passionate geometrician is touched by an angle.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

I think we're all relieved Jim Morrison didn't live long enough to have received the Medal of Freedom and the spectacle that would have ensued as the Secret Service wrestled his penis to the ground.
I'll bet the world's despots love to play a UN Security Council drinking game. "Sanctions." Drink. "Condemnation in the strongest possible terms." Drink. "This behavior will not be tolerated by the international community." Drink.
Man, I'd love to hear the scathing song Dylan would have written about an aging rock star having a medal put around his neck by a master of war.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Someone let me know when we’re ready to start officially freaking out about flesh-eating bacteria. I still have my H1N1 hazmat suit so I’m good to go.
No, Carl Hiaasen, you may not have a drug-crazed, face-eating naked man in Miami as a character in your next novel. It's been done.
Both of our daughters are home for the summer, and it feels like I've been plopped down in the middle of one of those old Japanese monster movies, with no English dubbing – lots of frenetic action, shouting, gesturing, general mayhem and an occasional scare. I generally have no idea what’s going on, but I still enjoy being an extra in the production.
Says the geologist who's passionate about his work: "I like big buttes and I cannot lie."
"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" -- surgeon soon to be hit with a huge malpractice lawsuit.
I really don't understand how some people struggle with their gender identity, but I assume it's like how I feel when I hear one of those testosterone-oozing "work is our work" Red Wing boot radio ads and realize I could do my job in bunny slippers. In fact, have.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Saw the guy who stole my identity walking around downtown yesterday. Man, he looked miserable. LOL.
Transplanted a couple of dozen volunteer seedlings this morning. They're either 2-foot-tall zinnias or 8-foot-tall sunflowers. Either way, winning. Photos to come in August.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

This just in: At 1:17 May 26, 9-year-old Jamie Smith (name changed to protect the whiny), of Lincoln, Neb., is first of the season to his tell mom "I'm bored," thus marking the official start to summer.
Doing my rain dance this afternoon. Unfortunately, it's kind of a cross between the Funky Chicken and the Twist, so if all kinds of weird hell breaks loose tonight, you know who to blame.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Hot? Check. Sultry? Check. Steamy? Check. Stifling? Check. Oppressive? Check. Sweaty, clammy, chafing and rash-inducing? Check, check, check and check. Hmm. Perhaps this was ill-advised. Never mind.
Friends, the rumors are true. Village Inn now makes a birthday cake pie. Sweet Jesus. Now awaiting VI's long-speculated introduction of the hot dog hamburger.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Out of five-blade razors this morning, had to use a four-blader. Feeling like Dan Haggerty right now. #firstworldproblem
I haven't seen one of these petitions on Lincoln's "fairness" ordinance, so I don't know what the city attorney's language concern is, but rumor is there's a misspelling in the proposed referendum: "Phags need not apply." C'mon, people, hate if you must, but proofread, proofread, proofread!
Wife sent me to Barnes & Noble to get her “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Had to buy 75 other books to hide it sufficiently in cart. Then of course the damn cashier asked for a pricecheck over PA. Ugh.
To paraphrase General Patton, don't suffer for your art. Make the other poor bastards suffer for your art.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Lincoln is getting a fourth Walmart, smaller than the others but with the latest cutting-edge Walmartian technology straight outta Benton -- hoverscooters, carts with built-in oxygen tanks, combination beer/baby supply express shop, robo-greeters and a quickie salon that does only mullets and rat tails.
This is the time of year when anyone with friends or loved ones who are teachers wants to slap that smug, giddy look right off their faces. I say that, of course, with the utmost respect and admiration for all they do for our kids. Still, smack!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Eugene Polley, inventor of the remote control, dead at 96. Apparently he was missing a day or two, and then his body was found between a coupla sofa cushions.
Uh-oh, look out. Zuckerberg, in a snit over Facebook's IPO woes, is plotting some really diabolical shit for the Timeline as revenge on all of us.
Man, these new appetite suppressants I'm taking really work wonders -- two chimichangas the middle of every afternoon.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Now you’re talkin’, AP Stylebook. New rule: Once a year you can bail from a particularly stubborn case of writer’s block by writing “and then I woke up and it turned out it was all just a dream” and calling it good.
Had an epiphany about my life this morning as I was smearing a third packet of icing on my Toaster Strudel and caught a glimpse of my fat, bare belly jiggling in the toaster: Man, I really need to get a nonreflecting toaster.
Media probably would be more interested in Jeremiah Wright if he’d ridden in a kennel atop Obama's car.
Judge, jury and executioner today. Also, butcher, baker AND candlestick maker. Jesus, I gotta learn to delegate.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Stock price tumbled in second day of trading. Facebook going down? Panicky Zuckerberg trying to right the ship, begs users, "for the love of God, delete all cat photos now!!"
Danger is my middle name; Stranger, my first. Thanks a lot, mom and dad. :(
Starting to feel really guilty about wishing disco dead back in '78.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Stay well, Gloria Gaynor. #DonnaSummer #RobinGibb #WhosNumberThree
Heard a promo for a CNN health report about the serious problem of frequent urination, so I DVRed it (for a friend). But no. Turns out it was about the "EUROPEAN Crisis."
 
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Good luck having any privacy in your lives, Zuckerberg's future children.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

I always pre-order the salmon but when the event arrives I want the steak. #firstworldproblem #everydamnbanquet
God bless this great land, where it really is possible, no matter how meager or obscure your origins, to grow up and win election to important public office thanks to intelligence, hard work, determination, grit and vicious, smearing TV attack ads purchased by super PACs underwritten by extremist billionaires who -- lucky you -- viscerally despise your opponent.
I'd have thought Chutes and Ladders would have inspired a movie before Battleship, but whatever.

Friday, May 18, 2012

OMG!!!! Click on this link to see what this dad did when he caught his teenage daughter buying Facebook shares for $42!!!!
Just bought a few shares in Facebook’s baby-pictures division. So, yeah, I’m set for life.
Bono was expected to make about $1.5 billion today from the Facebook IPO. So, yeah, I suppose he finally found what he was looking for.
USDA reports that Americans eat 137% of their recommended annual allowance of pulled pork in May and June. #graduation
A new breakthrough in Biblical scholarship. Experts now say we’ve been misinterpreting that Leviticus admonition that says it’s “detestable” when “a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman.” Turns out Yahweh was just laying down some Old Testament guy code: Hey, it’s one thing not to tell the truth to a woman, guys, but don’t pull that crap on your bros. That makes so much more sense.
What could go wrong with the guy who runs the Chicago Cubs having an inordinate influence on choosing our nation's leaders?

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Well, this Ricketts PAC fuss probably puts the kibosh on Democrats' plans to portray Mitt Romney as an asexual, white Steve Urkel.
Anxiously awaiting first Ricketts' PAC ad for fall Senate campaign: "How did Kerrey REALLY lose a leg? He says Vietnam, but could it have been New York? Just what exactly has he been up to there, anyway?"
Just starting the brand new fourth volume of Robert Caro's LBJ biography, the first volume of which I read when it was published in 1982. I understand writing this is Caro's life's work, but I did not plan on reading it being mine.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Well, that wasn't so hard, says Joe Ricketts, who now plans a series of vicious TV attack ads on NL Central opponents. #NESen
Take me out to the ballgame? Really? You're already at the ballgame, Einsteins. And they say baseball is the thinking person's sport.
Uh-oh, there's a whiff of fraud in the Nebraska Senate primary, as officials review yesterday's voter lists. Obviously, cows are allowed to vote in Deb Fischer's native Sandhills – but not dead ones.
Oy. I just realized that I voted for Deb Fischer because I subconsciously realized she looks exactly like President Taylor from the last two seasons of "24."

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I don't really give a damn about democracy. I just crave that sense of approval I get from the old ladies working at the polling place.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Deb Fischer’s late surge in the Nebraska Republican Senate primary is fueled by key endorsements, PAC-funded TV ads and voters’ sudden realization that Don Stenberg and Jon Bruning are running.
Alaska's former governor has waded into the Nebraska Republican Senate race, not in person but using robocalls to attack from afar. Let’s call them Palindrones. (Ba-da-bomp.)
I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who doesn't know anybody. So much for my networking skills.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Oh boy, another interesting week ahead for the Obama administration. A newly cocky Joe Biden was on Sunday-morning talk show again today, claiming he knows that extra-terrestrials walk among us on Earth, says "Alf" increased public acceptance of them.
I suppose I shouldn't let this day get away without finally admitting my long-held secret: I switched mothers at birth.
You know what kinda hurts, people? Instagram was my late grandmother's hip-hop name. :(
Never let it be said that democracy doesn't offer voters a real choice. Why here in Nebraska, Republicans have a clear contrast in Tuesday's primary election. We got a "trusted conservative," a "proven conservative" and a "true conservative." So, pick your favorite adjective, I guess. Or, when all else fails, vote for the candidate least likely to humiliate the state by going viral with some idiotic speech on the Senate floor. So, go Deb Fischer, I guess. (And, yes, Fischer campaign, you may use the phrase "least likely to humiliate the state" in an ad.)
Becoming a mother is a biological act that requires no particular skill, training or intelligence. I mean, look at some of the idiots who've managed to do it. But becoming a mom, now that's something special. So, Happy Mom's Day to moms everywhere.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

There's a nap for that. Try the couch.
To those eager to judge Mitt Romney for his youthful self-described "hijinks," or to blame his mother for not breast-feeding him 'til he was 3, take a moment to remember your own high school years. Do it. No, no, don't look away. Remember that cauldron of insecurities, raging hormones and daily humiliations? Some of us were perpetrators of random acts of meanness and idiocy, others of us were victims and still others, a little of both. How 'bout this: Short of murder, felonious assault and Afro perms, all is forgiven and forgotten before the age of 21.

Friday, May 11, 2012

As Time magazine reminds us this week, nothing grabs Americans' attention quite like flashing some boob.
Lord knows, I’m usually up for a new round of that favorite media game, “So why can’t women be better?”, but I really don’t understand the question Time magazine poses. Usually, my mom was way too much.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

So who else already is looking forward to Court TV's inevitable "Gay Divorce Court"?
I just used “Facebook” as a verb. I blame the Associated Press. Ever since AP gave up on “hopefully,” I just can’t seem to care anymore. I’m afraid I may say “impactful” next.
Before I went to work for a university, I thought "multidisciplinary" referred to when my kid misbehaved and I grounded him, suspended his allowance AND assigned extra chores.
Vice president hearts Will & Grace. Sendak dies. Obama endorses same-sex marriage. A fresh round of Travolta rumors. Make Lincoln Fair goes before city council.

Gayest. week. ever.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

So, is my marriage destroyed immediately, or does that take effect in 90 days, or what?
Saw a couple of guys shopping at the grocery store and again later doing business at the bank and, finally, one more time at the park, eating ice cream and watching a grandson play on the swings. Oh my God, I realized: They were acting out their gay lifestyle, the perverts. #MakeLNKFair
The world started goin' to hell when high school basketball coaches lost control of their gym floors. Good Lord, street shoes stomp all over them now.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

I'd like to think Maurice Sendak and Adam Yauch already have hooked up and are planning some brilliant, crazy collaboration.
When you see paper towels wadded up in an incongruous spot on a grade-school floor, ignore your curiousity and just move on. #LifeLessons
God help me, but I think "Transgenders" would be a really bitchin' Michael Bay movie, with heroes transforming freely from men to women, vice versa and then back again. The possibilities for both romantic and action sequences are endlessly fascinating. #MakeLNKFair

Gettin' our gay on in Lincoln


The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that someone at Monday’s city council meeting warned the Make Lincoln Fair ordinance would turn our town into a “mecca for all the gay people who would come here and act out their gay lifestyle.”

Well, I for one welcome gaying up Lincoln a bit, turning it into the Provincetown of the Plains, the Castro of the Cornbelt or the Fire Island of Farm Country (Yes, Chamber of Commerce, you may use these.) Better restaurants, better art, better music, better clubs. Hell, I'll bet even the snow removal and pothole repair would get more efficient if done more gayly.

On the other hand, I am a little threatened by the prospect of an influx of better-looking, better-smelling, better-dressed, better-dancing and better-behaved men, and everybody knows the gays don’t like football either. And could I catch gay if I get too close to one of them acting out his gay lifestyle?

Plus, I suppose Phred Felps’ merry band would permanently Occupy Lincoln.

So, I dunno, maybe I’m kinda conflicted after all.

Monday, May 7, 2012

If I owned a restaurant, I would absolutely have an LGBT sandwich on my menu -- bacon, lettuce, tomato and, I don't know, guacamole? #MakeLNKFair
Got an email from my daughter’s speech teacher letting parents know that informative speeches begin tomorrow. “It does take a will to get through these,” he wrote. I think he means “awhile,” but either way.
If not with the bath water, when IS the appropriate time to throw out the baby?
Doctor says I need to lose weight and be less sedentary. I suffer from a fairly typical ailment for men my age: enlarged, prostrate.
Ron Brown says it's "not in the Lord's will" for him to testify against the Make Lincoln Fair city ordinance. I wonder if Tom Osborne ever gets tired of his constant deification.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

You call that a marathon, Lincoln? Hell, a Kenyan didn't even win.
Oh boy. Someone let Joe Biden go on TV this morning without adult supervision and he went and endorsed same-sex marriage. And then, panic. His office and the Obama campaign walked back Biden's comments, saying they were totally in line with the views of the president, who does not in fact support same-sex marriage but is "evolving" on the matter. So, on gay marriage, the administration now has contorted itself into a position not found even in the Kama Sutra. Call it The Evolving Corkscrew: foot in mouth, head up ass and kinda dickless.
After praying about it, Ron Brown says it's "not in the Lord's will" for him to testify against the Make Lincoln Fair measure. Sounds like the Lord reviewed that whole love-one-another part of His Playbook with the good coach, huh? Man, I hope He also reminded Ron of His commandment concerning the importance of a consistent running game.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Well, that didn't take long. Stenberg charges that when Bruning was in college, he issued a legal opinion endorsing municipal anti-discrimination laws for gays.
Ugh. So sick of being stereotyped by people at the gym. For the last time, no, I am NOT running the double Lincoln Marathon tomorrow.
Some people claim a certain moral superiority in not turning on the air conditioner 'til June. Good on them. Just try not to be downwind of them.
In a fabulous hat and seersucker suit, polishing off my second pitcher of mint juleps. To some, it's Kentucky Derby day. To me, just another Saturday.
Finally got around to reading Bruning's gay-rights opinion. I'll leave the legal analysis to the lawyers. I just think it should have been a campaign flyer, not on attorney general's letterhead.
Proposed: Henceforth, the phrase "shagging balls in Kansas City" shall be the preferred euphemism for any and all kinds of risk-taking behavior, perhaps replacing "working without a net." #MarianoRivera

Friday, May 4, 2012

Well, why WOULDN'T we accept the constitutional judgment of a guy who once wigged out about men marrying furniture?
The race is still close, but it feels like Bruning took the lead today as the evil of two lessers. #NESen
These ungrateful kids today take for granted their right to party, but, dammit, we all fought and bled for that right in the '80s. God bless the Beasties for their courageous leadership and RIP, MCA.
To ensure an email at work is opened and read, use the subject line: BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, I'LL BE GONE. #Tipsfor2012Grads
Proposed: Henceforth, the phrase "shagging balls in Kansas City" shall be the preferred euphemism for any and all kinds of risk-taking behavior, perhaps replacing "working without a net." #MarianoRivera
I ain't sayin' it's humid out there, but I just ran through a sprinkler to dry off a little. #LNK
Weather service just issued Soup of the Day alert, Lincoln -- and it ain't just broth. More like New England clam chowder -- big chunks of potato and onion in the air.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

OK, I’m just gonna 'fess up now, ‘cause it’s probably gonna show up on Facebook Timeline’s new automated Check Out What This Dumbshit Did Today feature anyway: Early this morning when it was still dark outside, a moth flew in my car window and landed on my face, and I’m pretty sure I made a loud, very unmanly sound. It could maybe be described as a shriek, and I may or may not have called out for my mommy.
At this hour, 95% of Lincoln's latte-sipping libs are at the Lied for "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me." Let's head downtown, slap some Confederate flag bumper stickers on their hybrids, maybe jimmy some locks and install a few gun racks. This is gonna be great!
OK, so Obama created a "composite" girlfriend in his memoirs. What's the big deal? I invented several, too.
Going out today to play my daily game of Lincoln traffic-signal chicken, in which I show the audacity to actually stop at red lights, sometimes even yellow, just daring drivers behind me.
I'm not one of those guys who insists on wearing the pants in the family, mostly because I'm loathe to commit to having pants on all the time.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The cops showed up in force for the Occupy Lincoln denouement like they thought some Tiananmen Square shit was gonna go down, but it was more like bouncing that last sad, pathetic drunk from the bar.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Ever sit through the credits of a romantic comedy and see a dozen stuntmen listed and ask “wha-”? Then it occurs: They use those guys when it’s time to show “feelings.”
I am THIS close to proving Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" album works as a secret soundtrack for the third season of "Everybody Loves Raymond."
Headline of the month (year? century?): "A British spy found dead in a duffel bag. Was it Al Qaeda or a sex act gone bad?"
Occupy Lincoln crowd just started selling frozen yogurt at their new camp, so legally the city can't touch 'em now.
I do incredible things with cooked bread, butter and jelly. You all may call me The Toastmaster.
I'll bet God sometimes looks at his creations and wonders whether it's too late to put dogs in charge. Or, hell, even ferns.