Susskins Central Dispatch

Fallow fields

The Dispatch is currently on hiatus, while I figure out the meaning of life (42), the location of Xanadu, and the phone number for that pay phone in the middle of the desert.

Feel free to frolic in the archives, if you are so inclined. I wouldn't recommend you leave comments, though, as they'll be roundly ignored.

Eventually laziness and entropy will end, and I will get my web server running correctly, and get MT fully transferred to it. In the meantime, I'm out of disk space and won't be posting. Plus the whole Xanadu thing is taking a lot of time.

Anybody making an Olivia Newton John joke will be beaten to death with a copy of Two of a Kind.

Anyway, check back as often as you like, and see whether I pull my head out of my TiVo. Have a good rest-of-the-summer.

Insect of Horror

Read about the Cicada of Doom.

I'm keeping the cats inside. None of this for me.

Link courtesy of the ever luscious Rita.

Memories of Kentucky

My Last Trip Home

Steve at Little Tiny Lies writes about going back to Kentucky to visit his deceased Grandmother's house for the last time. His memories of the past are astounding and fascinating.

It's a long post, but I suggest you go read it. And if you feel like I did afterward, gently suggest that he write more about his boyhood memories. He's carrying a fascinating story in his head, and I don't think he realizes how much people would treasure it.

Go read. And tell other people to read.

Wrong, wrong, wrong

Europe is weird. Who else would serve a Grilled Texas Bagel and Broccoli Cheese Nuggets?

That's just not right.

Evil Pig Dies by his own hand

Jonathan Carpenter, who pleaded guilty last month to three killings in Long Prairie and had confessed to two in Minneapolis, apparently committed suicide in his prison cell, authorities said today.

``He'd have nightmares every night about what he did,'' she said. ``He'd wake up in the middle of the night, dreaming about what he did and the people. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't deal with it.''

Good. One less animal to deal with. Evil son of a bitch.

Idjit

You are a Clueless Idiot. Not only do you not know
you're an idiot, you don't know much of
anything. Your celebrity icon is Alicia
Silverstone.


What Kind Of Idiot Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Just a link

This link is an attempt to push Aaron the Liberal Slayer over the edge on the Blog Ecosystem.

But he's worth looking at as well.

Myself? I'm listed at 1017 out of 3301, which makes me a Slithering Reptile. Sssssssss.

Nuke

Today is Frank's one-year anniversary in the blog world. This is the obligatory link that will bring him even more bandwidth problems. Yep, those one or two people will make a big difference.

Seriously. Go visit Frank. How can you dislike someone who advocates nuking the Moon?

Veggies

Ray Smuckles dishes advice.

Here’s what I want you to do, Oregon Vegetarian: stand in front of a full-length mirror looking at your body, and then smile really nicely at your body as you say to it, I am so much smarter than you.

That is what it means to be a vegetarian.

And that is why Ray is my hero. How excellent. Put in place by a cartoon cat yet again.

Get yer Fez out

Men in fezzes: Hundreds watch Shriners on parade

Sadly, I missed the parade. I just found out about it. I went out for lunch at about 12:45, after a session of hair-pulling regarding our email server. (Keith 2, server 1)

The traffic was all bottled up. I saw several Shriners walking, in their Fezzes, which is uncommon. I also saw a bus full of clowns, which is even less common.

They have another parade tomorrow night at 7:30. I wonder if Fred would be interested in coming downtown for the evening...

I love Shriners. Midget Corvettes and all.

Tragedy

Iranians cry in shock over death of twins

Across the country, Iranians stopped what they were doing as state television announced the deaths Tuesday of Ladan and Laleh Bijani, the 29-year-old conjoined Iranian twins undergoing surgery to separate them in Singapore.

So sorrowful. I admire the determination and bravery of these two women, and am very sorry that it ended as it did.

It was a high-risk surgery, and they went into it with eyes open. I'm not sure I would have the courage to do that.

My heart goes out to their family.

Poink

The weather is suddenly temperate. The walk home was a mere 85 with low humidity. The temps are now down to 74 just before nine, and the breeze coming in the window is absolutely heavenly.

What the hell happened? July is NEVER this nice in Minnesota. It should be near 90, and wringing wet. (Yes, I know. Mississippi is far wetter and hotter. Fuck off. We have an annual temperature variance of 120 degrees. Match that.)

I think there'll be some really nice sleeping tonight.

Things go boom, again

Last night was a good night. We got downtown at about 9:00, and into my firm's best conference room. 40th floor, corner conference room, windows facing north (-ish) and east (-ish). A nice overlook of the Mississippi, and good views of the surrounding suburbs.

At about 9:20, other people started showing up. We all watched the various little displays in the distance, and the contraband rockets smuggled in from Wisconsin. The air conditioning was off, but we were in comfortable chairs, with no mosquitos.

Just after 10:00, the big guns started off. The booms were weirdly muffled by the glass, and had a strange mechanical sound. But we could see it all quite nicely and we didn't have to jostle strangers. The fireworks went for about 20 minutes, and were pretty damn nice.

The trip back home was interesting, what with screeching and banging noises all over the metro area. We saw stuff going up all the way home.

Tonight we set off the bulk of our fireworks. Lots of screamers in our bag. We had disastrous failures with our pinwheels, and spectacular successes with our small fountains. The big finale was two monster fountains. The first was kinda lame, although noisy. The second more than made up for it. Tall, loud, pretty and long-lasting.

We're all gunpowdery now, and the front driveway is covered with scorch marks and dead artillery shells.

It's been a damn good holiday.

Things go boom

It's been a pretty good Fourth of July so far. I went grocery shopping, took a drive, made chicken strips, and had a four hour extended conference with the television and the inside of my eyelids. Fred made steak for dinner, and now we're debating the relative merits of food processors and shop vacs.

In a bit we're going to downtown Minneapolis to watch the fireworks over the Mississippi. My firm is in a nice tall building (forty stories!) just a couple of blocks from the fireworks site, so we'll be up high and protected against the bugs. It'll be interesting to see how many other firm folk are there. I suspect that the conference rooms will be rather crowded.

We've also got a big bag of fireworks of our own, so I'm gonna go outside now and set off some smoke bombs. Hurray for fireworks!

Happy Fourth of July!

Blogathon

Because Beermary is a subtle thing (much like a frying pan to the head,) I'm posting the following exchange from my comments:

**Keith asks Mary** "What charity are you blogging for, Mary, friend of friends?"

** Mary answers ** "Oh Keith honey, I'd never be so tacky as to pimp my charity in your comments, or ask you to post a plug to my charity, the Denver Dumb Friends League, a phenomenal animal rescue organization that not only finds homes for thousands of unwanted pets, but investigates animal cruelty, and has put up a $12,000 reward for the capture and conviction of the sick cat mutilator that's been on the loose for the past year and has killed over 42 animals, leaving them for their owners and children to find."

** Keith replies ** "Oh please Mary? Please tell us about it?"

** Mary smiles softly and gently admonishes: ** "No honey, that would be tacky. Discussion over."

** Keith marvels: ** "Mary, you're so stubborn!"

Aye, that she is. And big hearted, and full of beer. Not to mention covered in St. Bernard slobber.

Anyway, Mary is a participant in this year's Blogathon, and will be raising money for the Denver Dumb Friends League. I'll be sponsoring her.

I'm also sponsoring my dear friend Carrie, who will be raising money for PCOSupport, which provides information and support for women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

I'm also sponsoring Michele, who is working with other bloggers to raise enough money to buy an ambulance for Magen David Adom in Israel.

There are many other bloggers who are also doing the blogathon for various good works. Please consider sponsoring one of them.

Musical Jackasses

Some Bands Spurn Apple's iTunes Online Music Store.

Which is just fine with me. I'm more than happy to ignore Metallica, Linkin Park, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and their ilk. Go ahead and sulk in an artistic funk, and continue to become irrelevant.

You have the right to decide whether or not you wish to offer singles. And Apple has the right to not cave in to your precious artistic demands. And I have the right to tell you to go piss up a rope.

Why do these assjacks think that their artistic integrity is at stake? Why do they think everyone should listen to their albums in one swath? Do they listen to other artists this way? Are they incapable of producing music that can sell itself without the comfortable cocoon of the album format?

It comes down to this. If I can't taste a track or two of your musical talent (or lack of talent,) then I'll ignore you. There are plenty of other bands to listen to. And then I'll have the headphones on so I can't hear your bleating cries about dwindling sales and increasing anonymity. Deal?

Nads on Film

This is just too good to pass up. The classics never looked this good. (Link Not Safe for Work)

Link via MT Politics.

Advice from a Cartoon Cat

One of the reasons I like Achewood so much.

As a popular and sentient cartoon cat, and therefore as fine a candidate as any for a democratic presidential nomination, what is your stance on the current curtailing of American civil rights? I know this is a forum for asking questions about alcohol mostly, but I could really use some insight into how and why we are all being led by fear towards an Orwellian state where Big Brother is always watching. Please advise.
-J.H., Chicago

Dear JH,
Your letter makes a lot of assumptions about my political leanings. In fact, it's mainly kind of a jerked-up advertisement for college-style thinking! In reality, you just pay your taxes and they are misused sometimes and used properly some of the time. No one ever guaranteed anyone a life in Utopia, so just go suck on your "college lollipop" until you realize that your "wonderful childhood" is "over."

There's nothing like being put in your place by a cartoon cat writing an advice column, is there?