That States meme

( cut because the image can take while to load )

Halfway there. Although I'd be lying if I said I wanted to visit all the remaining states. But a few of 'em, definitely.

Monday morning thoughts

First, big thanks to all of your comments from Friday. Please forgive me for not writing a "Thank you" comment for every one of your comments and emails (insert "why don't debutantes attend orgies" joke here). Trust me, I read and appreciated and saved every one of 'em. They mean a lot.

shadesong and I have decided to move all the wedding talk into a community (song_and_yendi), to spare those of you who aren't interested excessive

In other news, huge, huge thanks to dtaylor, who magically transported (okay, with the help of the US mail service) two Cocoa Pete's chocolate bars to my mailbox this weekend. Damn, they're every bit as good as I expected. If the rumored opening of Trader Joe's in Atlanta every actually happens, I'll be dead of a heart attack within a year.

It's also occurred to me that I haven't had sushi yet this year. This is a situation that must be rectified.

Embarassing Elayna story of the week:

Walking back from Karate the other day, Elayna asked me about the various words for nonsense she'd read recently (humbug, balderdash, poppycock). She then asked how I knew it was "HUM-bug," as opposed to "hum-BUG," so I went over some basic stuff about accents, and how silly words would be if we mispronounced them. She then, just as we were crossing the street and passing a bunch of the local Orthodox Jews, started shouting (in a typically piercing Elayna Voice), "poppy-COCK."

*sigh*

I have no idea what they thought.

In other news, I bet everyone is sick of my writing about how fucking swamped I am. So pretend I didn't say anything. Likewise, pretend I haven't mentioned needing to respond to a bunch of comments and emails.

Oh, interesting "What were they thinking?" moment (remember the SNL skit?): Corey Hart (see current music) turned down the lead role in Back to the Future. But hey, he's a two-hit wonder who also writes songs for Celene Dion. Who needs an incredibly successful movie career?

Why I like iTunes

I now own the only two Laura Branigan songs I've ever needed, "Solitaire," and the guiltiest pleasure of all, "Self-Control" (the one everyone assumes was by Miami Sound Machine), without having to own "Spanish Eddie" and "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You."

Sports randomness

This is, of course, really a GIP to show off the icon I'll be using for all sports-related posts from now on.

But a few notable events from the past few days:

First, Mo Vaughn is finally retiring! Good riddance. He wasn't as much of a salary hit as many folks think (insurance will cover 75% of his take), but what a waste of space.

Second, has anyone heard anything more on the spat between the Mets' GM and Rick Reed's agent? The gist of things seems to be that the agent was upset that he got a call from the assistant GM, and had his player sign elsewhere. This is for a minor-league contract, mind you. I'd love to know what Reed's take on things is.

Third, the Mets will be in town on my birthday. jet_li_wannabe, anyone else, I'd love to get a small group together and catch the game that night. Anyone interested?

Some State of the Union follow-ups

Cute little Flash cartoon over here. Don't bother clicking on the link if you don't think that George "W" Bush isn't a scum-sucking asshole who's got as much interest in the future of this nation as a lion has in a vegetarian meal. Otherwise, you might be offended.

Regardless of whether you see the man in the White House as the man trying to mortgage away our nation's future without even pulling in any real gains in the present or not (and man, was that a wordy clause, even before I added this parenthetical statement), you probably owe it to yourself to check out the MoJones analysis of the "facts" in his speech. Nothing you probably haven't already seen elsewhere (the irony of Bush citing the Kay report has been documented nigh-everywhere -- it's pretty much akin to Pete Rose using the Dowd report to "prove" that he never bet on gambling, except this takes more chutzpah).

And as always, The Onion nails the state of things (two separate links, only one directly SotU related).

Oh, and once again, in case anyone wasn't certain about the leanings of most of major media outlets, maybe you should consider who pays the bills?