Just some minor editing rants.

CBSNews.com:
"...may also bring to bare [sic] questions..."

CBSNews.com:
"...bin Laden and al Qaeda have always payed [sic] very close attention..."

C'mon, copy editors. Drink some coffee. Only three days left. Chop chop. Get with it.

I have the bestest ex girlfriend on the planet, bar none.

The visit with my daughter went well. It was expensive. Only one bad point (wouldn't listen to me but I didn't need to push the point, either, so I think I owe her an apology).

The ride home was drizzly and annoying thanks to the wiper that stutter-shreeked across the glass. At one point I asked Chris if he spent a lot of time wondering how to change the world. He paused. "No," he said, "I spend a lot of time wondering how to not let the world change me."

Watched innings 4-8 of the second Sox game at a pizza parlor across the street from North Station. Three local guys created a scene straight out of Good Will Hunting. The word "juncture" was even used at one point which damn near caused me to snarf a slice of pepperoni.

A few minutes before my train was due to leave I headed back and found two guys bucketdrumming and asked one if either had seen Chris Little or Larry Wright. He said he'd not seen either in about two years. Oh well.

Inside the station I announced the 6-2 Sox in the ninth about as often as I suspected that people where I was standing couldn't hear my last announcement. Seems like everyone and their grandmother is a Sox fan these days. I'd complain but I'd be a hypocrite.

Listened to Radiohead's Kid A the entire way back, which amounted to about five or six times around. Rainy weather and commuter rails suits it just fine.

And here is a message to all those Republican women out there who feel that embryos are precious lives that shouldn't be destroyed in stem cell research: feel free to go ahead and implant one.

Put your uterus where your mouth is. It is your duty to have these children lest they become unstable and die.

So really, life begins when you're just thinking about fucking someone.

Which is how Republicans like it. The last time Democrats took semen this seriously it was Monica and her dry cleaner.


    - Bill Maher, tonight, as verbatim as I could manage

So it's post-game and Chris and I are kind of just looking for something to do, we settle on Saturday Night Live. A few weird skits then Ashlee Simpson comes on for the live act. I kind of grumble to myself and fondle the remote but I already know that there isn't anything else on. What the hell, I'll watch Ashlee Simpson.

The song starts, she's doing this stupid dance ...and then her vocals begin.

Her mouth is nowhere near the mic, her lips aren't moving and she is still doing that whole "dancing my way up to the mic" part of the song.

I'm not kidding.

Completely busted.

She half laughs, half continues dancing and eventually makes her way off the stage, completely embarrased and doesn't return when she actually should have started faking it.

Really glad I didn't change the channel.

In fact I feel really dirty blogging about Ashlee Simpson. Big apologies upfront for being an elitist but music doesn't get any more banal and soulless than this.

On an entirely different issue, assuming Ella didn't strangle anyone with their own spinal cord, she is officially in the Guinness Book of World Records for most consecutive Rocky Horror Picture Shows in a row (13).

Congrats, gorgeous. =)

PS: Ashlee just did the closing credits for SNL and she claimed that her band started playing the wrong song. ... How that explains her voice is beyond me. Perhaps she figures she can take advantage of the mean IQ of her demographic.

Conversation with co-worker 30 seconds ago.

"That ain't right."
"Why isn't it right?"
"That ain't right."
"Why isn't that right?"
"That's wrong."
"Why is that wrong?"
"Because that just ain't right."

For the life of me, I can't understand what makes a person with money think they can treat someone else like shit.

This 60-ish year-old cunt comes in to return a coaxial cable. Box is open, bits of chocolate and cat hair on it, the part of the box that identifies the cable is missing and the receipt is split in two and oblierated. All I do is squint at the receipt to try and make out the stock number so I can return the right thing and she intones, "Oh, they told me [really shrill, mocking voice] 'You won't have any problem returning this if it's wrong.'"

Then she gives me a huge amount of attitude when she mumbles her last name from across the room when I'm typing up the return like I'm an idiot for not understanding her. THEN she starts talking about how Rockport has a tornado warning. I ignore her. She then intones "...but you don't care, do you?" in a spectacularly sarcastic tone.

No lady, at this point I could give two shits if you tell me you were going to buy 4 cellphones and I just missed $100 in commission. Fuck you, fuck your coastal address, I hope some roving band of kidney thieves light your eyebrows on fire and while it's happening a giraffe skull fucks you.

[ignites lighter, nearly singes eyebrows off]
"..."
"let's try that again..."
[ella breaks]

"Here. Take these, Pricilla."
"What are they Elvis?"
"They're like vitamins but ...uh ...better."

- me

"Did he really say that??" - Ella

"By now you will have probably realized what a raging cunt your mother is." - Ella

"Do people even know that there are other avenues of though? I mean, I've always figured (without realizing I'd actually made such a "figure") that everyone had at their disposal all avenues of reason. They just "chose" differently in their conclusions based upon their point of view. Well what if most people don't actually comprehend a choice to be decided. Much like those mass murderers that you hear about whose mothers swore up and down they were saints." - Me

"Wave of babies." - Ella [ouch]

"Ever notice your tongue is too big for your mouth?" - Ella

"Kindergarten, no more stage fright." - Ella

"Dude, you look just like Liv Tyler!" - Ella

In the last few weeks there has been a spate of alcohol-related deaths on campuses in America. Nobody credible is asking for a ban on alcohol. This makes sense because it won't work -- we've already tried it.

Nobody has ever died from marijuana. The idea that is a "gateway drug" has been seriously questioned. And what, alcohol isn't?

So why is it illegal again?

"Prohibition ... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." - Abraham Lincoln

Prediction: Nader backs out of race a few days before Nov 2nd in exchange for a prominent (maybe even veep) position when Kerry re-runs in 2008.

"Ok, so what if I do calculus for weed?"

Crybaby overbite narwal.

What the HELL is that all about?!?

You've probably heard the joke observation that a full half of Americans are of below-average intelligence.

I then realized that Bush has the support of almost exactly half of the United States populace.

This is all beginning to make sense.

Ella just gave gum to her cat.

Her cat ate it.

I'm not making this up.

I know this is way late, but really worth pointing out.

During the Kerry/Bush debate, Bush was defending his Iraq war when he said:

"...the enemy attacked us, Jim, and I have a solemn duty to protect the American people, to do everything I can to protect us."

What universe does this man live in that he is still trying to not only link Saddam with Osama but he actually claims, outright, that it was Saddam that attacked us on 9/11?

Saddam Hussein has never attacked the United States. Ever.

How is even 1% of the U.S. considering voting for this egotistical lying maniac?

Watched the debate last night.

I think Kerry did spectacularly. He effectively countered the idea that he is a "flip-flopper" on issues and simply acknowledged that while he did support Bush in the war vs. terror, Bush mishandled that trust and it is there that he does not support Bush, which is no flip-flop at all. He was commanding, calm and definitely looked like he could step up to the task.

There was only one "knockout punch" that I could see, however. When faced with Bush's mantra of "I'm certain I'm right," Kerry retorted in a calm, almost fatherly tone that you can be certain and yet be wrong. I think this will strike a chord in those that are undecided, that certainty does not equal veracity. Stir that certainty in with a religious worldview and what you have is a lunatic at the helm.

Bush, on the other hand, looked like he was going to launch into a tantrum on a few occasions. I was half expecting him to grip the podium, lean waaaay over and start screeching "THEY'LL COME FOR YOUR CHILDREN AND MURDER YOU IN YOUR SLEEP IF YOU DON'T ELECT ME, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!" At some points he seemed to be utterly inarticulate and at others he seemed to completely lose his train of thought.

Further, he sounded like a broken record. After Kerry had seriously unraveled the idea that he initially supported the war then opposed it, Bush kept repeating the same mantra. It's almost like he was trained to hammer that specific message home and had no ability to shift his tactics once the accusation was explained away in a manner that I think most people can understand. "I trusted you, as Commander in Chief, to do everything in your power to make us safe. You failed."

Post-debate polls seem to indicate that Kerry won by all counts but not by a huge margin. Me, I'm just glad that the pollsters tend to concentrate on "likely voters." That is to say people who have voted before. I'm willing to bet that we see record or near-record turnouts on Nov 2nd.