Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Elections


Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.



"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"


He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.


And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!


One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.


"And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Friday, October 8, 2010

Oktoberfest for One

Knackwurst, sauerkraut, mustard, relish.  In this combination, forbidden from the household.  But!  She Who Must Not Be Around Foods That Induce Nausea is away, and when the cat's away, the spouse will play . . . and drink.  To wit, we cover three selections, drawn at random from the shelves of Rodman's in D.C., but each purporting to have some connection to the ancient drunken German festival.  No glasses tonight.  Drunk straight from the bottle, so you color and bouquet snobs will have to cream your head some other way.







The Starr Hill Festie Oktoberfest Lager.   Two of these were necessary to impose justice upon the wurst.  It's a decent beer.  Some hop and dance on the tongue, but really, what fair impression could I could draw with a tongue slathered in sauerkraut and mustard?  Let's put it this way:  it tastes like a fucking beer.  Alcohol below 5%.  What confounds about this beer is the packaging.  I'm pretty sure the official Oktoberfest motto isn't "Life is a Carinval", although "Das Leben ist ein Karneval" sounds pretty blond and blue eyed.  And the ferris wheel makes no sense.  I'm tempted to believe it's repackaged Summer Lager, with a hasty addition of "Oktoberfest Lager" printed onto the label.  Maybe it's an East German throwback Oktoberfest recipe, given the big Commie red star.  Whatever, there's four more left in the pack and those are the last four of this beer I'll ever consume.



The Hofbrau Munchen.  The principle purpose of this drink, as with almost all drink, is to convince you that you will end up with a busty blond at the end of the night.  As I am alone in the den watching television and digesting pork and veal sausage, I hate this beer and have limited intake to a single bottle, which at about 6.5 ABV is plenty.  Fuck the Germans and their goddamn blond busty babes.  It's good though.  The quaf is crisp.  And clean.  But not the thoughts regarding those busty Oktoberfelines.   It's just beer for fuck's sake and if I was in a big tent in Munich, it'd be just the oil to flash fry some fantasies about what the night holds.


The Flying Dog Brewery Dogtoberfest Marzen.   Apparently, I saved the best for last.  The only word I can pull from my ass on this one is: substantive.  This one pops like a malted milk ball in the mouth.  The packaging, though, reminds me that I miss my dog who passed this summer and that I have yet to shoot the shit with one of my buddies while wearing Lederhosen and smoking cigars and drinking beer out of a Big Gulp mug.  But that is being arranged.  Arrived home this evening to find a beautiful new JR Cigars catalog in the mailbox.  I immediately bought a box of Macanudos, each comes with a silver cigar ring (no clue why) and pretty box. Of course I also had to get the half priced Nicaraguan sampler and the $10 Montecristo sampler in a cool plastic case.  More vice to secret into the house somehow.  Still waiting for my Lederhosen catalog.  Maybe Vermont Country Store catalog will surprise me tomorrow.

Persian Medical Breakthrough: Women are Women Because of Brain Tumor!

From the Iran News Round Up:

Fatemeh Mir-Aboutalebi, wife of the Iranian ambassador to France: "I think ladies are more emotional. In my view it could be related to their physiognomy. Do you know why women become mothers? Because in their head, there is a certain tumor which is only for women, both in humans and among animals. This is part of the head of women which directs emotions among them. Because women are very emotional and caring and merciful, when they want to give testimony in courts their emotions may hinder them in doing so and they may not take correct decisions."

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Limited Government

What with near revolution at our doorsteps to limit the power of the Federal Morass and return the People's Power to local simplicity, Sydney Brillo Duodenum finds himself fantasizing about a run for local representative.  And what would the Duodenum Adminstration bring to the people?  In no particular order, this:

  • All bicycle's would be banned from all major roadways during rush hour.  No longer would hard working citizens in a rush have to suffer the raised jackass of the right curb, there only to make a point about their moral superiority.
  • The municipal budget will be cut 20 percent right off the bat.  First year out, there will simply be 20 percent less spent on everything. 
  • Every municipal employee would spend every third Friday filling potholes throughout the city, and they would do it between 10 pm and 5 am so as not to gum up the rush hours.
  • A total ban on weekend parades, block parties, triathalons, 5K Runs, or any event that involves the rolling closure of any road that citizens might require to get around the damn city or to the bloody airport.  You want to hold a party, rent a hotel ballroom or run in the park.
  • All uniformed police officers will wear strapped to themselves a video camera recording their every word and interaction with the public.  This video will be automatically uploaded to a publically assessible website.
  • No uniformed officer will dress like a para-military fascist.  No jack boots.  No black camo. No black baseball caps.  No velcro.
  • Sports teams seeking bonds and breaks and boondoggles will be told to go suck eggs.
  • Tax rates will be reduced for the only reason that people can do better with their money than the government.
  • All garbage collection will be by private contractor.
  • Not one penny of tax revenue will be used to fund any art project anywhere in the city.  And any public pieces of art will be sold.  It's not the government's business to buy or promote art.  If you want to display something, you can rent a public space for a period of time and put whatever you want in it, up to and including steaming piles of shit heaped onto a Koran.
  • Teachers incapable of producing functionally literate and numerate teenagers will be fired.  Failing schools will be closed and sold to charter outfits.  The entire budget for the failee schools will be placed in escrow and each student assigned to that school can withdraw their share and use it to buy an education from the private sector.
  • Moratorium on building moratoriums and green codes.
  • Top to bottom review of the local tax code.
  • Elimination of sweet heart business licensing.  In other words, if you want to open a business attaching braids to people's real hair, you do not need a certification/license from the city attesting to your having completed 18 months of braidery with continuing education credits to remain in good standing.  And if you are a hair salon that seeks to petition the government to impose such a certification requirement on your prospective competitors, you will be tarred and feathered and marched to city limits.
  • All smoking prohibitions will be lifted.  Every business, office and property owner will decide whether to allow smoking on their premises and they will assume all liability for allowing it.
  • All food nanny rules will be suspended.  If you prefer salt and lard for dinner, the city will do nothing, put no roadblocks up, nor in any way interfere with any restaurant or food truck that is prepared to sell it to you.
  • All government owned beer/liquor outfits will be sold. 
And that's just the first week of the Duodenum Adminstration.