What am I gonna do now?

I emerged from a few days in a remote Western Alaska village to find out that our beloved govenress had decided to call it quits. It leaves me rather bewildered, to tell the truth, and I think my language will suffer.

No longer will I be able to refer to bulldozers which pillage the earth as Caterpalins. When a coworker makes a mistake, I won't be able to say "You really Palined up this time!" I won't be able to refer to vile, evil and bigoted acts as being 'palinesque'. And I'll really miss sitting down on the porcelain throne to take a palin.

But at least I'll be able to sing this little song...

(Thx to moviethemes.net for the tune.)

Ashfall

As I stood in the darkness stapling plastic sheeting over the open end of our stable, I heard two sounds: the crunch of snow beneath my ladder and the tiny little impacts of volcanic ash hitting the plastic.

My immediate thought was "Well, isn't this a unique situation."

But the stable need to be closed in because the chicken coop is in the stable and we just can't have our chickens breathing in shards of volcanic glass. (Which is, of course, why I was out there breathing in shards of volcanic glass.)

Every day is a wonder.

In other news, Omegadotter placed 2nd in the State Science Fair today. (Double WOOT!) After dinner this evening, we played while half-watching the Kid's Choice Awards on the tube. She asked me to be 'The Announcer' then give her an award. I asked her for what, and she replied "Best Sciency Gymnasticy Cooking Ice-Skater." For this, I give her a Triple WOOT! My little chicken farmer knows better than to put all her eggs in one basket.

I shoulda mentioned...

That the little ol' Louisiana guvner really can't help himself when it come's to knowing how to manage a natural disaster.

After all, he is a Republican.

And it was the Republicans who turned the tragedy of Katrina into, well... the TRAGEDY OF KATRINA.

Ka-Booooom

This is an image from a seismograph located just a stone's throw from my house, my wife, my seven year old daughter, my dog, my two cats, three turtles and (sadly now only) 5 chickens. See all those big groupings of blue lines? Those are the signatures of Mt. Redoubt erupting.... six times in the past day.

It's been cloudy, so we haven't gotten any good images of this batch of belches from the neighborhood blowhole, but last time Redoubt erupted, it looked like this...

Yeah, scary shit.

But not quite as scary as this...

This is the little shithead governor of Louisiana who claimed that President Obama didn't need to be spending money monitering volcanos that are pratically in my back yard.

Obviously, I beg to differ. We do need volcano monitering right here in the good old USA. What don't need is more mindless Republican rhetoric.

(Note that I resisted going on a rant about how the Republican Party has become a haven for Neo-Nazi Fascism... because... well... take a gander at the pic of Bobby Jindal above.... what do you think he's saying?)

What's Wrong With America, #7,362

I just did a quick Google in hope that I'd find someone who'd actually done brain surgery on a Barbie... but, alas, we Americans seem to lack the creativity and forsight to undertake such a task. Or we're just plain old lazy.

So now I feel challenged. Hmmm... I could pick up a scapel at the vet's office. (If I tell my vet what I'm thinking, she'd probably offer an operating room.) And I could use a dremel tool as a cranial saw... and I could pick up a brand new Barbie just about anywhere. (And yes, it would have to be a new one. I'd hate for my skeptiks to claim that an 'old' barbie 'lost' her brain before I performed my little experimental operation.)

(Okay, this is starting to sound a little weird. Sorry, but hellsbells folks, somebody's gotta do it. I see it as my duty in a sort of Save America kind of way. Show the world that we still have some spunk.)

Of course, part of me is afraid to do this. What if I opened Barbie up and found Sarah Palin's brain in there?

Wanted: Laws Against People Posing as Parents

Middle of the night in Alaska, and I get up to grab a snack then try to surf myself back to sleep… only to find that I don’t want to sleep now. What I want to do is stomp my feet, scream out loud and smack some people upside their heads.

I came across a news story on CNN (Conservative Nuts & Neanderthals). I don’t know why I look at CNN when I should be sleeping. Actually, I don’t know why I look at CNN at all. It’s better than Fox, but that’s like saying that swimming in bat shit is better than drowning in bat shit. Either way, you get covered in bat shit.

People are up in arms because BBC hired a young lady named Cerrie Burnell to host two kid’s shows on BBC’s CBeebies television network. Ms. Burnell was born with only one hand. I didn’t notice this when I saw her promo photo. What I did notice that she is an attractive, blonde twenty-something who does not look like Barbie. For this alone, I praise BBC. I’m sick of looking at kids TV and seeing some Barbie Wannabee trying to brainwash my daughter.

(The dotter and I have been doing kitchen science projects as of late. I’m tempted to teach her Brain Surgery. We could get a Barbie, cut open its head, and say “Look… it’s empty!!!”)

BBC has received over 25 official complaints because Ms. Burnell is disabled. Some folks are complaining because she ‘scares’ their children. (She looks like the girl next door.) Others are whining because they have been ‘forced’ to talk about disabilities with their kids.

Who the fuck let these people raise children??????? Didn’t they have to fill out the oodles and scads of paperwork detailing everything they’ve ever felt, thought, eaten or drove by? Didn’t they have to pour out their entire lives to total strangers and a judge? Didn’t they endure the months of introspection? The tedious wait on getting their paperwork processed? The home visits by social workers that have nothing to do with the home and everything to do with the homeowner?

Oh… wait… I just remembered. These people didn’t have to do these things. I did. I adopted my daughter. I had to think long and hard about being a parent before I could be a parent.

These people didn’t have to do anything.

As I said on the rant that I posted to CNN… these people aren’t parents. They’re just folks who happened to have a sperm or an egg then they happened to have a baby.

Billboards on the Information Superhighway

I have to admit that I'm not much of a websurfer. On an average day, I manage to hang three if I concentrate. But every now and then, I get lucky and end up with ten toes hanging out over the info ocean....

Earlier, while Omegamom was reading the dotter to sleep, I bopped onto CNN in hopes of finding something to blog about. (If CNN can't make you bitch and moan, then what can?) I spotted a link to the Ireport on Snowbama and gave it the right click of approval. The Giand Obama Logo writ with snowshoes was rather grand, so I googled Billboards In The Snow and by chance ended up at Billboardom.

K-E-double W-L kewl.... a site done by some advertising geeks dedicated totally to billboardish affairs. (I particularly like the working crossword puzzle on the side of Ukraine officebuilding... though I'd prefer a video of it actually crosswording at night as opposed to a static jpeg.)

Nice site, though, and I encourage everyone wander over and take a look. Oh... and make sure that you follow a few of the links... such as Bigpictures Posterous.

By the way, I'd like to dedicate this blog to my Mum-in-Law, just 'cause I know she'll enjoy wandering through the billboards.