"Jazz, pfft. They just make it up as they go along. I can do that."

The humidity inside our suburban home, if not exactly stifling in a 'what the fuck are we still doing here in August' kind of way -- because we don't have enough loot to fly to Europe for vacation, that's why -- was all the convincing I needed to get me to leave a few minutes early for the bus. Thus, the CD I had chosen, if I could accurately remember its duration, would likely finish before I arrived, smiling like the Joker, and feeling just as loopy, at work. Lo and behold at E. 6th, Carolina Drama fades out -- dude, milkman, so what happened and why didn't I ever review this one? -- and I push play to restart the sucker. BEEP!

LOW BATT written in that futuriffic LCD lettering. Dammit.

The ubiquitous battery. An afterthought? Not anymore, not after I had to walk at least five blocks without tunes. Not a big deal, you say? You've got some nerve. Not starting so many sentences with 'not' might not be such a bad idea, no? No. You see Not having music to listen to when I'm not directly engaged in conversation with someone or something -- you've all talked to inanimate objects before, filthy liars -- is hellish, akin to a mashup of passers-by, rockers, pimps and businessmen rolling past in their swanky new wheels and all the ambient sounds of the city -- okay, Cleveland is pretty dead at 7 am on a Saturday -- being transformed into an endless loop of George Bush press conferences. When he's drunk. But I repeat myself.

And writing without music? Might as well ask me to clean up aisle six in Cheney's Good Time House of Torment where they give me a mop, a bucket filled with tepid water, maybe some of that gritty prison soap and about five minutes before they release another morsel for him to swallow whole, and if there's a second -- you know, moi -- then he likes to play with that one the way a starving sabre-toothed cat might have wanted to bat around cornered primitive man with his foot-long, flesh-rending claws.

I had no post ready today --


















"Gee, it's not at all obvious."

-- are you really one to be questioning someone's mental faculties? I think I hear a mirror calling your name. Pendant que je pensais à la suggestion de La Belette Rouge, faire un post en français, j'ai reconnu que cette idée était l'idée d'une femme folle. Pourquoi ? Au début, je n'écris pas le français bien. Ensuite, si je veux écrire mes pensées complexes -- cessez de rire ! -- cela me prendrait beaucoup de jours.

Guess how many grammatical errors are above and win a case of Turtle Wax nothing. Hey, if I knew, I wouldn't need to practice. Sorry, mon amie.

Okay, let's check the news wires.

clickety-clickety-clickety-clack

Given my natural cynicism and utter lack of faith in the American voter -- I still think McCain is going to be the one eyeing the red phone in January -- I'm not at all surprised that Obama picked an old white dude. But at least it's Biden so there's always a chance that he'll say 'bullshit' with a microphone around and if politics is anything, it's entertainment.

Apparently someone blew a bunch of folks up in Afghanistan. I had thought we fixed everything over there; you know, eradicated all the poppy fields -- WAR ON DRUGS! GRRR! CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY! FLEX! hey, Cindy called, she ran out of her supply already -- had the Taliban and their wonderfully full and manly beards on the run, killed The Greatest Threat Since Ahmadinejad's Persian Empire was single-handedly defeated by Victor Davis Hanson's kung-fu grip.











"Barack should have picked my full and manly beard. Sniff."

Oh, relax, Bill. You've got all those UFOs to deal with. Speaking of Unidentified Flying Os, are the Olympics still on? Just go away you bloated, corporate hulk so we can start talking about streamlined, populist American football. I wonder if Brett Favre is coming back to play this season. How about another will he/won't he story, Nashville Predator winger -- don't know if he's right or left, or if he's even eligible to vote -- Alexander Radulov who, while still under contract to his NHL team, signed a second with a squad in the new Russian league.

Maybe we should take on Pooty-Poot. First that whole Cold War gig, then the illegal and immoral invasion of one of our staunchest allies, Iraq Georgia, and now they're stealing our hockey players! Our hockey players!
















"I must break you."

Aw, fuck it. Another war sounds like effort. Plus Vlad looks pissed off. And we don't have any money left. Pass me that bottle. I know I'm at work. Where do you think I need it the most? Oh, you honestly thought I'd say there? Are you fucking nuts? I'd lose mine!