Article of the Day

I've read a bunch of articles about Comedy Central censoring Mohammad, but Jon Stewart Flunks His Spartacus Test, by Jeffrey Lord, is certainly the most interesting so far. It put the whole situation in a new light, the right light, really, and it's convincing. Jon Stewart is a loser.

Article of the Day

A law Arizona can live with, by George F. Will, goes through an issue I've never been able to understand. Why doesn't the US Government crack down on illegal immigration? I've never heard any legitimate arguments. Because all our forefathers were immigrants? Don't make me bitch slap you! My forefathers were legal immigrants, which makes all the difference you turd-burglar.

Article of the Day

Obama: Washington Needs to Be More Like California, by Matt Welch.

Yeah, that makes sense. Let's try to bankrupt the country the way Californians bankrupted their state.

The Long Trip Home

If it's not nice out I stay in the office ten minutes past the end of work (4:30), because my bus doesn't come until 4:42. But if it's nice weather I like to leave on the dot and walk to the earlier bus stop. It gets me a little exercise and also a better shot of finding a seat on the bus. I don't have to rush, but I can't dawdle either.

Yesterday my special lady asked me if I could pick up some tomatoes. There is a vegetable stand on the way, but I agreed on the condition that there aren't many people in line, cause if I spend more than two minutes on the process I'll miss my bus. There was only one, so I got in line. While I waited I calculated how many tomatoes I could afford, because I only had 1.92 lits cash: 1.92 lits/6.99 lits for tomatoes = 274.6 grams. "275 grams of tomatoes, please." Why not round up?

That's the first time this babuska got such an exact order, but I just gave her all my coins and luckily four tomatoes came to 280 grams and she let me have them. And then just as I took the bag my bus drove by. But then it stopped at a red light! I jogged over (I can't actually run in a suit, it would look too ridiculous), and as I began to rap on the door the bus drove away.

Now I started walking back the way I came. Why? Because across the intersection from my regular bus stop is the Chinese place that sells beer cheap, so I can have a brewsky while I wait. After I decided to do this I found out from my special lady that the next bus is in just 23 minutes, so I had to hurry (I couldn't change my mind because too much had gone wrong already, plus I had to take a whiz).

A very nice Vilkmergės dark beer costs just 3.50 at the Chinese place. It was very tasty--I noticed an old man reading a book and drinking one on my way in. On my way out eight minutes later he had not made any progress though.

Standing at the bus stop waiting I reached into my overcoat pocket and literally thought to myself, "what the hell is that? Did I bring tangerines to work for lunch and forget about them?! Oh, yeah...the tomatoes." As soon as I got on the bus I realized a mistake: my second bus runs more seldom than my first bus, which isn't a problem if my special lady can pick me up on the way home from picking the kid up at kindergarten, but today she can't....hmmm. I could have had two leisurely beers at the Chinese place instead of pounding one in six minutes.

Now what? Well I'll have to get another beer to make up for that. I get off the bus at the most convenient spot to walk home, which also happens to be near a grocery store. I pop in there and don't want to get a bottle, I won't really have a chance to return it, so the deposit will end up jacking the price up quite a bit, 15% as it turns out, because instead I ended up getting a can of Donner Premium for 1.69 lits. It was okay.

On the walk from there to the next stop I took another whiz in the woods and found a trash pile next to somebody's driveway. The next stop was the Baltic Petroleum gas station where I bought a bottle Švyturys, because at 2.44 with deposit it was still cheaper than any of the cans, and it's a fine beer.

The plan was to drink it on the way to Norfa, but by then the kindergarten parents meeting was over and I was close enough to home that my special lady picked me up instead. Oh well, it was a good run.

I wonder what the people at the bank think. I charged three beers on my debit card in three different parts of the city within 90 minutes. Here's a map of my trek:

A. Office/Main Bus Stop

B. Vegetable Stand/Tomatoes

C. Chinese Place/Vilkmergės

D. Grocery Store/Donner

E. Baltic Petrolium/Švyturys

F. Home/Roast Pork Loin

Article of the Day

Schumer: Five major airlines commit to no carry-on fees

Travesty! Annoying as it will be to pay for overhead space, it will lower the cost of the flight if people are more selective about the stuff they haul around on planes. Who know, maybe I'll figure out how to travel without anything that doesn't fit in my pockets.

There was a joke I saw a few weeks or months ago that I wanted to post to, but I can't find it. I thought it was on the onion, but apparently not. It was a picture of a new design for cargo pants that you can fit your whole wardrobe into. Or did I just dream that image???

Really I don't have much more to say than this guy: "Total socialism. Who is next if the government doesn't like your pricing? Should Intel be told to lower their prices to "get in line" with AMD? What about gas prices? How about food?"

The Unbelievable George Lopez Conan O'Brien Conundrum

In a surprise twist to the Conan O'Brien saga, it turns out part of the reason George Lopez convinced him to take the TBS job was a guaranteed romantic relationship with former Durham, CT resident Homer Ford.

Status Update Too Long

Aras can't quite tell. Is it me, or is the NYTimes becoming critical of Obama? I suspected a few years ago that the newspaper had no actual political ideals, that they just slammed whoever was in office because that's so popular. Since then I've been boycotting them, so I don't know if the content has changed. But I always wondered, if that were the case, how long it would take before the newspaper started slamming Obama. It looks from the headlines I see like the newspaper is turning a corner. Anybody know if that's true?

Article of the Day

Why Poland's grief is doubled, by Alex Storozynski, makes some intersting points. The top one is this:

Ironically, because of Kaczynski's death, more people have already heard about the Katyn Massacre than would have heard about it had he simply placed a wreath at the gravesite.

This is true. I learned about the massacre while study IR at BU, but I'd forgotten the details. If you'd asked me yesterday what Katyn was, I'd have said, "No no, it's pronounced 'Cotton.'" And if you clarified that you were inquiring about the Katyn Forest, then I might have said, "Oh, um...something bad, right?"

True, the crash was a catalyst for spreading the word about a part of history. It served as a refresher course as well.

However, as a conspiracy lover, I don't agree with this:

Let us hope the flight data recordings from Kaczynski's downed plane will provide enough evidence to dissuade conspiracy theorists.

I mean, come on! Conspiracies are exciting! Plus they justify hate, distrust, and anger, and those are some powerful emotions.

Article of the Day

Here's a little part to a much bigger story that involves Lithuania and the rest of Easter Europe fearing for its life: President Obama's Nuclear Naivete, by Jack Kelly. While worth reading, the real reason I chose this article to the today's Article is because of the joke about historic actions: priceless!

Chunkie Charlie's

Over the course of the Easter weekend I watched the extended edition of each part of the Lord of the Rings. It was as pretty interesting thing to do. I thought I’d seen them before, but it turns out no, just the regular versions. Maybe I’d seen The Extended Fellowship of the Ring, but certainly not the others. I wonder if the editing had anything to do with staying true to the books. Let’s do a little research over at The Nit Picker's Guide to the Lord of the Rings.

Actually, once I got to deviation # 6 I decided to stop reading. I’m looking forward to rereading the trilogy now, for the first time in a long-ass time. I don’t want to ruin it for myself.

Some of the added scenes turned the movie into more of a romantic comedy: the drinking contest between Legolas and Gimly, and Strider dumping out the bowl of stew what’s-her-name brings him? Are those things in the book? It seems strange to add anything at all when you have to cut so much out; however, I understand that the additional women who may be interested in the movie because of Arwen’s hyperbole-of-a-role compared to the book are going to be far more profitable than any Ring nerds boycotting the movie, which they wouldn’t not never do anyway. Seems like cutting those and similar scenes kept the movies a little closer to the tone of the books, though. We’ll see soon enough.