stay in the shallow end

Free Republic is one of the 96 feeds in my RSS reader. It’s painful to read sometimes, but given that the other websites and blogs I keep track of lean so far to the left, the freepers make for a good reality check. Often times, I can take comments from FR, swap right for left, republican for democrat, etc and it looks like it came straight from Daily Kos.

But every now and then, a post comes along that I just can’t reconcile. Today that post was Should Pat DeWine (son of Sellout Senator) be defeated in June 14 Special Election?. The Sellout Senator they are referring to is Republican Senator Mike DeWine from Ohio, who is one of the seven GOP members that brokered the deal to avert the nuclear option regarding filibusters. Here’s what the author for the post had to say:

Though I do not favor visiting the sins of the father on the son, conservative primary voters who just watched DeWine the Elder throw some fine conservatives under the bus might not be as forgiving. DeWine the Younger is the favorite.

OK, so he doesn’t favor any action, but raises the issue. Unfortunately, some of the comments that followed were so digusting. Here’s three:

Yes. This is how the game must be played. There is too much at stake to play nice. These arrogant Senate “centrists” need to be taught a lesson. Nice lessons have no impact. Ugly ones do. Screw Pat DeWine.

The sins of thy fathers shall be paid for by their sons.

I sent an email to Senator DeWine yesterday and told him I was ashamed that he had abandoned the Republican party to side with Byrd and the other dwarfs.
I told him I believed his actions made one DeWine in DC to be one too many and with his son in consideration, two DeWines would be unbearable.

I’m still incredulous. It’s so Sopranos… first we’re coming after you, and then we come after your family.

This is what the weather forecast has looked like according to AccuWeather.com for the last three days. Note that today and tomorrow are rainy, but after that it shows sun. Yesterday, it said that yesterday and today are rainy, but tomorrow we’d see the sun.

This isn’t an isolated incident either. The weather predictions in Charlottesville are abysmally bad. While it may not necessarily be the meterologists fault. I’ve tried to find an explanation for this, and this is the best I could find (Washington Post):

What is about these two regions, D.C. and Houston, that make predicting precipitation difficult? Is it the closeness to bodies of water?

Yes. When you have a large body of water near you it does make forecasting a bit more difficult. Weather balloons that feed the computer models do not go up out over the Atlantic.

The problem is Charlottesville is nearly 100 miles inland, but maybe it’s still close enough where the ocean affects it. Perhaps I’ll email my local meteorologist.

I need a shirt that says if i want help, i’ll ask for it when I go to the mall. We walked into Eddie Bauer, and on our way to the back of the store, we were greeted by no less than three employees. Employee #1 asked if we needed any help with anything, and the wife said we were just looking. Then at the back of the store, she was looking at backpacks at the wall, and Employee #1 literally runs up and asks, “Do you need help choosing a bag?” Ugh. Leave us alone.

I ended up catching our dinner on fire last night. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as the taco incident which put me in the emergency room.

It all started when I went to Costco on Friday evening to do some shopping. I love Costco. Most of what we consume comes from Costco, and that makes me happy. Check this article out to see why you should be shopping at Costco rather than that those other stores.

I went to Costco on Friday evening, and I was hungry, which is a really bad thing for me. Purchases I made that were not on my list:

• Stoneridge Orchards Whole Dried Raspberries
• Kashi Tasty Little Crackers
• Variety Pack of Sun-Maid Raisins
• Flank Steak with Portobello Mushrooms
• Costco brand Gatorade
• Jerky Treats (I figured the dogs were hungry, too)
• Two frozen lobster tails

So last night I began preparation of the lobster tails. It was a simple recipe: boil the frozen tails with salt and lemon juice, cut off the underside of the shell, add butter, and broil for 6 minutes. Everything was going great until I put the lobsters in the oven. After about three minutes, smoke started pouring out of the oven. I popped it open to see that the bamboo skewers holding the tails straight as well as their drippings were on fire. The meat itself wasn’t burnt because of the butter, so I figured I’d hold out. Next, the shells caught on fire, and the alarms in the living room and bedroom went off. I was still determined that they would cook for the full six minutes, so I pulled the batteries out of the alarms, shut the doors to the bedroom, and propped open the front and back door. At the time I was only wearing my underwear, but for some reason I wasn’t bothered.

Here’s what the shells looked like after pulling out the meat:

The lobster was dry, but not burnt. It was the biggest lobster tail I’ve ever eaten, and it made me sad to think about all its wasted potential.

The final treat was when we went into the bedroom for the night and realized that closing the doors was a very very bad idea. It reeked of burning lobster shell.

And that’s what happens when I try to use the oven.

I watched The Last Samurai this weekend. It was a really long film, and for the most part was really dull. It did have some really awesome fight scenes, the best of which was when a swarm (or gaggle?) of ninjas pours into a samurai village and totally starts flipping out and killing people. Here the film shows it’s unrealism because the samurai defeat the ninjas which is ludicrous. I looked up The Last Samurai online and found this review which starts:

The Last Samurai is the film that perfectly illustrates the Cinematic Ninja Theory, which I developed some years ago. The Cinematic Ninja Theory states that a movie is ten times better if it contains a ninja. There only needs to be one ninja in the film for the effect to occur; the ninja need not do anything spectacular or ninja-like. Even a flaming crapwagon of a movie like Moulin Rouge might have been decent if a ninja had crept quietly across the screen while Ewan Macgregor was singing Elton John inside the giant elephant. Man, did that movie suck.

Truer words have never been spoken. Ninjas are the real ultimate power.