Sad for Sandy

We've recently found out that Sandy (if that's her real name) has a condition on her eye called Entropion eyelid.

The condition means she'll have to have surgery and we won't be able to breed her, as the condition is hereditary. However, it is completely treatable and fixable, but she will have to wear an e-collar and may require more than one operation. This could mean we get Sandy's sister, who is also named Sandy. We'll decide this weekend when we go pick her up.

A few more Sandy pictures...

Mitch Hedberg

A few years ago Nicole and I saw Mitch Hedberg perform. I thought he was really damn funny. Lots of one liners that by themselves are medium funny. But when you hear them one after another, they are hilarious. I laughed pretty hard, until I stopped. He's dead now, but his jokes will make me laugh for a long time.

I'm not good at golf, I never got good. I never got a hole in one, but I did hit a guy. And that's way more satisfying. You're supposed to yell "Fore", but I was too busy mumbling "There ain't no way that's gonna hit him." What's the par for hitting a guy? One. If you hit a guy in two, you are an asshole.

It takes forever to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I'll just throw one in there, even if I don't want one. By the time it's done, who knows?

Whenever I walk people try to hand me out flyers. And when someone tries to hand me out a flyer, it's kinda like they're saying "Here, you throw this away."

People who smoke cigarettes, they say "Man, you don't know how hard it is to quit smoking." Yes, I do. It's as hard as it is to start flossing. "You seem jittery." "Yeah, I'm about to floss."

I hate turtlenecks. Wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy. All day. Like, if you wear a turtleneck and a backpack, it's like a weak midget trying to bring you down.

I bought a doughnut, and they gave me a receipt. There is no need for that, man. I'll just give you the money, you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We do not need to bring ink and paper into this. I cannot imagine a situation in which I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend: "Hey man! Don't even act like I didn't buy that doughnut! I got the documentation right here...damn...I forgot it at home... it's in the filing cabinet...under D...for doughnut."

When you go to a restaurant on the weekends and it's busy so they start a waiting list, they say, "Dufrenes, party of two, table ready for Dufrenes, party of two." And if no one answers they'll say the name again: "Dufrenes, party of two." But then if no one answers, they'll move on to the next name. "Bush, party of three." Yeah, but what happened to the Dufrenes? No one seems to care. Who can eat at a time like this? People are missing. You people are selfish. The Dufrenes are in someone's trunk right now, with duct tape over their mouths. And they're hungry. That's a double whammy. We need help. "Bush, search party of three. You can eat once you find the Dufrenes."

"Everytime I go to a craft fair I see a jar of jelly beans that says 'Guess how many jelly beans are in the jar, and you win a prize?' C'mon man, let me just have some. I tell you what, you guess how many I want. If you said a handful, you are right."

A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.

At the end of my letters I like to write "PS: This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated."

I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long.

I have a cheese shredder at home. That's a positive name for a cheese shredder. They don't call it by its negative name, because nobody would buy it: "sponge-ruiner."

I think they could take sesame seeds off the market, and I wouldn't even care. I can't imagine five years from now saying, "Damn, remember sesame seeds? What happened? All the buns are blank!" They're gonna have to change that McDonald's song, "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a ... bun." How does a sesame seed stick to a bun? Thats fucking magical! There's got to be some sesame seed glue out there. Either that or they're adhesive on one side. Take the sesame seed out, remove the backing, place it on the bun. Now your bun will look spectacular! What does a sesame seed grow into? I dunno, we never give them a chance. What the fuck is a sesame? It's a street. It's a way to open... shit

I got a business card, 'cause I want to win some lunches. That's what my business card says: "Mitch Hedberg, potential lunch winner." Call me some time, maybe we'll have lunch... If I'm lucky!

In England, Smokey the Bear is not the forest fire prevention representative. They have Smackie the Frog. It's just like a bear, but it's a frog. I think that's a better system, I think we should adopt it, because bears can be mean, but frogs are always cool. Never has there been a frog hoppin' towards me and I thought, 'Man, I better play dead! Here comes that frog!'

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.

I don't know how to fix a car. If my car breaks down, and the gas tank does not say "E", I'm fucked.

I saw a commercial for an above-ground pool. It was thirty seconds long. You know why? Because that's the maximum amount of time you can depict yourself having fun in an above-ground pool.

I bought myself a parrot; the parrot talked, but it did not say "I'm hungry," so it died.

My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, but I said "No...but I want a regular banana later, so yeah."

On a traffic light red means stop, yellow means slow down, and green means go. But on a banana it's the opposite. Green means hold on, yellow means go ahead and red means "Where the fuck did you get that banana at?"

I opened up a yogurt, and underneath the lid it said "please try again" because they were having a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong. Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. Come on Mitchel, don't give up, please try again! A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait. Fruit on Bottom, Hope on top.

I can't tell you what hotel I'm staying at, but there are two trees involved. Let's call this hotel "something Tree." So they had a meeting. It was quite short. "How about tree?" "No." "Double-tree?" "Hell, yeah!" Meeting adjourned!

I met the girl who works at the Doubletree front desk; she gave me her phone number. It's zero. I tried to call her from here, some other woman answered. I said, "You sound older!"

I order the club sandwich all the time, but I'm not even a member, man. I don't know how I get away with it.

You know, there's a fishing show on TV. They catch the fish, but they let it go. They don't want to eat the fish, but they do want to make it late for something.

If you find yourself lost in the woods, fuck it, build a house. "Well, I was lost, but now I live here. I have severely improved my predicament.

I bought a house, it's a two-bedroom house. But I think it's up to me how many bedrooms there are, don't you? Fuck you, real estate lady, this bedroom has an oven in it. This bedroom has a lot of people sitting around watching TV. This bedroom is over in that guy's house. "Sir, you've got one of my bedrooms, are you aware? Don't decorate it.

Mr. Pibb is a replica of Dr Pepper, but it's a bullshit replica, 'cause the dude didn't even get his degree. Why'd you have to drop out and start makin' pop so soon.

I saw on HBO, they were advertising this boxing match. They said "It's a fight to the finish." That's a good place to end.

New Puppy

Soon, she'll be ours!!!

Name TBD. I'm voting for "Sandra Bullock"... but we'd call her Sandy. Nicole has some other names in mind.

Bill Maher

Sometimes Bill Maher comes off a little rough. A little hard. But he and his guests have some really good quotes on his show.

Bill Maher: New Rule: Stop whining about the French. It takes a lot of guts to stand up to the Bush administration and that's more than I can say about the Democrats!

Bill Maher: We're not running our country down when we criticize it. We're trying to make it better.

Howard Dean: I think the problem with the country is that we operate on a sickness model, not a wellness model. Basically, we treat people who become ill. What we don't do is do a very good job in keeping them healthy in the first place.

Al Franken: I love this "culture of life" stuff that comes out of the Christian right. But do you hear anything about the genocide that's going on in Darfur?

Andrew Sullivan: The "culture of life," I might say, is a phrase invented by the last Pope. And what it meant was, you're opposed to death, in the death penalty, in war, in euthanasia and abortion. The Republicans decide, "Oh, we're a cafeteria. We'll take the abortion and euthanasia but we will launch wars" and we will - I mean, George Bush has signed more death warrants than any other human being in this country.

George Carlin: [about the Bush-Kerry Debate] Finally someone stood up to the little oil pimp. This guy who somehow has managed to combine Yale intellectualism with the American cowboy myth and be completely inauthentic in both roles. That's what I see in Bush. He's an empty suit.

Tucker Carlson: I mean, look, no matter how you feel about Bush, watching him speak is difficult. It's like - it's like watching a drunk man cross an icy street.


Bill Maher: If I just sit here every Friday night and spout Bush administration talking points, that's not information or entertainment, it's Fox News!

Bill Maher: New rule: After the plane lands, airlines must stop saying, "Thank you for choosing us." There is no choosing anymore. I took the only flight that left within eight hours of when I wanted to go by the only other airline that went there. Choosing! Nobody chooses Southwest. Southwest chooses you! If I need to be in Spokane, Washington, by tomorrow morning, I either take the flight I'm given or I mail myself in a FedEx box!

Bill Maher: [to Richard Perle] I think you guys might have been right about the big picture, and I'm not above saying, you know what, maybe I was wrong. Okay. But on the other half of it, why the incompetence? Why was this war conducted so badly from the beginning? And you have to admit that cost lives. And my theory is because Republicans are sentimentalists. Because you guys have such rose-colored glasses about America that you thought as soon as we showed up in Iraq, they'd be going, 'Freedom! Americans!' And that's why we didn't need armor on the tanks because they'd be giving us flowers and chocolates and nylons.

Kevin Costner: You know, the great thing about Vietnam, if you can find one great thing about Vietnam, was that we have Vietnam to look back on. Vietnam serves a purpose. We have this gigantic window into our past history and why we find ourselves where we're at. That's the only good I can see that that war ever did for us. And we've ignored the lesson.
Bill Maher: The key lesson to me of Vietnam is that you cannot outlast insurgents in their own country. This idea that when Bush says, "Well, we can't say we're going to pull out in six months because they'll only have to wait six months and a day." They'll wait a hundred years if they have to!
Gen. Wesley Clark: Bill, the key lesson - the key lesson of Vietnam is that you've got to have a strategy that has a chance of success before you commit the lives of the men and women in uniform.

George Galloway: Christians believe in the Prophets, peace be upon them. Bush believes in the profits and how to get a piece of them

Bill Maher: New Rule: You can't run on a mistake. Franklin Roosevelt didn't run for re-election claiming Pearl Harbor was his finest hour. Abe Lincoln was a great president, but the high point of his second term wasn't theater security. 9/11 wasn't a triumph of the human spirit. It was a fuck-up by a guy on vacation.

Could the Democrats lose again?

Hilary has a lot of good qualities... no doubt. But I don't think she has enough great qualities that would allow her to be the first female President. When I think of Hilary, I think she is okay... and that is kinda what I hear from a lot of other people. You're not going to break any barriers being "okay" or "good". If she were a guy, she'd be much more likely to win Presidency, but she isn't.

Obama has a lot of good qualities too. Even great qualities. I really like this guy. But his lack of experience make it really hard for me to believe that he can break through the racial barriers that still exist all over this country. Maybe if he were white, his name didn't rhyme with a terrorist he'd have a chance. But I doubt anybody would have voted for Adam Hidler in 1948, and I don't think Americans are ready for this guy yet.

I think these are two great candidates that due to circumstances beyond their control, they are nearly unelectable. Any candidate the Democrats nominate should easily win after what we have put up with for the last 6 years. Bush has destroyed the Republican party's reputation. It should be a landslide victory for Democrats in 2008. But with candidates that people may want to vote for, but can't... the Democrats will give away the election once again.

However, if these two team up... maybe that would do it?

3 Elections in 2008

California State Sen. Ron Calderon is proposing Californians have 3 elections in 2008. Currently California opens the polls 2x, once in June and again in November. Senator Calderon thinks that waiting until June for California to have it's primary is too late, and not giving Californian enough of a voice since so many other states have already had their primaries.

I don't see how this fixes any problems. What keeps other states from moving their primaries to January? If the problem is that the states with later primaries don't influence which candidates will ultimately run for president, then perhaps the primary should be a nationwide election? Or let the Democrats and Republicans do an online poll? Who knows, maybe these aren't the solutions, but I don't think moving the primary solves the problem either. The problem as I see it is that too few states are having too much influence because the current system begins to weed out candidates as soon as the primaries begin. Where a more liberal candidate would do well in California, he may not do as well in Iowa. This candidate is down in the primaries, gets less funding because nobody wants to fund a loser, and therefore is out of the competition before April.

I may not have an answer (yet), but I contend that spending the money for a 3rd election is not the best answer for this problem. I think California will always have a lot of pull in politics due to the large number of people that live here, and the large number economy of our state. If this is not enough, then perhaps the legislature should find a way to allow it's elections to be moved from June to February as well. June elections already have incredibly low voter turnouts and certainly having 3 elections will further decrease the % of people voting / election. I think our politicians should be interested in increasing voter turn out, not decreasing it.

As of now, my suggestion is to have a nationwide primary and California's other voting needs should coincide with these dates.

Long time no Post

Just got this from my friend Phil, it was too funny not to post.


Otherwise, desk is done and in the office. Made a jewelry box for my mom that I am pretty proud of, no pictures along the way, but the final product looked a little something like this



Now I am working on a wine buffet side board cabinet thing. It will be darkly stained mahagony 6' x 38" x 22". Should be done this week.

State of the Union tonight, with any luck, I might even make a post about it as I try to return to the blogiscube.