Sarah Palin, a Dead Parrot, and Scrotal Asymmetry
What does scrotal asymmetry have to do with Sarah Palin? At first, the answer might seem like a mystery and an enigma wrapped in a conundrum. But the real answer is within our grasp, and it reveals something about the unreality of American politics.
And astonishingly, it does.
Taught me something about male human anatomy, too…
I’ve decided to take this summer (mostly) off. I barely caught a glimpse of sunshine last year – too busy between the blog and regular writing to get me arse outside. Not this year. The season’s too short for that shit. I’ll lock myself away in happy hermittude this winter, when I have longer nights to write in anyway.
So today, I escaped to Ravenna Park, which is one of my favorite Seattle city parks ever. It’s fairly large as such things go, set deep in a ravine in the U-District, with a stream running through it.
Looks peaceful, doesn’t it just? And look, it’s got side-streams with waterfalls and everything:
There’s a pond with goldfish, too:
Then, as you come back down the trail, you can cross the stream at my utterly favorite part, where there’s a bridge and an enormous boulder:
To prove to you how much I love this boulder, I’ll show you a picture of me sitting upon it two years ago:
It’s my Zen boulder. It’s a good old friend.
Since Ravenna doesn’t take long to hike, we decided to head down to the Washington Park Arboretum after a refueling stop at Johnny Rocket’s. It was because I’d seen these guys blooming on our way over the 520 bridge, and I knew just the place to see ’em up close:
The Arboretum maintains a trail that crosses the western tip of Lake Washington, crossing a few of the islands, and ending up at the ship canal. It’s a gorgeous, easy walk. You get to stroll on top of the water for a little bit there, and on a clear day, you can even see the Cascades waaay in the distance:
Those aren’t clouds atop the treeline – that’s snowcapped peaks, that is.
The islands are so low that your feet squelch on the path, and there’s standing water full of itty bitty sprouting plants to both sides, turning the spaces between the tree trunks a glorious green:
Then you get to the Ship Canal, where you can watch the boats go by and read the silly things UW students paint on the canal walls, or turn around and gaze across the lake at the mountains. It’s hard to choose:
If you walk alongside the Canal, you get to pass right under the drawbridge on Montlake Blvd.
In fact, you can look up and watch the cars passing overhead:
Yup, you can see the cars through the roadway. Freaky-neat, eh?
If you prefer, though, you can hurry through that bit and just go look at Montlake through a tree bough:
And then, if you’re reaaalllly lucky, you might catch sight of a blue heron fishing on your way back:
He’s in the tall grass almost dead-center there. And if you think he’s hard to spot in this one, ask to see the ones I took where he’s standing straight up, all tall and thin, instead of hunched over getting ready to fish.
Lotta miles of walking we did, all out in the bright warm sun. And then we stuffed ourselves into a refrigerated theater to watch Star Trek. I wasn’t even disappointed there wasn’t much story to it, because the action sorta sketched a story out. The most amusing thing is the use of tired old comic book conventions to restart continuity. I probably should’ve been upset, but it made me giggle. So did Spock Prime.
If you haven’t seen the movie, do it before you miss the chance to see it on the big screen. And if you’ve never seen Lake Washington and Ravenna Park, well, you know how to get hold of me, and I do have room for a guest or two. But you’d best hurry. Summer doesn’t last long.
Carpe aestas while you’ve got the chance…
I spent the vast majority of my day at Discovery Park. It’s ginormous. Put it like this – the Loop Trail is 2.8 miles, and they’re not factoring in the extra mile or two you’ll tramp if you scramble down to be a beach bum. ‘Tis one o’ my favorite places in the universe.
Here’s the view from the top o’ South Bluff:
That’s the Sound at low tide. Pretty, innit?
And here’s the view from the bottom o’ South Bluff:
South Bluff is one of the most interesting geological features I’ve ever gotten to touch. It’s layering looks a little like Jupiter. And it’s big. It’s sorta sand caught on its way to becoming rock. Fun to esplore.
Then you tramp down the beach, and you’ll come to the lighthouse:
I saw a baby seal near that lighthouse once. Today, no seal, but there was a crab:
Am I weird for thinking crabs are cute?
Someone built a little beach bungalow out of driftwood, where they could watch the breaking waves. Not that our waves are huge, but they still break:
There’s a lot more to Discovery, but we had to come home and let the cat out of the bag:
I just wish I’d caught her playing with the receipt she found in the bag. My cat is strange.
Instead, I give you Boxing Kitteh:
Because while my body came back from vacation, my desire to blog about serious shit is still loafing in the sunshine with a prickly pear vodka in its hand, that’s why. (And yes, the stuff is delish. If you’re ever in AZ, have some.)
If it makes you feel any better, I’m signing off to make fajitas and read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. If that’s not serious, I don’t know what is. It could signal a return to blogging about the Really Serious Issues shortly.
Or just drive me back into the loving arms of ICanHasCheezburger.com. Oh, look! There’s an awesome Fox Affiliate Fail!
Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence that Barak Obama is, in fact, a Vulcan, despite his penchant for flashing beaming grins.
Exhibit A, which is evident in his every speech and appearance, and thus needs no link: his preternatural calm.
Exhibit B: His ability to flash a Vulcan salute.
And Exhibit C: His response to inane questions about public plans driving private plans out of business:
I believe it was David Jackson, from USA Today, who suggested to the president this afternoon that a public health care option would “drive private insurance out of business.” I thoroughly enjoyed the Obama’s response.
“Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government — which they say can’t run anything — suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical…”
Pure Spock, that is. And you know something? It’s fantastic to have a Vulcan in charge, especially after the last eight years of Tweedledum and Tweedlevil.
Others have compared Obama’s remarks to Spock, but none of them created a clip. This means that instead of filching one, I had to create my own:
Live long and prosper, Mr. Sp – er, President.
(Tip o’ the shot glass to WavCentral.com and the unwitting fools at MediaResearch.org, who respectively supplied sound and image.)
It’s so sad when it comes to this:
Note to Bill Kristol: don’t start a second career as a psychic anytime soon.
Today, President Obama picked Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. On Fox News Sunday this past week, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol (ie “Kristol Ball”) confidently predicted that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) would be the next Supreme Court nominee:
KRISTOL: I think he has made up his mind, and I think it’s going to be Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan, for this reason. Obama gave that interview Friday which we saw the snippet from. In that interview, he uses the term practical seven times — I want someone with a practical sense of how the world works, I want someone with practical experience. Obama knows what he’s doing, and I think he wants to say, I’m putting on someone who went to Harvard Law School, clerked at an appellate level, was attorney general of Michigan, has good quotes from Republicans and Democrats about their conduct of that legal office, but who really understands the effect on real-world decisions.
The man has the predictive power of a melted Magic 8 ball.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a scene wherein Dusty, my FBI agent character, is given a Miraldian “PDA” – a semi-sentient little alien device that makes the iPhone look like an actual big dumb brick, and is only called a PDA by my Earthling characters because, well, people use old names for new things. It provided an opportunity for a moment of levity:
“Go on,” August said. “Ask it a question. Any question.”
She cupped the PDA in her hands and looked down at it. Ultra-advanced alien technology was roughly the size and shape of a cosmetic compact, and shiny metalic pastel peach in color. She would have preferred black, with a lot of LED buttons and flashing lights and something, anything, to say this wasn’t just a little hollow lump of metal. The whole situation was surreal. DVDs traded for technology that might as well have been magic? She couldn’t help herself. “What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?”
“Forty-two,” an androgynous little voice promptly said.
She nearly dropped the PDA. And then she shot an accusing stare at August. “You’re winding me up.”
“No, it Googled it.” August bent over her computer and typed the question in. “That’s what it’s trained to do when it’s not sure what the answer is. If you ask for detail, it’ll tell you how it got the result.”
He showed her the search results on her screen. He was right. If you asked Google, it came up with Douglas Adams’s answer.
And, indeed, if you Google that question, the top results refer to Douglas Adams.
With this background, you’ll understand why this tidbit from Kevin Drum caught my attention:
…I tried out the WolframAlpha search engine today for the first time. It’s been getting generally panned, but it sure did an impressively good job on my test drive query. Check it out:
You’ll also understand why I promptly scampered over and asked the self-same question Dusty had asked. And why I burst out in such peals of delighted laughter that the cat nearly suffered cardiac arrest:
It’s too bad “It WolframAlphaed it” doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily as Googled, eh?
The search engine isn’t perfect, o’ course. I stumped it with “Does Dana Hunter drink tequila?” which should’ve been a cakewalk (yes, Dana Hunter drinks tequila. Duh). But it’s an awesome concept, I’m sure it’ll improve with age, and I think it’ll quickly become my boon companion on the research front.
Go forth and have fun with it.
Happy Memorial Day weekend! For those of you with travel plans, have a fabulously fun and safe trip.
O’ course, the journey of a thousand miles always begins with a complication or two:
Remember to treat your car with the respect it deserves:
And don’t forget to photograph the interesting sights at roadside attractions:
Above all, enjoy yourselves, my darlings.
Annoying your cat is simple, fun and hazardous. You can either imitate the techniques contained within this video, or simply play this video. Either way, you end up with an annoyed feline. At least, I did.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must tend to my wounds before they turn septic.
