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Happy Bella Day

August 3, 2009 | 5 comments

126013372_bd0d81ba17_oOn August 3, 2000 my then-wife spotted Bella trotting into an intersection.  As the stoplight turned green, signaling the waiting traffic to proceed forward toward the hapless little stray, my ex rushed out into the open space and waved her arms at the cars to urge them to wait.  The stack of cars balked, grudgingly — this being Los Angeles, where even momentary impediments to traffic are greeted with disproportionate ire, and more specifically East L.A., where stray dogs are a dime a dozen.

“C’m'ere, doggie! C’m'ere!” she urged.

The skinny little pup turned and trotted straight toward the invitation, tail wagging. She clearly lacked the skittish trepidation of the average street cur. She reached my ex, who had retreated to the sidewalk and crouched down to receive her. Just as she still does today, the dog we would call Bella took immediate advantage of this access to a human lap and commenced giving dog kisses.

Loaded into the back seat of her rescuer’s ’88 VW Fox, the gray mongrel lay down as though she’d just run a marathon. Read the rest of this entry »


Facebook Meme: 25 Things About Me

January 28, 2009 | 11 comments

This little Facebook meme has found its way to me. OK, what am I supposed to do?

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

I’ll do it, and I’ll send it to the friends who tagged me in theirs, but no way am I going to require 25 of my Facebook friends to write lists too. My friends have more important things to do… well, most of them, anyway.

25 Random Things About Me

  1. I am a compulsive copy editor and a remorseless grammar nazi (in case you hadn’t noticed).
  2. I am geeky enough to use HTML markup when posting things on community web sites. In case you still hadn’t noticed.
  3. I’m seriously considering getting a bicycle to use for getting around town, in order to both save money on gas and get more exercise. The only drawback I foresee is the increased chance of severe injury due to LA’s shortage of bike lanes and surplus of reckless drivers.

    4. Read the rest of this entry »


Palin, Pigs and Pit Bulls

September 11, 2008 | 2 comments

You know what?  After the election, I think I’m actually going to miss Sarah Palin and John McCain.  Or rather, my blog will – with the way that campaign is representing her in the press, the jokes just write themselves.  By the tens.

So Obama remarked that McCain’s platform does not represent a proposal for change, as advertised, but rather is like putting lipstick on a pig.  The McCain camp seized upon this remark and expressed its absurd faux-outrage that the unbelievably, horribly, unforgivably sexist Democrat candidate had called Gov. Palin a pig.

Hurh?  Exactly.  Apparently, in the McCain worldview Sarah Palin owns the copyright on the concept of lipstick.  She laid claim to it at the recent GOP convention, where she attempted a curious combination of self-promotion and comedy by declaring that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was, in a word, “lipstick.”

SarahPalinRaleigh
Sarah Palin
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Therealbs2002)

pit bull
A pit bull
(Photo: Flickr – audreyjm529)

Aside from being something less than a knee-slapper, this statement (like so many things Gov. Palin says) demonstrably inaccurate.  First off, she’s not interested in selling us on hockey moms as a group, she’s interested in selling us on herself.  With the pit bull thing, she’s trying to suggest that she’s tough, a badass.  But it doesn’t wash – there plenty of differences between her and a pit bull.

Top Ten Other Differences Between Sarah Palin and a Pit Bull

  1. Pit bulls don’t lie about their ear markings
  2. Palin: wants to be your V.P.  Pit bull: wants your B.L.T.
  3. Takes longer to train a pit bull to roll over for special treats
  4. One is often used as an attack dog by crooked scumbags… and the other is a pit bull
  5. Pit bulls generally produce a litter of five to seven pups… OK, bad example
  6. Palin: saw Juneau in person, decided to move there.  Pit bull: saw Juno on DVD, decided to nap
  7. Pit bulls produce pit bull shit; Palin leaves out the “pit”
  8. A pit bull doesn’t need a gun to take down a moose
  9. A pit bull would never hide its desire to receive a big barrel of pork
  10. You can spay a pit bull

That’s not all, either – not if you folks out there have any more to add.  Let’s hear ‘em!


AP Pollsters Go Off-Leash

July 9, 2008 | 2 comments

Amidst the multi-year media onslaught that our presidential election process has become, I’ve had to adjust my critical thinking filter to an even finer sieve than before. Sometimes it occurs to me that at least the news media is flooding the landscape with an issue that matters to people’s lives. At other times, though, the campaign overkill reaches such a level of absurdity that I wonder if perhaps these press hacks aren’t qualified to tell us about anything more important than Anna Nicole’s baby daddy, so maybe they should stick with that.

Consider for example this AP/Yahoo News poll and writeup published yesterday, which concludes that John McCain is the candidate of choice among pet owners.

Read the rest of this entry »


Dogs Playing Poker. For Real.

January 5, 2008 | 1 comment

It’s not just a cheesy painting anymore. Via Ed Miller’s blog:

Like the first commenter at Ed’s post, I can’t agree with Jilli-dog’s choices to call down this hand with an inferior flush draw. At the same time, her success in this hand makes me wonder if Yorkies could be responsible for some of the horrendous bad beats I’ve taken on PokerStars lately.

This has huge implications. All the poker world whining about amateurs and internet players seems a little silly now, doesn’t it? I predict that within five years, a dog will win the WSOP. You heard it here first.


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