The Bubbha’s Frontporch

Watched this two part Frontline expose’ or news documentary on the lead up to the war (part one) and the administration of post-war Iraq (part two). I highly recommend it. The upper echelon power struggle and closed door dealings in the White House was very eye opening. This exhaustive news story was conducted primarily by interviewing as many people involved who would go on camera as possible. I honestly came away from this with a more positive view of Bush. Going from a 0 out of 10 to a 1. Chaney, Rumsfield, and Wolfowitz seem like warmongers bent on a total American domination over all the peoples of the Earth. No surprise there. I don’t really believe in any sort of 9/11 conspiracy, BUT if there is one it is one of complacency. Perhaps, someone was aware of some sort of plan that was about to go down and just stood idly by. A terrorist attack would set into motion a Neocon plan that was public at least for a year before 9/11.

Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a
new Pearl Harbor.

If you don’t want to read it, I’ll summarize. Let’s invade Iraq, get at that oil. Stability and democracy will flourish in the Mid
East once all the other countries see how awesome Iraq has become. If they don’t see, then we will make them, launching our attacks from our bases in Iraq. Peace will come from War. War = Peace. How Orwellian.

Blah, blah, blog. You should watch this Frontline piece.

Well, it’s the fourth day of the NCAA tournament and I’m done. It’s almost as if I was trying to lose. Yesterday I lost a final four pick in Duke and today lost my tournament champion pick in G-Town. Seems like an above average year for upsets or maybe its just me…I’m upset. So now in typical sore loser fashion I officially put a hex on all the top seeded teams. Good news though, my hexes usually work in reverse.
A POX ON YOU AND YOUR HOUSE UCLA!
MAY YOUR SEED FALL ON BARREN SOIL NORTH CAROLINA!
MAY YOUR KITCHEN SINK GET CLOGGED MEMPHIS!
MAY GAS PRICES DOUBLE THE DAY OF YOUR FAMILY VACATION KANSAS!

Ahhhh. Cathartic.

And so comes the time of year where I pretend to myself that I care or know much about college basketball. While, yes, it is true I went to a prominent basketball school during my college years, I have since moved on to more pressing matters. For instance, drinking beer. One would think that the two pursuits would go hand in hand…. to be honest with you they do. However, it’s the degree that I take beer drinking that prevents me from integrating something that requires an attention span. When I attempt to combine the two activities I start off OK, but as soon as the first commercial is on I have to make a comment and yell at the TV. One may hear during the Michigan St./Kentucky game, “What the hell is up with these Head-on commercials? People complained about the first ones, only to be replaced with annoying amateur actors that have no business having a camera pointed at them. It reminds me of when they made the Mask only to be followed with the Son of the Mask. Who names sequels “The Son of” anymore? Didn’t that go out of style in the 30’s?” And so on. Next thing you know the game is over.

Nevertheless I will be filling out my brackets along with the millions of other schlubs out there. It’s one of the few traditionally American things in which I participate. Gambling. Well, if Bingo could be considered gambling. Gambling-lite. (I don’t like typing this, it seems trite. It’s like using the “on steroids” phrase.) Gambling-on-a-hunger-strike-in-China-due-to-a-repressive-government. (Better!) But I would do this even if the money wasn’t involved. I think the reason why people join in so excitedly at filling out the brackets in the newspaper is the off chance that they know something unknowable. It’s a test of intuition. A chance to say, “I knew they were going to win,” even though you had no fucking idea. Or in the case of myself, another opportunity to crumble up my paper printout, curse the stars, and realize that beer is my only friend.

THIS WAS ONE OF THE MOST PAINFUL MOMENTS OF MY LIFE

If you’re like me then you don’t sweat the details. Just get a vague understanding of certain key things and most people will fill in the blank spaces with intelligence. The blank spaces are the vacuous parts of your brain. You just have to know slightly more than the people with whom you are talking. However, if a physicist enters the room, shut the hell up. Here are a few things that if you can remember it will garner you a reputation of knowing a lot about quantum physics. Disclaimer: If you are a guy, this will in no way equate to you getting laid.

Photons: Light is a wave and a particle.

Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principle: Pick your poison: Space or Time. You can’t have both.

Schrodinger’s Cat: Matter doesn’t matter until it matters to you.

Just say this at some point in your physic’s diatribe: “God indeed plays dice, in fact he has a full blown gambling addiction.”

Relativity (general, special, & familial)

If you want to sound current mention string theory.

Planck’s Constant: A quantum ruler.

Grand Unified Field Theory: 42

Double slit apparatus: Not as fun as it sounds.

Everett many-worlds interpretation: There’s a helluva universe next door.

Nebulae are astronomical objects that are an amalgam of gases in a particular region of space. Over the course of millions of years, nodes of gases form and condense and grow in mass and attract more gas and condense and eventually form a star. They are the place where stars are born and in many cases are the most beautiful objects in the universe. Most people are familiar with them because they make really nice imagery for album covers.

But I digress…can you digress before you talk about what you really intend to talk about? Pregress? Foregress? How about preamble…pre-ramble?

Last night I did my star chart or natal chart on two websites. After inputing all my vitals and calculating my birth time into Greenwich universal time, from one website I found out that I’m passionate and complacent. Out-going and a home body. Enjoy Leonard Cohen and Richard Wagner. Probably not anything I should base important life decisions upon. But I’m someone that wouldn’t even if the output had made any sense. The best part of this website is that it provides you with all the houses that your planets (sun & moon as well) fall within. And a nice jpeg of your star chart which I thought was fairly mysterious and nice to look at. I’m not sure what to make of it, but it appears that I’m very much a Scorpio. The other website, Your Sky, required a little more work up front, but gave you a nice rendering of the sky as it appeared during your birth. (Or any other moment in history for that matter) No interpretation however, but as my council suggested today, this is preferred. “Why should you listen to some pre-canned answers?” And he’s right! So I guess the point is you can dig as deep into this as much as you wish. Very much like anything else.

March 13th is the Church of Scientology founder’s birthday. A date which falls closely to the auspicious Ides of March. Apparently this coincidence was not overlooked by the group calling it self Anonymous. A group that you might remember spearheaded the worldwide protests last month against the religious organization, which they refer to in text as “Co$” for obvious reasons. The protests that are referred to as “raids” are planned to occur worldwide on the 15th of March. Should be interesting to see if this gets any media attention. The last protest did a bit. Honestly, I thought these guys would get bored and move on to something else, but they’re showing some real persistence.
BRING CAKE!

I saw that the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, died today from undisclosed causes. I heard a thousand nerd voices crying out at once and were suddenly silent. One more inappropriate joke, but this one is not original. I saw this on many blogs today: “Creator of D&D dies today, fails saving throw vs. death.” Well, I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed many hours of entertainment from this game he designed.
In fact, some of those hours occurring in the past 6 weeks. Currently the party is in a huge battle with orcs, bugbears, and gnolls. It “raged” on for hours last week with many crappy 20 sided rolls until we had to call it a night. It’s a weak replacement for the fast paced game of World of Warcraft, but not as life consuming. Its the basketball to D&D’s futball/soccer. Or maybe ping-pong to baseball. Oh well, I’m not good at these analogies, you get the point. If you’ve ever wondered how dorky it can get I recommend this good-for-amateurs movie that I found. Here’s the trailer. (Careful with the volume)
It’s EXACTLY like this! But I mean I live in the middle of Illinois, what else am I going to do? Really it’s more of an excuse to get drunk….it’s not like I’m really into it or anything. Umm, I’m cool. Nevertheless, here’s to Mr. Gygax (uber cool name btw). Schmendric the Wizard and the Elves of the Emerald Shroud mourn his passing!

Not saying anything original here, but on the eve of the most important two primaries left for the democrats it is imperative that Obama win Texas or Ohio. Going by the polls it looks like its going to be Texas (hopefully) and not Ohio. I feel this way not because I’m a big Obama supporter or a Democratic party supporter, but it’s because I despise dirty no good politicians. For some reason, here lately, the Republicans have been full of these fucks. They’ve been infected by the likes of the NeoCons (Project for a New American Century) and men compensating for their neurotic behaviours. You look at these men and you find the dirty filth of 40 years of human subjugation, malicious international manipulation, and bloody pockets full of cocaine encrusted dollar bills. Let’s try to think of a few that come to mind in the last few years (just off the top of head). Rumsfield, Chaney, Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Tom DeLay, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig. Sure, you say, this is biased, what about the democrats? Oh yeah, that’s right…some guy hid bribe money in his freezer. And, hmmm, I’m sure there’s other things. Drawing a blank here. So that’s why Obama needs to win. Because if this primary election goes on much longer those two will drag each other down too low to beat McCain. McCain is fine…for a Republican, but this isn’t the time for these guys to win again. They really need to be taught a lesson and put into their place. Unchecked power for 8 years will create a party full of depraved maniacs drunk on the juices of government toxic waste and dripping sweat of legislative orgies in the congressional rotunda. So please, lets end this tomorrow. Nothing against Hillary, but if we lose this one we might not ever have a chance to put these guys in their places for years to come. Endless war isn’t the vision I have for this country.

High and drunk. Why is Bob Dylan relevant? should I have to tell you why Dylan is important? Nope. He’s important because Woody Guthrie was too old to take this music into the Rock and Roll era. The music of soul, heart, and mind. Its haggard music. No, not Merle Haggard you bastard. No I’m talking about haggard like the woman in the picture that’s the face of haggardness. You’ve seen it in your day, trust me. It tells a story about us. But it never would have lasted had not Bob Dylan plugged in. He put that music into a time machine and projected it out into the future. A music rooted into the past.

But what do I care I’m high and drunk remember. Anything goes here. So let me tell you why Otis Redding is relevant. Well, he had it all. Man, that guy could sing.

Fuck you if you think you can top that!