The Old Blog

Know what else I like about my job? I can watch a baseball game and yell out “eat it, Sox” when Torii Hunter exacts a little revenge on behalf of that pacifist/baseball martyr Corey Koskie, and nobody cares.

Day 2: Watched the Twins game on MLBTV–we won again! Heard Teresa Heinz Kerry, who is better off the cuff than she is with a prepared speech. Sadly, she’s well on her way to being Hillary Clinton II. What is it with first ladies with a backbone that the US public has such a problem with? Oh yeah, this day really marked Barack Obama’s coming out party. Watch your back, Dennis Hastert…

Day 3: Saw “Anchorman.” Disappointing, though Steve Carell and the various cameos made me laugh. Heard John Edwards’ speech on the way home. Loved it, though it was a bit ambitious. At least he had some specifics on how Edwards/Kerry will accomplish their goals.

Once again, an instance of a gay couple getting hassled over something that wouldn’t present a problem to a heterosexual one.

So let’s get this straight: terrorists are able to get passports validated (the 9/11 hijackers’ student visas were approved months after the attack), but if a person in a loving, committed (married) relationship wants to change their name, it’s against Federal law.

Atrios has been outed (with permission, and no, not as a homosexual); his name is Duncan Black.

And he’s cute! (Check out the comments on ratemyprofessors.com)

Apparently Bush is the better choice because Kerry bounced a pitch (like Bush the Elder and Reagan had before him).

But that’s not all. Check this out (from the link above):
“with all the hoople around Kerry’s snowboarding, skeet shooting, wind surfing, bike riding, etc. it seems as if all the “sports” this man does are sports that don’t really involve the concept of “team.” Give him a moment in a real team sport, he fluffs it. Now, I might have missed something in Politics 101, but it seems to me that the ones who are successful are those that know about playing on a team.”

Now, setting aside the erroneous conclusion that a man’s political talents are derived from his choice of sport, that statement is just plain factually incorrect.

No team sports, eh?
Um…what about hockey? Kerry played varsity in high school, and also at Yale.
Um…what about soccer? Kerry played at Yale.
Um…what about lacrosse? Kerry played at Yale.

Last I checked, hockey, soccer, and lacrosse were all team sports.

So John Kerry said his favorite Red Sox player was “Manny Ortiz”–a combination of Manny Ramirez and David “why didn’t you hit like this for the Twins?” Ortiz. Strange that I had to hear (or read) this story a half-dozen times before finding out that he immediately corrected himself.

At least he didn’t make fun of someone’s mistake–and then misspell the last name of one of the top 5 homerun hitters of all time like David R. Guarino did.

Kerry has other things on his mind, like running for President. What’s Guarino’s excuse?

The Minnesota Vikings expect to sign former WWE performer and University of Minnesota wrestling champion Brock Lesnar to a contract today. This isn’t an entirely bad decision. While Lesnar will never make the team, I bet a few more people will show up at training camp.

I am, how do you say, a bit to the left of most of my family. Maybe it’s because they’re all from extremely conservative/religious towns with populations of less than 2,500, I don’t know. Either way, I seem to get a ton of these stupid, incorrect emails–enough to the point where I hit “reply” to the email first and then go on Snopes to find out why it’s wrong.

Here’s the most recent:
(No picture came with the email. You’ll be able to find it in the links I’ll provide.)
>This statue currently stands outside the Iraqi palace, now home to the 4th
>Infantry division. It will eventually be shipped home and put in the
>memorial museum in Fort Hood, Texas.
>
>The statue was created by an Iraqi artist named Kalat, who for years was
>forced by Saddam Hussein to make the many hundreds of bronze busts of Saddam
>that dotted Baghdad.
>
>Kalat was so grateful for the Americans liberation of his country; he
>melted 3 of the heads of the fallen Saddam and made the statue as a
>memorial to the American soldiers and their fallen warriors. Kalat worked
>on this memorial night and day for several months.
>
>To the left of the kneeling soldier is a small Iraqi girl giving the soldier
>comfort as he mourns the loss of his comrade in arms.
>
>Do you know why we don’t hear about this in the news? Because it is heart
>warming and praise worthy. The media avoids it because it does not have the
>shock effect that a flashed breast or controversy of politics does. But
>we can do something about it. We can pass this along to as many people as
>we can in honor of all our brave military who is making a difference. Thank
>you!!
>

The reason we don’t hear about this in the news is because IT’S NOT TRUE! (OK, so maybe we’d hear it on FOX News…) Think about it. Is this guy really going to spend months of his life in a war zone making a statue just out of the sense of gratitude to the country that invaded his?

Anyway, the truth of the story is this: yes, the guy worked on Saddam statues, and yes, he made the American statue. But he did both for the most American reason of all: because he was paid to. This dude isn’t a fan of the US (who bombed his uncle into oblivion). Oh, and the reason the other statues were melted? The sculptor wanted too much money, and recycling old Saddam statues was cheaper than getting new material.

So there you have it. Yet another dumb email forwarded by people who, despite my repeated references to these websites, don’t know enough to look up their partisan emails on Snopes.com or breakthechain.org and find out the truth before sending a lie on to their entire contact lists.

I’m as pro-choice as the next guy (or girl, I suppose), but isn’t this t-shirt from a Planned Parenthood online store going a bit too far?

Nothing affected me in the least. I went to see The Bourne Supremacy, which affected me even less.

Stay tuned tomorrow for convention blog, day 2!