It has been quite a week for tragedy. First Hunter S Thompson Offs himself, then the Jayhawks call it quits, then REM almost has to cancel its tour, then this bit of shocking, heart breaking news:

Punk Trio Blink-182 on 'Indefinite Hiatus'

Good. That’s one more shitty band I can cross off my ‘twenty crappy bands who all sound alike and who claim to be punk rock but are in actuality just no account ass clowns’ list. GOOD LUCK FINDING WORK AT THE MALL GUYS.

     I saw something unusual this morning as I sat waiting in the car for my wife to come downstairs. A very old Chinese man walked past me holding a wicker basket. He sat down on one of those long concrete trapezoids that block the tip of parking spaces and removed from his basket a small claw hammer. Then he removed a walnut from the basket. He put the nut on the trapezoid, and began tapping it lightly with the hammer until the nut’s hard shell broke open just a little. Then he would pick up the nut, inspect its interior, and then throw the whole cracked nut in the grass, without taking anything out of it. He did it like 20 times like that. Crack the nut. Look. Throw the whole thing away. He was so serious about it. It looked like such hard work. I had to go to work before I found out what he was doing, so I will never know what the ultimate point of all the nut cracking was. Just a weird little thing.

     Have you seen Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush all over the TV pushing tsunami relief? I’m sorry, but that is really surreal. It looks like W. C. fields has teamed up with the Crypt Keeper, and I don’t want to give either of them money.
     They flew to the disaster stricken Thailand together to survey the damage. That is a very long flight, and they have been gone for like a week. TALK ABOUT AWKWARD. You know they didn’t talk about disaster relief the whole time. 1992 had to come up.
     “Hey Bill, remember during the campaign when I tried to smear credibility and attack you patriotism?”
     “Yea. I remember when I kicked your ass.”

     Maybe they make fun of H Ross Perot. That’s something we can all agree on.

     Hunter S. Thompson killed himself.
    
     And he seemed so stable.

From WENN

Cosby Will Not Be Facing Charges
    
     Comedian Bill Cosby has learned he will not face charges stemming from a woman's allegation he fondled her. Pennsylvania authorities found “insufficient credible and admissible evidence” to support the woman's claims, says Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor in a statement. Cosby's accuser told authorities in her native Canada last month that the funnyman gave her medication which made her feel dizzy, then fondled her at his suburban Philadelphia home after a dinner out with friends in January 2004. She said she later awoke to find her bra undone and her clothes in disarray. Cosby has denied the allegations. Castor has said that the accuser's year-long delay in coming forward, and her contact with Cosby in the past year, weighed in the comedian's favor. The prosecutor also reviewed claims by other people that Cosby had “behaved inappropriately” toward them, but detectives could find no instance “where anyone complained to law enforcement of conduct which would constitute a criminal offense”. Castor has refused to elaborate on the reasons for his decision for fear his comments would be used as evidence in any possible civil lawsuit.

Let's celebrate with a pudding pop.

A study found that lobsters don't feel pain. That doesn't make cooking them any less horrifying (or any less tasty to lobster lovers).
A PETA spokesman says that “This is exactly like the tobacco industry claiming that smoking doesn't cause cancer.
No. Not exacty. 

    I heard an interesting story today that I thought I would pass along. A friend of a friend had been dating this very attractive girl for about two years. Lets call them Jack and Jill (because I don’t know their names). All of Jack’s friends were hard pressed to figure out why Jill, who as I said was on the surface quite a catch, would be with a guy like Jack, who while not Igor, was nonetheless of a lesser stature.
Regardless of their friend’s skepticism, Jack and Jill were happy. They even spoke to each other in cute little baby voices as many couples do.

     At one point Jack started to notice that Jill had introduced a new element to their baby talking dialogue.

     She was meowing.

     Jack didn’t mind a little meowing, so he just let it go. They were in love after all.

     Then she started meowing at other times. If she were on the couch reading the paper, and something caught her attention, she would meow. Sometimes she would meow in response to questions.

     “Do you want another piece of pizza?” Jack would ask.

     “Meow.” She would reply. Sometimes she would just meow for no reason.

     It started getting worse. She would hiss if injured or startled. She started wearing longhaired sweaters and would arch her back all the time. She took several naps. Sometimes on the floor. Milk became a dietary staple. Jack would catch her taking tongue baths. She grew out her fingernails and would often scratch him. This was getting out of hand. He decided to do something about it. He sat down on the floor beside her one afternoon while she was relaxing in her favorite sunny spot.

     “Hey baby?” he asked.

     “Meow?”

     “What’s with all this cat stuff?” This will clear things up, he thought, I’m sure it’s nothing. Jill, the love of his life, turned to him lovingly.

     “I don’t know. I’m just in a cat place right now, don’t you ever want to be a cat?”

     “No. Not really.” Jack was dismayed. There was no explanation to be had.

     The space between them grew. Jill became despondent. Jack could see that she wasn’t happy. He decided to indulge her, hoping it was just a phase. He started serving her milk to her in a saucer. She started walking around the house on all fours. She spoke of almost being able to feel her ‘phantom tail’. Jack filled the cupboard with canned tuna, and she took her dinner in a bowl on the floor. The more he gave, the more catlike she became. He couldn’t confide in his friends. They would never understand. He lost interest in her sexually, having never been attracted to the feline persuasion.

     One morning she crawled to over to him.

     “Jack?” she asked.

     “Yes Jill.” His back stiffened. He had a bad feeling.

     “Can I ask you a question?”

     “Ok. Go ahead.” He looked into the face of Jill, his friend, the only woman on the world he had ever loved.

     “Can I get a litter box?”

     He moved out the next day. He stayed with my friend for a while. Sometimes he would come to their apartment and he would discover long screeching messages on the answering machine. They were from Jill. She’s in heat, he thought. Once in awhile he would drive by their old house and look in the windows. Jill’s shadowy silhouette would always be there, curled up in the window box.

     After a reasonable period of time he decided it was time to move on. He moved out of my friends place, bought a dog, and got an unlisted telephone number.
     He never heard from Jill again.

     Puppetmaster Dick Cheney has said, “Hell no” to running for president. He went on to say, “I've got my plans laid out,” Cheney said Sunday. “I'm going to serve this president for the next four years and then I'm out of here.”

It's good to know that the VP has such a bad case of seniorits.

     Last night was the State of the Union speech, and I watched it, as always. I had intended to write this long ramble about how it was filled with lies, which it was, and about how misleading to was, also true, but I don't really feel up to it. I do have three comments though:

1. He got booed. It was great.
2. The “Iraq voter hugs parents of slain marine” thing was totaly staged. Or at least the conditions were made favorable for such an Oprah moment to take place.
3. Every time they showed Hiliary Clinton it looked like she might throw up again.

The rest I will save for next year, because I'm sure it will be basicly the same crap.

     I think Mody has a real point about WPGU. They are pretty self-congratulatory about their shiny new format. And they should be a little proud. Playing non-mainstream rock during drive time is a risky proposition. Advertisers could flee. There could be rioting in the streets. But I think they run the risk of turning into an oldies station for alt rock. I don’t want to see it be a predominantly “Flashback Café’ style station.
     Yes, they do play Radio Zero, which is an interesting and valuable, if not occasionally pretentious, program. I like it, and like how they are continually allowed to do the show despite the fact that they can’t operate the phones properly, cue things up on time, and have a general disregard for normal radio show production rules. Fits in well with no rules radio. Radio needs more shows like that, and I appreciate that they aren’t slick and phony. I do get the impression that WPGU is using the to pump up their indie cred, but if it gets them on the radio then so be it.
     WPGU is a good station with a lot of potential. I think what they have done is wise, admirable, and was sorely needed in this one size fits all music conglom-o-sphere. I just hope they don’t grow complacent and start sucking again, and instead strive to remain relevant, informed, and on the forefront; bringing the public all the good music that they have never heard before in their lives. If they can fulfill a tenth of that vision, then I’ll be happy.

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