can we all just agree that brother bear + sarah in the same time zone is one of the best ideas ever thought?

less than twelve hours. assuming the airport picnic works out without the magic of telephones.

can we all just agree that rick warren is an unacceptable choice for obama's inauguration?

i agree that it is important to build bridges between people with different opinions. i know that this is a particular strength of barack obama, and i admire him for it. at this point, i've given up on the idea that an american president would be as progressive as i'd like. i get it. i'm going to be disappointed sometimes.

but seriously. rick warren?

from a beliefnet interview published december 17, 2008:

WARREN: The issue to me, I'm not opposed to that as much as I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

BELIEFNET: Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?

WARREN: Oh, I do.

seriously, obama? that was who you thought would be a good choice for your inauguration? rick warren? who this week compared same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia, and "fundamentalist mormon" marriage? was rick santorum not available or something?

equality california's got a petition demanding that warren be uninvited here.

i'm still in shock about this one. what a slap in the face to gay and lesbian people and their allies. for shame, obama.

my blog report on "alicublog" by sarah.

alicublog is one of the best places on the entire internet. i told you about it before, but in case you haven't been reading it daily since then, i will remind you about it now.

roy edroso, alicublog's proprietor, is a lifelong new yorker with a beautiful talent for the written word and a superhuman tolerance for reading the craziest wingnut crap in existence without punching his computer screen right in the face. in addition to keeping tabs on (and funny nicknames for) such notable nuts as peggy noonan ("the crazy jesus lady"), bill kristol, and the miserable jonah goldberg, he also finds time to write about arts and culture (and the hilarible results of combining wingnuts and culture.) like donkey punch, the comments are worth your time as well.

back when c.w.a.j.a.?. was brand new, i was stunned to find a link to it in roy's sidebar. (to be perfectly honest, it still kind of surprises me when i see it.) i emailed him to thank him, and it was the first of a few cordial exchanges over the years. his encouragement has meant a lot to me, and it makes alicublog all the more enjoyable to know that there's a real person behind it who is willing to make some time to be friendly to a stranger.

so! go! read!

(read more blog reports)

can we all just agree that it's about time for a word that describes situations both hilarious and terrible?

hilarible. you're welcome.

spam never sleeps.

i used to pay a lot more attention to my spam than i do now, because i found the titles (and sometimes even the emails themselves) so amusing. (i still like these two in particular.)

the gmail spam filter is pretty solid, though, so i haven't seen much of it lately. (although once and awhile i notice that i have 1000 message in my spam folder. awesome.) in the last month or so, though, some spammy spam has been sneaking into my inbox. a lot of it has been in hebrew, so whether or not it has amusing content i cannot tell you. there was one the other day entitled: "ASSISTANCE" and inside it said, "ASSISTANCE" and there was a word document about which i am very curious but which i am not planning to open because compy is grumpy enough already without being asked for ASSISTANCE by strangers.

can we all just agree that karaoke is excellent?

because it is. b.f.h. and i started the evening off right with "girls just wanna have fun," and along the way we got in "livin' on a prayer" (which caused me to realize that many classic rock songs have choruses that are super fun to sing and quite well-known, and verses that are neither. you've been warned), "bohemian rhapsody," and "take my breath away" (i went for the high notes, and i'm not sorry.) we finished with "time after time." it was quite an evening.

next time, madonna.

it seems like it might be worth a try:

if, now or at any other time, the phrase "habitus checker" is or was amusing and/or meaningful to you, please get in touch with me.

thank you.

well, that's one way of looking at oceanic convergence

someone asked my geomorphology professor what happens when two oceanic plates converge. his response: "they draw straws and they say, 'okay, you go under!'" (according to science, the older plate is denser, so it subducts.)

this was right before he explained "mountains are made out of stuff."

and now you know.

this may be my favorite ever search that returned c.w.a.j.a.?.:

"danger mayonaise"

this is an important question:

how did they dance?

thank you, alan.

just so you know:

avocado and goose poop look remarkably similar, especially when you notice it on your pants.

(mine was avocado. phew!)

doctor brown, on holidays:

"it really depends on where you are. i remember many holidays in the middle east - but sadly, many are religious-related - so you're supposed to be extra "godly"
i prefer the ones where you can sit around and be a drunk - like thanksgiving."

my blog report on "Just a Little Guy" by sarah.

Just a Little Guy features pictures of cute animals (no cats or dogs allowed) and commentary that is generally confusing and almost always obscene. i love it, but it should get updated way more often. awww, the mysterious proprietor, tends to come and go as he pleases (kind of like a neighborhood cat, you know, the one you start to care about and put out food for, who is occasionally around for weeks at a time but will then disappear for a month or two, only to return like, "what? why are you acting like that?")

of particular note: possums in a box (safe for workish, except for the use of the f-word in the description)

fan boy friday II (reader-submitted photos, awww-provided totally nsfw commentary)

but seriously, you should just read the whole site. it is fantastic.


(read more blog reports)

we're downsizing!

it recently occurred to me that since the super slow load time of c.w.a.j.a.?. kind of bummed me out, it might also bother others. and it further occurred to me that since i'm the only one who could actually do something about it, i should.

so, c.w.a.j.a.?. has now slimmed down to 50 posts on the front page, instead of 100. (this has the additional advantage of getting the really slow loading [but hilarious!] "grandkids in the movies" clip off the front page sooner. because sheesh hulu, is your server powered by hamsters on treadmills or something?)

and now you know.

tengo un anuncio:

¡vijaré al perú en enero! ¡woo!

evil/evil genius/genius?

tonight, in the thanksgiving-crowded grocery store (where just about everyone, my fluey self included, was kind of on edge.)

kid: "i have to go to the bathroom!"

mom: "you have to go to the bathroom?"

kid: "yes!"

mom: "do you want to look at the candy first?"

jesse danger is wise.

"people can be really stupid when they use many unrelated words to convey something they don't want to say."

my goodness, where do i sign up?

from the most bizarre banner ad i've ever seen (it was for old spice):

"come experience what it would be like to make various two things happen online!"

and this is what happens when you antagonize everyone, for eight years.

bush at the g20.

also, i find it kind of funny that some random dude on cnn is now joining the bush anti-fan club. toward the end there, when he starts yelling about his google research, he starts to remind me of keith "for shame, mr, president" olbermann.

yelling and standing up. this is what i did today.

this morning i went to a rally for equality. it was really good.

this evening i went to a cyclocross race. also really good.

i am going to sleep now. because all the yelling and standing up has made me really, really tired.

your question makes me concerned. or jealous.

the search that led someone here: "what does it mean when your heart races in the shower?"

my answers:
a) it means that you need to go to the doctor.
or
b) it means that you're showering with someone really, really fun.

a strange thing happened to me yesterday

i was at work (a newish job that i really like!) and the phone rang. when i answered, there was a gap (like the sort you hear with autodialers) and then a woman came on the other end of the line. she sounded a lot like miss cleo, and she asked for me by name. she told me that she was calling because she had to check recent activity on my capital one credit card account.

since i don't have a capital one credit card account, you can imagine how confusing this was for me.

i had been kind of suspicious from the beginning because of the autodialer pause, so i started briskly asking her questions. i got the phone number from which she was calling (or, at least, a phone number), and i asked for the number of the credit card she was calling about. she gave me the last four digits (or, at least, a four digit number) and then she hung up on me.

i called the number that she had given me, and it was indeed capital one's automated system, but that doesn't really mean that was the number from which she was calling.

and then i spent several hours this morning ordering my free credit reports.

and that is what happened.

can we all just agree that something big is happening? or, prop 8 thoughts.

i was devastated at the passage of proposition 8. sad and hurt and angry and ashamed and generally miserable. wednesday was a horrible day.

in my head, i know some things: this can't last forever; this is a struggle that's been going on for a long time, much longer than i've been alive; society will come around eventually; people have to be patient; etc etc etc.

and as much as it is horribly unfair to tell people that they have to continue to wait for full acceptance and full recognition of their worth as human beings, i do understand, at least on an intellectual level, that the fight for civil rights is continuing, and will ultimately succeed.

the distance between head and heart, as usual, is pretty huge. my heart broke last week as i talked to friends and heard their hurt and confusion, and feelings of danger and rejection. and as much as i thought i'd be ecstatic over an obama victory, i have been so upset over the success of prop 8 that i've hardly felt anything over obama's election at all.

but i realized something tonight, as i heard about and read about still more protests and campaigns against prop 8 and for equality: proposition 8 has touched off something huge. there are many people who have been diligently working toward equality for decades, and now, as never before, there is a groundswell of popular support for equality. and more straight allies are emerging than ever before.

the next days and weeks and months are sure to be exciting and scary times, for many reasons. but this is just another one.

something big is happening. i feel it.

post-election thoughts

i've never been proud to be an american and ashamed to be a californian before.

c.w.a.j.a.?.'s quick and dirty california proposition endorsement time!

1A: yes! trains!
2: yes! bigger boxes for the chickens!
3: no. it's money for construction only, and only a few children's hospitals will benefit (the same ones who paid to put it on the ballot...waitaminute!)
4: hell no. not all girls can talk to their families; restricting abortion for minors will lead to more girls harming themselves while trying to end their pregnancies without doctors.
5: yes. rehab for nonviolent drug offenders instead of expensive, unhelpful jail.
6: no. we don't need more prisons.
7: no. good general idea, bad specific execution (bought onto the ballot by a rich dude whose own business interests will benefit. no thank you.
8: HELL NO. don't add discrimination to california's constitution. love is love. discrimination is wrong. mormon church out of california politics.
9: no. costs a lot of moneys, doesn't improve things.
10: no. another good general idea bought onto the ballot by a rich dude whose own business interests will benefit. sheesh.
11. no. redistricting is a good idea but i'm freaked out at the total randomness of the system 11 proposes.
12. yeah, i think so.