marchdecember

Apparently there's an epidemic of people cutting in line to get on ferries ahead of others who patiently wait in line for two hours.

Sgt. Craig Johnson, a state trooper, said that when officers catch people cutting in line, they ask them to go to the back.... Still, some people won't budge.... "In that case, we really don't have a tool to use," he said.

Senate Bill 5088 would give officers the option of issuing a ticket for a traffic violation. State Patrol Capt. Jeff DeVere said he doesn't expect troopers to start handing out a lot of fines.

"We're not going to be out there with our ticket book writing unlimited tickets," he said. The proposed law, he said, "will let everybody know this is unacceptable behavior. We hope this will be somewhat of a deterrent."

Riiiight. Our police officers would NEVER use silly regulations to impose fines on normally upstanding citizens.

I got thinking about my grandmother this week. My mom's mom, she most recently passed away nearly two years ago now. Whereas my dad's mom was more of a matriarch, passing on wisdom down through the generations, my grandmother on my mother's side was more of a friend. She couldn't provide some of the things my other grandparents offered. She couldn't spoil me with toys, or help me through college, or even teach me the secrets of the New York Times crossword. But in some ways she offered me something few others could; she provided decades of memories... the kind you don't easily forget.

Like the time we took the Greyhound Bus. Or how she used to take me to play Bingo. Or the one day when we walked through the drive thru at Burger King. We walked a lot of places. Like to the bank. Or to the ice cream parlor.

Grandma used to live with older people and take care of them for their families. But before that she lived with relatives, and I'd stay with them in the summers. They lived in a house in Southwest Washington, and even though it was in a mid-sized town, they had chickens in the backyard. I remember that house so vividly, even though I haven't been there in at least fifteen years. Next to the living room stood this inventory of Shaklee products that they sold from home. Grandma was always big on Shaklee. We had Shaklee everything, from vitamins to household cleaners. They sold this stuff called Basic H that could clean anything. It didn't matter what. Windows, floors, the dishes, whitewall tires... Basic H could do it. I have no idea what the stuff is, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a) colored water or b) hydrochloric acid, but we had tons of it.

Shaklee is technically a network marketing operation, but unlike Herbalife and Amway/Quixtar they don't appear to suffer from oversaturation, and they have a history of actual products that people would want to buy... in that respect they are more like Avon or Tupperware. Don't get me wrong... I wouldn't recommend getting involved in any multi-level marketing scheme. But I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for good old Shaklee.

More memories later...

Beware the dangerous Conair hair dryer. Although it seems innocent, this creature is known to expel burning wind, particularly at the face. If encountered, approach with caution, then bat at it viciously.

I love it when a new soda is released. It almost never matters what it is... I'll try it. So yesterday I stumbled on the new Diet Pepsi Jazz Caramel Cream. I'm pretty sure this is being marketed to women, but so what? Anyway, I must say it's really good stuff. It's very sweet. It tastes more like a cream soda than anything. In fact, I can't actually taste any Diet Pepsi in there. Try it!

Please someone explain this to me.

What kind of bizarro world am I living in where General Motors and Ford no longer sell rear wheel drive sedans, but Hyundai is prepared to enter the luxury RWD market with this vehicle.

What is going on?

Excerpts from the Seattle Times:

A State Patrol trooper was charged Thursday with custodial sexual misconduct for allegedly having sex with a woman he pulled over in 2005. (Mr.) Torres, 44, who is on paid administrative leave, is required to appear at the Regional Justice Center in Kent on May 2 to be arraigned. He has not been arrested.

The woman he's charged with sexually assaulting, 38, is one of three who independently lodged complaints against Torres in June 2005, according to charging papers.... Torres allegedly took the woman to a Federal Way weigh station. He told her he had previously had sex there with other women he had arrested and then proceeded to fondle her breasts and sexually assault her, according to the charging papers.

If convicted, Torres could face 6-12 months in jail and would have to register as a sex offender.... Torres is the second trooper in recent years accused of similar misconduct during stops of female drivers. (Mr.) Idland, a six-year State Patrol trooper, pleaded guilty to three counts of custodial sexual misconduct in 2005 after 10 women accused him of sexual assaulting them during traffic stops.

Not surprising. It's all about control for these people. Sick sick sick sick sick.

Yesterday afternoon Jennifer and I hopped on I-5 and headed to Lynnwood. On the way, we saw the otherside of the freeway (southbound) was suddenly empty. Then came a slow moving motorcade of ambulances and police vehicles. Behind that, a massive traffic jam.

Given that the motorcade was for the Edmonds Police Chief, who died suddenly of a aneurysm Tuesday, I wasn't going to mention it here. But the Seattle Times beat me to it. And it turns out this motorcade was the doing of the Edmonds police, and came as a surprise to WSDOT and the State Patrol.

A police motorcade from Edmonds to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and back to transport the body of Edmonds Police Chief David Stern snarled the I-5 afternoon commute for about two hours Wednesday and startled state transportation officials.

The motorcade consisted of several dozen motorcycles, police patrol cars and a medic van.

It traveled below freeway speeds, and traffic saw delays from about 3:15 p.m. until about 5 p.m. as cars were stopped while the motorcade passed.

The state Department of Transportation was caught by surprise when the motorcade began, and learned of it through its I-5 traffic cameras on the freeway.

The State Patrol hadn't been contacted either, spokesman Jeff Merrill said.

Well, that wasn't very nice.

Remember these commercials? They go way back.

Orson Welles sells wine.

Back when Michael Jackson was still unbeatably awesome.

Clean yourself with Irish Spring!

Armpit stains must have been a big problem in the 80s.

Michael J. Fox gets a Pepsi. (Is that Martin Sheen doing the voiceover?)

Get your Jordache jeans. Highly recommended for homos!

These boys are playing with a Y-Wing fighter and a deck of cards. Huh? Were their parents to poor to buy them a Hoth rebel base? Losers.

A man from Olympia who recently converted to Judaism has decided that his 12 year old son should now be circumcised.

According to the Seattle Times:

A divorced Olympia-area man who has converted to Judaism is fighting a court battle in Oregon to have his 12-year-old son circumcised against his ex-wife's wishes.

So far, Oregon courts have squarely sided with the father, who has custody. The man's ex-wife lives in Oregon.

So what does the boy want?

In court papers, the father claims the boy gradually concluded that he also wanted to convert to Judaism and understood that it required circumcision....

But the mother responded by going to court, saying her son told her he was afraid to defy his father but didn't want the procedure.

Now, I'm all for circumcision. I think it's great, and a great time to do it is not too long after birth. You know what a bad time to do it is? When you're TWELVE YEARS OLD!!! If this kid really wants to get circumcised, great. Let him make that choice when he's 18. Geesh.

What would happen if you were invited to dinner with Jesus? That's the question a recent movie asks. Based on a novel by David Gregory (not the David Gregory who called Imus drunk), The Perfect Stranger features Pamela Brumley as Nikki, a grouchy lawyer who doesn't get along with her family, has lost her connection to God, and wears the kind of makeup usually reserved for whores and pastor's wives.

Pamela gets an invitation to dinner at a fancy restaurant. Thinking it's a setup by her husband, she arrives only to find that her dinner date is none other than a man claiming to be Jesus Christ. And like all accurate portrayals of Jesus Christ, this one is played by a blond Caucasian.

For the next hour, Nikki and "The Stranger" sit at the table eating, drinking wine, and conversing about God, Christ, and how they relate to our real lives. I don't mean that the dinner lasts for an hour. I mean that the scene lasts for an hour. It's like the Battle of Helm's Deep without all the fighting, killing, and homo-erotic banter between Legolas and Gimli. Although both movies do end with a guy standing in a shining white robe.

The Perfect Stranger is typical Christian fare... in other words, poorly written, acted, and directed. This film has better than average (relatively speaking) production values, and a mildly intriguing plot (for the first fifteen minutes or so.) It's that hour long dinner that sends the movie into a preachy, boring tailspin from which it can't recover. If you're already a Christian, perhaps listening to Jesus talk for an hour makes for an informative, if not entertaining, experience. But until Christian filmmakers start insisting on acting, directing, and production values that are at least on par with late night Cinemax, they're going to have a hard time convincing any casual viewers to pay attention.