According to this article over on Excite News, John Hall, the guy from Orleans who wrote the 70's hit Still the One has asked George Bush to stop using it.

In completely unrelated intellectual property news, I read this morning in Publishers Weekly that DC Comics is suing the Kryptonite bike lock company for infringement.

What's an idea worth? Can't you just make more? I guess I'd feel different if Dubya was playing one of my songs, or I'd gotten to name the Superman stuff.

posted by Chris at 12:09 PM Permalink

 
I have decided that the new posthumous Elliott Smith CD is so good and so important that I'd like to give a few people a free copy to help spread the word. I will provide up to 5 copies before I cut it off. It's not first come, first served, it's completely at my own arbitrary discretion, and here's how it's going to work:

Send me something that proves to my satisfaction that you are a songwriter. E-mail me an MP3 sample, send me a link to your website, or send me a tape or CD, and if I'm satisfied that you are seriously trying to make good sounds come out of something, I will ask Amazon.com to ship you a copy of From a Basement on the Hill absolutely free.

You also have to promise me that you will listen carefully to tracks 3 and 7.

My brother Kevin is ineligible because I'm getting him one for Christmas anyway, so the cat's out of Santa's bag on that one.

posted by Chris at 2:11 PM Permalink

 
I've long been a firm believer that we should truly strive for "one man (sic), one vote," but maybe this whole electoral college thing actually makes sense somehow, kinda like a good judge telling a bad jury that their verdict to hang the guy just doesn't fly.

In our local paper this morning, there was a reply to a previous letter saying, "I can't believe what's-her-name says she won't vote for Kerry because his wife told someone to 'shove it,' when we all know that Cheney told a US senator to '****' himself, and Bush himself called a reporter an 'a******.'"

Excuse me??? H-e-l-l-o-o-o, is this thing on? Is that your brain on drugs? What's the matter with you people?

If you're choosing my next president based solely on whether or not they said a word that you have to spell in asterisks, we don't need for you to vote.

No, really. I'm serious.

Even some of my favorite commentators are getting sucked into these distractions. I mean, Doonesbury this week is focusing on the bulge in Bush's jacket? Even Kerry is disappointing me by focusing all of his rhetoric on the missing 380 tons of high-power explosives. If 380 tons can suddenly turn up missing, just imagine how many other tons there must be!

But let's focus for a moment on the real issues. What about:

• Foreign Policy?
• Domestic Policy?
• Human Rights?
• The Economy?
• Health Care?
• Social Services?

Grow the **** up.

posted by Chris at 11:16 AM Permalink

 
I have posted the first example of running a tough question through the ethical presuppositions that I worked up last week: On Abortion.

posted by Chris at 9:02 PM Permalink

 
I was putting together a "Top Ten Reasons I Won't Be Voting for Bush" list, but The Nation has a great list they've compiled called 100 Facts and 1 Opinion, so I'm going to refer you there, but I'll share my #1 reason: he didn't win before!

posted by Chris at 7:12 PM Permalink

 
MoveOn PAC has set up a form to volunteer to call voters in the swing states over the weekend. I'm not sure I can do this - I'm already calling people for our local Measure V three nights a week, so I'm about phoned out, but check it out!

posted by Chris at 1:46 PM Permalink

 
I stayed up way too late last night working on writing up a new system of ethics. Yup. That's right, I'm writin' my own code of ethics. Click here to read Chapter 1.

(This is actually less than half of what I've written, but the rest isn't ready for public consumption.)

posted by Chris at 3:27 PM Permalink

 
You know how Al Franken's Stuart Smalley character always told himself, "You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it people like you?"

My inner voice keeps telling me, "You're better than that! You're smarter than that! But, doggone it, people seem to like you anyway."

posted by Chris at 1:51 PM Permalink

 
I've been waiting and wondering what happened to Last Comic Standing, and I've just learned that NBC pulled the plug and announced a winner without me! Boy, that's the way to endear your fans.

USATODAY.com - The last joke appears to be on 'Comic' fans

posted by Chris at 11:13 AM Permalink

 
For some reason, people are starting to find Asparagus Pee by searching for "Quattro™" and "5-blade razor" again, and the old link to The Onion article I think they're really looking for has long since been moved into a subscription-only archive, so as a public service, I present this link to a completely illegal copy on somebody else's site: Forget Everything, We're Doing Five Blades - The Onion.

posted by Chris at 10:45 AM Permalink

 
It occurs to me that one reason the placebo effect works so well is that it's so easy to forget that we're healing ourselves amazingly well all of the time.

posted by Chris at 8:49 PM Permalink

 
I don't want to say that I'm feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff I need to get done, but...

You know you're in trouble when you find yourself prioritizing your life in terms of what you can least afford to neglect, and weighing consequences instead of rewards.

posted by Chris at 7:05 PM Permalink

 
There are several major wildfires blazing in Northern California this week. Yesterday and today, there has been soot and ashes on the parked cars, it smells like a campfire, looks like a fog, and the sun has been bright orange. It's very freaky looking, and breathing is not fun.

But here's what I'd like to know. There's so much smoke I can barely see across the street, so why aren't the smoke alarms all going off?

Usually, if we're cooking a pizza in the oven and a half a piece of sausage rolls off, I have to pull the battery in our smoke detector - shouldn't it work just as well if the whole neighborhood were on fire? Another of life's little mysteries, unsolved.

posted by Chris at 4:45 PM Permalink

 
Critical Section used to be a daily read for me, but I was sure getting tired of checking when Ole took a four month hiatus from blogging. Asparagus Pee welcomes him back to the fold, and here's a link to some interesting comments he just wrote up on Nevil Schute inspired thoughts on voting: Critical Section - In the Wet.

I love the suggestion that they should have test questions on the ballot propositions, and you'd have to pass the test for your vote to count.

posted by Chris at 11:21 AM Permalink

 
This entry is just to make sure that Google will find a new website I've set up for a local school ballot initiative. It's over at Measure V Blog, and it's only of interest to people who live in the Auburn Union Elementary School District (AUESD). See how I got all those keywords in there?

This is the logo created for the committee by The Lady Janet and I like it a lot. I really like some of these new style sheets they've got over on Blogger these days too.

posted by Chris at 7:02 PM Permalink

 
Tonight I tried white asparagus for the first time, and I won't tell you what it looked like, but I will tell you that chlorophyl is not the smell ingredient. Everything came out just fine, in other words.

For a good laugh, here's how they pack white asparagus.

posted by Chris at 1:27 AM Permalink

 
Hats off to Brian Wilson for finally putting together the Smile package. I've listened to some of this, and honestly, it's a little rough by Beach Boy standards, but I've decided that it's good stuff, and I support Brian 100% in this, so doggoneit, I'm buying one and doing my Asparagus Pee best to help make it the best selling album of the year, and I encourage you to do the same.

I would love to hear what this would sound like if he'd had the support of the band back in the day, or even now. Thanks, Brian.

posted by Chris at 11:45 PM Permalink

 
We were watching the debate this week between Bush and Kerry... in case you missed it, Kerry won.

Again.

There was a point in the debate where Kerry said, "I led the fight to put 100,000 cops on the streets of America."

To this, The Lady Janet made the suggestion, "Wouldn't they be better off in police cars?"

(And you wonder why I love this woman?)

posted by Chris at 11:35 PM Permalink

 
Surprised today to find a new site at the top of a search on "Asparagus Pee." Turns out there's actually somebody trying to sell merchandise with this logo and a couple of others. Hey, more power to 'em, right? Get your Asparagus Pee T-shirts, coasters, and what not right here!

NOTE: Asparagus Pee, Gooblek & Other Neat Stuff is not affiliated with "The Pure Breed Revolution" and neither endorses nor discourages their efforts. Image at left used without permission, but I'm helping their Pagerank™ a whole bunch. And why didn't I do this first?

posted by Chris at 11:39 AM Permalink

 
So I'm eating my bag of generic store-brand BBQ chips tonight, and it's an especially good extra-red-salty batch, but I turn the bag around, and I swear to god it said, "Try and enjoy our other delicious snacks," like, "Come on, I dare ya." (Click the pic for the big picture.) Guess it's the perfect real-life example of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

In other completely unrelated business, here's a picture update of the wild turkeys that I see on my morning walk – I wasn't satisfied with my Fujicam pics, so I took a real camera and got it developed.

For my last exhibit, I just got home a couple of hours ago from a Candidates' Night for the school board, and it was hard – either I didn't know there was going to be a quiz, or the dog ate my homework. Either way, here's a quick jpeg showing my name on the local ballot with Dubya. I'm honored. No, really.

posted by Chris at 11:23 PM Permalink