Pimp Tax!

This is greatness.

According to CNN:
The Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning approved a bill sponsored by committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, authorizing at least $2 million toward the establishment of an office in the IRS criminal investigation unit to prosecute unlawful sex workers for violations of tax laws.

For example, if a trafficker [read: pimp] has failed to file W-2s for five women (employees), the maximum penalty would be 10 years in prison per failure to file, a total of 50 years.

What is it about Iowa that makes its senators so crazy? Why he gots ta be a playa hata?

In the immortal words of ODB and Kellis:

hey, dirty,
baby I got ur money
don't u worry,
I say hey
baby I got ur money

(N.B.: This is the official spelling of the lyrics, not my own mangling)

My Housemates Have Too Much Mustard

Ok, so the communal fridge is on the small side. The smallness in size is complicated by the amount of crap shoved into it. Case in point, we have 9 jars of mustard in said fridge. This is a picture of our actual mustard horde. 5 of the mustards are the spicy brown variety. For mathletes, that means 5 out of 9 are the same thing.

Current housemate, aka Aquaman, and I are cramming all our crap onto one small shelf. Our refridgerator is like a massive game of Jenga.

I may take this weekend to make a motion to consolidate our ridiculous mustard cache.

Dirty Limerick

Tonight I had dinner with KN at our favorite Brazillian restaurant (sadly the hot Brazillian waiter was not in attendance) where the drinks are mighty. I haven't seen KN in a few weeks due to bar (bar exam not drinky bar) issues, so tonight we finally got caught up. All this to say my better judgment has been thrown to the wind.

Accepting Grant Miller's challenge to write a joke in response to the Rush Limbaugh/viagra scandal, I have composed a dirty limerick that I am fairly proud of, and so, I thought I should post it instead of just wasting it on someone else's site. It is as follows:


There once was a clown on the radio

Who hated a President for fellacio

Prez's cigar was quite stiff

which created the rift

because the clown can only make innuendo.


Ok, look, except for excessive cursing, I do not come up with my own dirty jokes. Give me points for this one.

Other Than Global Warming, A Few More Sure Signs of the Apocalypse

1) Roger Ebert has looked into the "deadlights" of the clown from It, and now writes the reviews of a madman.

Seriously. He actually gave 3 stars to The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift. I saw this movie because I love bad movies. Scan: this is a bad movie. A really bad movie.

Ebert gives the film points for the little bits of Japanese culture it references. Are you kidding me, Ebert? For the love of God, it's set in Tokyo. This is the sort of film that, if you participated in its creation, really should make you start to question your life choices. I think the Pajiba review really describes this horror best. I do however like Lucas Black, the charming hick-boy from Sling Blade, American Gothic, and The X-Files who stars in the film. As we say in the South,"he's all grow'd up now. "

Alas, Ebert is the man to whom I turned for his eloquent defense of The Dreamers and Bad Education, when they were slapped with ridiculous NC-17 ratings by the MPAA. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

If this were Ebert's only mis-step, I might let it slide. But, alas, there is more. And it is worse. He writes his review of Garfield:A Tale of Two Kitties in the first person, as though he were Garfield. I shit you not. The title of this film alone no doubt has Charles Dickens spinning in his grave as being the most flagrant misuse of his work since the inevitable porn, A Tale of Two Titties.

The writers of the Garfield movie should flogged as even *I* won't see that piece of tripe. Ebert should be flogged twice and then started on a healthy dose of anti-psychotics.

2) RoboCop teaches Roman History at Syracuse University

This is for real. I was innocently watching a History Channel documentary on Roman engineering and none other than RoboCop aka Peter Weller was a featured commentator. Apparently he has a masters in Roman and Renaissance art, but I hardly think that makes him the most qualified person to participate in this documentary, mainly because the part of the doc I saw he sounded like a gibbering idiot.

I had a personal encounter with Peter Weller once. He was on my plane when I went to Italy for the dig program. When we landed, apparently, there was no one with a limo and a sign with his name on it there to greet him, so he just kept wandering around the airport for over an hour.

Also, as I was leaving the plane I stole his boarding pass, which he had dropped. I was excited because I thought he was James Woods.


3) Cats are now genetically engineered not to bother my allergies

This is just plain freaky. Cats and I have always had a tenuous peace. If I pet them, my eyes will begin to itch and eventually swell shut, my nose will run, and my skin will turn blotchy. Although often an inconvenience because most of my friends have cats, my allergies have also saved me from ever having to cat-sit. They have also saved me from ever turning into a crazy cat lady (i.e. the nutty old lady who has a dozen or so cats running around her house).

Goodbye allergies, hello crazy cat lady!


I guess for once the Christian Right/Ann Coulter is right: we should pretend like the Earth has a fever for the flavor of fossil fuels, for the end is surely nigh.

This One is For the Gents

So Father's Day and the fact that a number of my female friends have re-entered the dating pool has got me thinking. My lady friends have been talking about their dates, both good and bad, so I thought perhaps I'd pass on the wisdom we've gleaned from these encounters (similar to an entry I wrote for the ladies a while back), in the hopes that you might learn from our experiences.

1) Be able to make a plan.
(i.e. plan the date)

Nothing is sexier than a guy who can make, and subsequently execute, a plan for an evening out. Even women who like to plan things often like the reins taken out of their hands and are glad to just go along for the ride. In fact, I don't think I've ever met a girl who didn't find it incredibly sexy for a guy to plan the outing as opposed to one of those "I don't know, what do you want to do" conversations.

For math oriented men, let me explain it this way:
Planning = Effort. Effort = Good. Man + Effort = Happy Girl because girls like effort.

This doesn't mean you have to be super anal retentive or completely change your personality-- keep in mind we're talking about planning a few discrete evenings here, not plotting the Norman Conquest. In essence, I'm saying take five extra minutes before you call to have some activites in mind, a few restaurants to chose from, and the day and time you'd like to get together.

To be really successful might require a little recon on your part -- checking out some places so you know if they're good, if you'll be able to get a table or have to wait, or if you'll be able to hear each other can also contribute to your overall good time.


2) It really is the little things.

Sure, there are girls who are impressed by nothing but your car, bank account balance, job, etc. (and if those are the girls you like, then nothing I have to say is for you) but for the rest, it's all about the details. This one is a little bit harder to describe, but all I can say is that girls like little things that prove that you are considerate and making an effort (because as I've already mentioned, girls really like effort).

Case in point, I once went to a dance (yes, way back in high school) with a friend of mine who was old-school polite- he held the door, opened the car door, and best of all did this thing where he would put his hand on the small of your back to kind of steer you in the right direction when walking. It was incredibly charming, but sadly I've never dated a boy with a similar technique, although most of the girls I know are equally charmed by this sort of behavior despite being self-described feminists.

For another friend of mine, her boyfriend would leave her encouraging notes in her study cubicle in the library. And for another friend, her bf would often get her a book or DVD that he knew she would like when he went to the half-price store. We're not talking spending a lot of money, or doing something earth shattering, but girls are constantly excited by small examples of random consideration and politeness.

I'm also not saying that any one technique mentioned above is the right thing for you. It should definitely be an individual expression, it's just that I've noticed its the couples that engage in little politenesses for each other that tend to stay together.


3) Don't f-up the holidays.

Granted, this one is for much further down the ol' relationship road, but there are 4 days of the year your girl owns you:

1) her b-day

2) Valentine's day

3) Christmas/Hanukah

4) New Year's Eve/Day

and maybe someday add...
5) Your Anniversary

Accept it. The other 361 days you can be a jerk, but on these 4 you need to have a plan (see 1). It's just 4 days for the love of god. If you can't remember her birthday get a datebook, a blackbury, or pay a homeless person to hunt you down and remind you. Do whatever it takes, but get with the program.

And, yes, for three of those four holidays you also have to get a present. Some guys have the knack for getting good gifts, some don't. If you don't, finding out what she'd like by just asking her is always a good idea, especially for her birthday and Christmas. You can also consult with a friend of hers if you are extra-enterprising. For Valentine's day you may be able to get away with flowers, especially if you have them sent to her at work.

Please note, flowers can be a bit tricky though. Some girls like flowers (pretty, thoughtful), some don't (stinky, death). Known which type of girl your girl is. If your girl is a flower girl, she probably also has a favorite flower, which can make your job even easier. Personally, I like blue hydrangeas best (which can be hard to find, so a guy who gets these earns bonus points), but if you purchase carnations, you are dead to me. If you don't know her favorite flower, a nice mixed bouqet is always a good choice. Favor simplicty over super ornate, and don't be overly cheap (e.g. no carnations).
_______________
Please gents, take note that this has only been written in the spirit of giving you a few pointers that will help you impress the ladies no matter your income level. I certainly don't mean to imply that all guys out there are jerks, but by the same token even some nice guys might want to know these 3 points.

Then again in the world population, there are 1.03 women for every man. Meaning for those of you who wish to remain a skeeze ball, there's a mail order bride of your shallow dreams out there somewhere.

I Should Have Been A Pair Of Ragged Claws Scuttling Across the Floors….*

Two weeks ago I lost a contact in the shower. Since they’re disposable, no big whoop, but I’ve been too lazy to put new contacts in and have been wearing my glasses. Everyone’s been telling me that I look “cute” in them, which only reinforced my laziness in terms of digging up a replacement pair of contacts.

However, the downside of wearing glasses logically means there are times when I can’t see. One example: when I’m in the shower. This morning when I stepped out of the shower, I saw a blurred, flurry of movement along the bottom of the sink cabinet.

At first I thought that it was merely water in my eye, or a figment of my imagination. But the vigorous movement reappeared, and I mentally recognized it as the scurry of insect legs even though I could not make out the particular insect as I was blind and dripping.

It did of course prove to be a roach. I find nothing so terrifying as the scuttle of a cockroach. It is their ability to crawl into any and everything that I find so insidious.

Cockroaches + vulnerable shower time = me in an especially bad mood.

A few days ago, Housemate was making fun of my fear until he heard me explaining to KN how one morning as I was getting ready for work (I think this was the summer after my freshman year of college) I got up and went into the bathroom and a medium sized roach hopped out my hair into the sink. That pretty much did me in, and even Housemate had to recognize the trauma of the episode.

There seems to be a theme in my family of having to confront what one fears. My mother is terrified of snakes. One morning when she came downstairs while the rest of the house was asleep she found a snake curled up in front of the dishwasher. My mom let out a blood curdling yell and ran off and by the time my father was on the scene, the snake had slunk off to wherever it had been hiding. This episode necessitated two things: 1) my mother wore my tall riding boots around the house for about two weeks and 2) a “snake guy” had to be brought out to the house. Snake guy’s purpose was, obviously, to find the snake. He checked out our TV speakers as he said the snakes like to hang out in there for the vibrations (snakes don’t have ears remember), ditto with the dishwasher. But snake guy failed and Mom was not happy. A few months later when she was cleaning out my sister’s art studio she came across a snakeskin shed on top of a stack of paintings. Needless to say, she was completely freaked out. Sis thought it was cool.

I was equally freaked out this morning as was I standing in the shower, the creature between myself and the door. It is worse when you can’t really see, you can only make out that a skittering blob is coming closer.

I grabbed my robe, wrapped it hastily around me and lept over the blob, snagged my glasses off the counter and headed for the bedroom where I keep the insect spray. I can’t bear to squish the creatures, no, that’s too horrifying. I can only chemically annihilate them. If they made household napalm, I would be the sort of person to use it.

So the creature is dead, and there are now 2 roach carcasses in our house which I have to dispose of, but have not yet worked up the courage to deal with them. Why can these creatures not plague Housemate? I may insist that we switch showers and we’ll see how he likes it. Needless to say, from now on, glasses no, contacts yes.

To be more brave, I keep trying to envision each cockroach as Gregor Samsa (from The Metamorphosis), who I always felt so sorry for. “Poor Gregor,” I’ll say now when I kill them, “your family didn’t love you and neither do I.”


*From “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Elliot

A Sweet Little Love Story

As today was Father's day I had lunch with my folks, and after eating together we went shopping in a little town outside of Austin. We visited a pottery shop that had a very nice woman at the counter, who it turned out, was the potter.

I noticed that she was wearing a lovely silver repousse bracelet. I complimented her on it, and she smiled and actually blushed.

She said that on her first date with her husband he had brought her the bracelet. When he gave it to her he said "This belonged to my Mother. She was an artist like you and much loved and I think you should have it."

She said she told him later that he took a big risk giving her the bracelet. His response was "Naw, I knew you were my girl."

She was still blushing and smiling when she admitted that she rarely took the bracelet off.

I would expect this from a newlywed, but she mentioned that they had a 16 year old daughter so they had clearly been married for some time.

Yes, secretly I am a sap.

Q. When Is A Bike Ride Like the Oregon Trail? A. When You Are Completely M/F Lost.

KN and I decided over memorial day weekend that we would bike the ten mile loop around the lake. Earlier this semester I would normally ride about 10 miles, so even though I'm currently woefully out of shape, it didn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility. Like complete fools KN and I set out full of hope and optimism, only to be crushed under the harsh heel of reality.

The first 5 miles or so went well. We were humming, or rather, puffing along when the trail dropped off into a park full of kids playing little league, and for the life of us we couldn't find where the trail picked back up.

A boy and girl rode by and we asked them if they knew where the trail was. The girl told us to follow her, which required biking down some alleys to some magic porthole where the trail reappeared. We followed the girl a ways and she assured us she was "going way slow".

"Way slow" turned out to be muy faster than KN and I could muster so we told her to go ahead. She gave us directions for the other "tricky part" and then she vanished like an apparition that leads you into the forest to die.

KN and I, now moving a bit slower, continued along the trail until it dumped us out in a taqueria parking lot in el barrio. Most of the trail is scenic and beautiful along the "lake" (which is really just the dammed up Colorado River); taqueria parking lot is scenic in a different sense. We were not alarmed as there was a runner ahead of us who ran up this enormous hill so we knew what general direction to head. At this point KN and I got off our bikes as the hill was too steep, or rather, we/I was too out of shape to ride up it.

When we crested the hill we found ourselves on I-35 and there was not another person in sight. All we saw was a mile marker that read 8 and 1/2, but it gave no other information. We were ecstatic to see the marker as that meant we must be close to the end of the ten mile loop; we were less ecstatic to realize we didn't know where the hell the trail was so we could ride the last mile-and-a-half.

We rode across I-35: nada. We started riding up and down the access rode -- nothing there either. We were now out of water, had been out biking for at least an hour and a half, and since it was around 3pm it was muy hot. I admit I was getting a touch panicky.

As we rode down one side of the access rode, we passed a cross (clearly for someone killed in a car accident) that said "Anthony." For those of you who've played The Oregon Trail perhaps this will have the same significance for you that it had for me.

The Oregon Trail is a game where you play a pioneer heading west on the trail and you have to hunt game and what not to stay alive. However, half the time you drown, run out of food, or get dysentery. Invariably in the game you'll come across grave stones of others who "died" on the trail. Usually your character dies promptly after running across these, and once I saw the Anthony cross I began to feel even more apprehensive.

KN and I were trying to find someone to get directions from, but only panhandlers were on the road. About this time KN started noticing drug paraphenalia on the ground and said "hey, is this a crack vial?" At one point she noticed something strange on the ground. She picked up an object which turned out to be a very attractive glass hash pipe. As neither of us had any money, I told her we should probably take it in case we needed to barter our way out of this situation. In the Oregon Trail, one would often have to barter with an Indian to show you a shallow place in the river to cross.

About this time, KN saw another biker at the intersection. She waved to him to get his attention, and he cheerfully waved back a greeting. I wanted to shout "That was a wave of distress you nimrod!" but it's not like he would have heard me. Not about to lose our only hope, KN then rode through traffic like she was Evil Kneivel to get directions from oblivious biker man before he could speed away.

It turned out that apparently we needed to ride about a mile away from 1-35 to catch the trail again, but we would again cut through some shady parking lots. Um, how about a trail marker? An arrow? Hell, an Indian guide?

We found the trail again and came to a bridge. We stopped to look at a map posted near the bridge (which would have been ever so helpful about a mile ago). We did not know which bridge on the map corresponded to our location as there was no helpful "you are here" indicator. Being tired, dehydrated, and irritated I didn't feel much like figuring it out. KN saw an old man and asked him how to get back to where we parked. He told us to ride over the bridge, catch the trail on the other side, and all would be well.

I did not feel like riding across the bridge. If this were the Oregon Trail, we could just caulk the wagon and float it across. The old man ran away and KN said "If I'd known we were going to need a Jedi to guide us, I'm not sure I would have done this."

Word KN, word.

We rode across the bridge, only to see a bunch of stairs leading down to the trail. At this point I just felt like somebody was fucking with me. Stairs?! You have to be kidding. We rode along the sidewalk about 25 feet above the trail, but afraid of getting lost again, we finally decided to walk, or more appropriately, skid down the hill which was like a 60 degree angle.

The last few miles are a haze, hallucinated blur. When we finally returned to where we had parked the car, I think we had been out for about 3 hours total. Being starving/dehydrated we went to Kirby Lane to celebrate our return to civilization. Our waiter asked us if we had been in a bike race.

"Not exactly, but we did manage to ride a ten mile loop in fifteen miles," I explained.

This week KN and I decided to undertake an activity we are both better at: drinkin'.

SPAMmetry

The Spam filter on my Gmail account is wonderful. It filters all of the spam into one separate folder that gets cleaned out every 30 days. Sometimes I like to peruse this folder, just to see what I'm missing. As I was reading over the subject lines the other day, I realized that much of the randomly generated text has a poetic ring, a la Magnetic Poetry, or William Carlos Williams.

Please, enjoy the following poem I've written with my spam, entitled "Experimentation Boil."
___________________________
Experimentation Boil

Orgy architecture, quietly brain
presentable

oblivious perseverance
social
remedial

distant savage, comparison over
famed
majesty

brisk overtone, grungy sweltering
soft-pedal

shroud teenaged, inflamed sacrosanct
freeze
cheap

periodically irritating.

by Laaw-yuhr, Maurice Morton, Frida Cruz, Herbert Houston, Sophy Kidd, Micky Shafer, Rasmus Chavez, Liz Oconnor, Bessie Mccall, Hester Obrien, Gil Vinson, Harriet Butler, Emmanuel Thornton, Dannie Greene, Nathan Espinosa, Andromache Morris, Oscar Castillo, Harold Field, Hadrian Bender, and Edwin Todd.

You know, I find little difference between my poem and this one by William Carlos Williams:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

If you can't tell, I hate William Carlos Williams.

An Apology to Grant Miller & Two Random Shout Outs

We here at AISL would like to issue an apology to Grant Miller who was promised a link. He in turn promised us a pony.

Although it is doubtful the pony will materialize, he did link to AISL. I would like to reciprocate, however, when EZ and I initially set up this page, we for some reason chose not to enable sidebar links. Since then I have tried to put the side bar into the actual html text, but I am a ninny and keep ending up with links in random places (e.g. under the title). So until that's all worked out this will have to suffice.






AISL would also like to give a shout out to our new friend Nerd Elite (www.nerdelite.com). You can easily while away some billable hours on this site.

I especially enjoy the Yorkville comic strip - I recommend you read it from the beginning. For interactive fun, check out "Video Resume." You can support Nerd Elite through t-shirt sales.




Lastly, click if you want to see John Stewart give the gay marriage amendment the smackdown against Bill Bennett

House Mate Faux Pas: The Capital of France is "F"

So currently I live in a house with anywhere from 1 to 5 boys. As law students, they all have various jobs out of the city at the moment so the house is empty except for myself and one other temporary tenant.

Other housemate and I had a class together for the semester that I visited Austin, and we get along pretty well. But as any two people who know each other only through class and a few social occassions, we don't know each other as cohabitators, so we're still at that kind of awkward level of "yes you are cool and we get along, but I don't know all your weird habits."

Case in point, housemate and I were just hanging out the other morning watching TV and he announces "Well, I'm going to go visit my grandmother." In my mind I'm thinking that that's random, but I am excited as this meant I would have the afternoon to watch girl TV (i.e. anything that is not sports) and do other assorted girl things.

I decided to combine three girl activities by watching a movie, sending some email, and putting on my mint-julep-green-clay-pore-shrinking face mask. An hour and a half after housemate left, I am happily sitting on the couch in a black t-shirt and yoga pants, computer in lap, green mask shrinking my pores when I hear the downstairs door unlock.

Shit.

Panic officially sets in. Housemate is going to see me in the green face mask! There is nowhere to hide. The upstairs with the TV is sort of loft-y with an open kitchen/living room area and then bedrooms off of that area. Housemate lives in the upstairs bedroom and bath, I have the downstairs.

I leap off the couch like I'm on fire, clutching my computer to my chest. I go lurk in the kitchen area thinking Housemate might just walk by and go into his room without seeing me. Please God, let him just go to his room.

But oh no, housemate marches right into the kitchen to say "Hey" and then sees my hideous green face. And I shout at him "You can't laugh," to which he of course laughs and I bolt past him down the stairs to go scrub my face in the privacy of my bathroom.

Note to self: girlie stuff must be contained to own room/bathroom. And seriously, who goes to visit their grandma for just an hour and a half?
______________________________________________________

Saturday night after returning from dinner with friends, I plopped down to watch some more TV with Housemate. After a bit he says that he is going to get up early tomorrow so he's going to bed and relinquishes TV control to me. I flip to the rerun of SNL to see who's on and then flip over to PBS which is showing "The Vicar of Dibley," one of my all-time favorite Brit comedies (following The Office).

In this particular epside, the village dumb dumb is trying to win the village quiz (like trivial pursuit) against the village snob (and dumb dumb's soon to be father-in-law). Idiot girl is the best friend of the lady vicar and wants the vicar to help her prepare for the quiz. The conversation goes something like this:

Idiot-girl: Go on, ask me a question. I'm ready for anything
Vicar: Ok, what's the capitol of France?
Idiot-girl: "F", yes "F" is the capitol of France.

And for some reason, this strikes me as the funniest thing in the universe. I start laughing uncontrollably and nearly fall off the couch. Housemate comes into the kitchen for a drink and says "What's so funny? I didn't quite catch that..." So I repeat the joke, twice, and am laughing so hard that I am out of breath. Housemate does not laugh and futhermore, looks at me like I am possessed.

What can I say? I know how to impress.

My Dad Sends The Best Emails Part II

Rabbit and Laaw-yuhr:*
(*notice how egalitarian my father is -last time my name was first, this time my sister's is first)

On Saturday when we were working in the garage, one little baby wren was still in the nest, and one was flittering around the garage. The mother and father wrens were in and out with bugs and grubs.

Then, on Sunday and Monday, it was quiet. And when I looked into the nest today, the little one was gone. I guess they both were just about big enough to leave.

At any rate, here is a photo of the nest in the Sonic box.

DAD

My Dad Sends The Best Emails

This is the email
my Dad sent to me
and my sister yesterday:

____________________

Laaw-yuhr and Rabbit,

We have wrens.

In the garage.

In a nest made of leaves in a cardboard drink caddy from Sonic.

It is on top of the clothes dryer.

One baby is old enough to be out of the nest, and it hops and flies around the garage.

The other one is still in the nest.

The parents slip under the door where there is a little crack due to the foundation settling.

They bring bugs every few minutes.

There is a lot of chirping.

Just though you would like to know of the excitement at the house.

DAD

Have IPod, Will Sing

I am now officially dangerous. Now that I have my IPod up and running, I am no longer limited to singing at the top of my lungs to my music just in the car.

Now, I can sing, horribly, tunelessly anywhere.

As I was doing laundry the other day my housemate snuck up on me and goes "Ah, singing are we?"

I was totally busted and apologized, I but mentioned there would probably be more where that came from. Housemate chuckled and assured me it didn't bother him.

But with IPod I would probably not have noticed/talked to housemate and kept right on singing. Singing full force along with IPod might be prove to be far more annoying to housemate than softly singing while shuffling around.

It is a terrible shame that I got this for Christmas and it is just now that I've had a chance to sit down, get the software working, and upload my CD collection. Pathetic.

Oh IPod, how did I ever live without you?

Please, don't ever break. Or get lost.