Walaka Really Gives a Shirt

The week ended up with my finishing up duties at El Rancho Uno-Dos (much more involved than past weeks), braving the bridge-traffic of I-90 (scene of the snow-bound disaster which if you believed the radio reports on Wednesday rivalled the Donner Party), and having dinner with Walaka, Otis, and Dingo before they set off for Friday's Crest Guest movie--I begged off the film needing to pick up the dog from the sitter's, and seeing K safely home from a week in T-town.

It was nice to get out and see people after being sequestered in the cabin all week. While not to the point of eating my shoes, it was nice to get out and see people not associated with work and babble and eat Thai food and crunch through the snow. Noting my "Cinerama"* ball-cap (with the Christmas-gifted light-bud for walking-safety), Walaka disappeared into the loft and produced and handed over a nearly-new "Cinerama" T--the perfect accessory. I still didn't go to the movie, but Walaka really gives a shirt when it comes to his friends.

For the first time in a few days the Island Drive was not neck-cramp-inducing (though I did spin out once), retrieved the Smokester, and I actually made it all the way to our drive-way, in which the K-car was stuck half-way up. Nice to be home. As is too typical these days, I fell asleep on the couch, the cat asleep on my chest.

* The Cinerama is where I first saw my beloved "2001" the first few times (it played more than a year) and the last movie I saw there-"Casino Royale."
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Another Keith Olbermann commentary that finishes with a repetition of the changing reasoning behind the decision to invade Iraq.


I still remember the shifting reasons for the first Gulf War that ended when some Bush I hack blurted out: "Bottom Line? Jobs!" to the stunned silence of the reporters at the briefing. The impression I've been getting lately is that more and more Neo-con rats are jumping ship and only the most brain-damaged (or those with the closest ties to the oil companies--like the oil tanker SS Condoleeza Rice) are sticking to their empty guns. The nation has become so numbed by the constantly shifting sands for undertaking this mess that folks aren't taking it to the streets because they know protesting will do no good. So, they voted for a change in government. And it seems to have done no good. But there will come a straw that breaks the people's collective back. There will be some penultimate blunder from the Shifty-Eyed Moron from Austin to make folks rise up. I hope that the very least that will come out of this is a general smartening-up of the voting public--of Americans who don't abandon their principles the way a Seattleite abandons his car at the first sign of a snow-flake. That, if we can't avoid voting a frat-boy into the White House, we, at least, don't vote for the guy who all he ever did was volunteer to get the keg.


For those of you keeping track the cost of a barrel of oil stands at $52.99.

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And this was the best comic I've read this week, the past two weeks, and probably the best I've read in the last few months.

All-Star Superman #6 by Morrison, and Quitely

This entire series has been quite a lot of fun with some great story-telling, fine art and reminds one of just how good this stuff can be.

Funny. I was walking the dog the other day and a stray thought hit me -- why hadn't anyone done a series called "The Labors of Superman?" And it's mentioned here...in this comic.
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The best lines in a comic this week are from "JLA CLassified" 31. Howard Chaykin writes a showdown of Batman and Aquaman with the terrorist behind the plot. Batman goes for in for the kill (emphases are Chaykin's).

Batman: ...you murdering moral cripple. Where do these rich psycho bastards get these ideas?
Aquaman: You ask me, it's all just hubris. And anyway, aren't you a rich psycho bastard yourself, Batman? I mean that in a good way, of course.