Then this morning I actually looked in the mirror while shaving and noticed an eyebrow hair out of place. I thought that was strange, since normally they don’t really move at all. So I touched the out of place hair, and it felt different.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the hair was more like the chest, armpit, or pube variety. I quickly tweezered it out.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that my back hair and my chest hair finally met at my shoulders, now its involving my eyebrows.

So then this evening, while brushing my teeth, I looked again… I swear the motherfucker was back! I tweezed it out again, but I’m dead sure that I’m going to wake up tomorrow with a bad case of old man creepy eyebrows.

I just wanted to post something here just in case that happened, because I swear to god I’ll bathe in depilatory cream to make that shit stop and I don’t know if I’ll survive the experience. Still, I figure there is a small chance I’ll become like the Joker in the Michael Keaton Batman movie, and have to start a life of crime.

So… Why are there protests?

That’s the interesting thing. It started with collective bargaining rights, and has moved on to a scandal with the Koch brothers, giving direct control over the most liberal state University campus to the governor, potential fraud with supreme court elections, recall elections for both parties, health care and pension scandals, school funding, wind farms, voter ID, child support collection, tax breaks for the rich, and claims of vandalism to the state capitol. Those are just the ones I remember!

I thought I’d share some of the pictures I took of Madison protests during the weekend of March 12th when 100,000 people were there. I have also included pictures of the capitol itself from three weeks later.

I’ve been to a number of the Saturday protests since this started, and went back a few weeks ago (April 2nd) mostly because I wanted to see for myself the7.5 million in damage to the building from protests… supposedly from tape damage to soft stone walls. Of course I didn’t see any at all. The damage estimates have since been lowered to more realistic numbers.

Anyway, I don’t have much to say about the protests, elections, or recalls at this time. Its still too hard to sort the fact from the rhetoric, plus I have to clean spittle off my monitor whenever I start to type about it. For now just enjoy the pictures. Or make fun of them. Or ignore them.

The pictures can be found here.

I’ve also included a few links below in case anyone needs some background:

Interesting article about how the state has become divided.
Article about potential petition fraud
The push to get legislation through before the recall elections (including Voter ID)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court recount disaster.
Breitbart tells Madison to go to Hell

Finally, I just want to say that I wish the best for people in Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and any other state where there has been a major neocon/teaparty power grab to take power away from municipalities and give it to corporations.

(Call transcript here)

My main concern at this point: Even if Walker manages to convince everyone he’s going to accept compromise, he has a line item veto that requires a 2/3 majority to overturn. He can strike individual words, phrases, or sentences to completely change the meaning of a bill. Any bill that does pass through the legislature needs to be worded very carefully.

But then, how can it get worse than its already worded? Killing the public unions and guaranteeing that employees will always get less than inflation rate raises. Eliminating the oversight of the public service commission or legislature in public power plant sales. Splitting the University of Wisconsin into two pieces, one of which will be primarily run by 11 Walker appointees. Wording that leaves a blank slate for state medicare changes, with few changes spelled out in advance and reportedly no checks and balances on how Walker can change medicare in the future.

On the bright side, at least Wisconsin governors no longer have the power to remove individual letters. The “Vanna White” veto power was removed in the early 90s. Serious changes are still possible though: The previous governor actually eliminated over 700 words from one budget and changed the distribution of funds from transportation to education. I happened to support that particular use of it, but I also understand its an example of the practice being abused.

I have to say I’m proud of all the people that have stood up for what they believe in peacefully over the last few weeks, and I fully intend on taking some time to walk among them in the coming weeks.

Man1: I love my truck. I think if I had to choose between my truck and my wife it would be hard to make up my mind.

Man 2: Really? Your wife? When is the last time your truck gave you oral?

Man 1: What is this, my anniversary?

Man 2: Oh, you’re on the once a year plan too?

Unfortunately that’s probably the most interesting thing I heard during my week long trek across the Corn Huskers state. I think I picked the right time of year to do this trip, because despite the cold I actually had a view of something besides corn. This is actually a pretty state when you can see something besides cornfields, particularly in the West where the bluffs begin poking out of the ground.

I’m sure my mind will change rapidly; I’m going back at the end of February to do it again. I may get tired of hills, cattle, and water-pumping windmills really quick

On an unrelated note, the snow in Nebraska needs to start behaving the way snow is supposed to behave. I’ve known snow in a lot of states, and it always has the decency to fall down and then maybe drift along the ground. Snow in Nebraska, however, tends to fall up, then sideways, and only occasionally down. This makes even a light snow start to turn into white-out conditions.

Yet, eat them I do. Even after coming across the horrible “Friend me” or “Text me” hearts right next to “U R Rad” or “too cool”

On a side note, I have to wonder what genius thought it would be a good idea to put “Jump 4 me” on a candy heart… In what world is that not dirty? For added lulz the ’4′ in “Jump 4 me” is normally so light that it may as well not be there.

“Pick Me” should not be read too fast either.

I’d like to formally suggest that as a form of protest the men flying over the next few months take a viagra prior to arriving at the airport. If anything is going to convince TSA management that the ‘pat-downs’ are going over the line, it will be pat downs of several hundred people with erections.

Besides, it may help you enjoy the process a little more. Of course, the next few hours after the pat down may be a little uncomfortable…

Of course, now that I know that its forbidden I really want to punish a server.

Bastards.

So… that kind of worked. But I cant cough it up. Its stuck in my throat, irritating it. It feels like the beginning of strep throat feels. I even gave up and drank a can of soda and a glass of water trying to jar it free. Out of desperation I tried a few gulps of milk, followed by a shot of whiskey.

So, now I’m bloated, a little buzzed, my throat is sore, and I’ve got crystallized cat urine in my throat.

To add insult to injury, the cat just jumped into the litterbox next to my computer room and took a raunchy shit that smelled the whole rom up. At least, I think it was raunchy. The cat litter in my throat may actually be burrowing its way up into my sinuses and affecting my sense of smell.

But on the bright side my sinuses will drain more efficiently.

I suppose I should go wash the phone off now.

Then I left town for a few weeks, and they got a picture of my house with long grass and paint scraped off.

Wouldn’t you know it… not an update since. Ever since then I’ve been obsessed with trying to make sure that the house is presentable from the street side for the next time they drive by. When I have parties I hand people instructions to my house just in the hope they don’t Google it.

So I wait patiently. Yet somehow in the back of my mind though I cant shake this feeling that there is a Google camera lurking around the corner just waiting for me to let my guard down. I’ll be waiting. Oh yes. I’ll be waiting.

I suppose I should be hoping that it turns out to be bad. After all, this man has made a living out of raping the working class and then charging them for lube. But I have to believe that his deal with Satan allows for a few more final hurrahs. Why Satan? No one could get away with being that fucking ballsy without help from a supernatural power.

So I have my own theory. I’m guessing that the cause of the discomfort was his erection finally getting too large and bursting. With news that an oil-financed judge ruled that deep water drilling had to resume I don’t think that his already-strained penis could take it and just popped. Its a good thing too… if his balls got any bigger they would have had their own gravitational field.

him: I had to ask my daughter to leave. She wasn’t helping around the house, I couldn’t afford to keep paying her insurance, and she’s had two years to find a job.

me: Yeah? How are her kids doing.

him: Oh, fine fine. The problem I’m having is that she left some of her stuff behind. I’m thinking of burning it.

me: Burning it? What did she leave behind?

him: Well, its in the freezer out on the porch.

me: Uh…

him: She finally found a doctor that would cut off her breasts, and she’s storing one of them in the freezer. She’s been mailing them around the country trying to find a doctor that will prove she had cancer.

me: One? Where is the other one?

him: It never made it back from a clinic in California. Supposedly lost in the mail.

me: Well, instead of burning it you could send it to a taxidermist and then mail it back to her.

him: What was that?

me: Boy how about that NASCAR? Did you see what Gordon did to Earnhart?

him: No… what did he do?

me: Oh, you had to be there. Also, I was just changing the subject.

him: That fucking Biffle though, let me tell you…

*shudder*

But after years of flying I have suddenly realized that I have yet to check my baggage and not get it searched. How do I know its searched? Every time the baggage is checked there is a card left inside of the suitcase saying as much. I’m not really sure how it is that my bag gets singled out every time, but I have a feeling it has something to do with saying “Awww, just two more minutes?” when getting a pat-down in an airport 5 years ago.

Anyway… during my extensive travels over the last few months I have stopped removing the cards when my baggage is inspected. They were stacking up to the point I could almost have turned them into a respectable deck of cards. But then suddenly a bunch of them disappeared, and the one on top had a date stamp on the top.

I can pretend I was doing this as a form of protest, or perhaps I was pointing out how much paper they’re wasting. But really I’m just too lazy to throw trash out when someone else puts it in my suitcase.

As far as checking my baggage goes, I have this to say: If I pay $25 to check my baggage, then I better be able to place my feet underneath the seat in front of me. Make one of those assholes that bring huge suitcases into the plane lose their legroom damnit!

Man#2: Totally! Yeah! I can build it out of some used building materials and plastic sheets I have laying around here and use this old shipping container I’m renting as a wall! That will kick ass!

Man#2: Fuck… I must not have used enough duct tape.

Man#1: I fucked your wife.

Man#2: What?

Man#1: I mean, uh… how about that local sports team?

Today’s episode brought to you by 16 inches of snow in 12 hours.

I like snow in moderation… I like lots of things in moderation. But this is a sign that the earth hates us and will do what it can to get rid of us.

By the way: Despite the over-use of duct tape that was not my carport. I would have at least reinforced the duct tape with some chicken wire and bondo.

Eventually we retreated to the wave pool to bob around for a bit before venturing to the outdoors to forage for dinner. While there, my wife pointed out a particularly large fellow that was floating in the water about 20 feet away from us. He was covered in what can only be described as fur, with each individual strand moving of its own accord, as though possessing a life of its own. It was mesmerizing.

It was at this point that my wife said “Wow, there is finally someone here that is actually hairier than you are.”

Yes, I could feel the love.

First of all, how fucked up is it that we’re all calling him Balloon Boy when he wasn’t even in the damn balloon? How is this kid going to end up being known as balloon boy his entire life? At least Baby Jessica the Well Girl was actually stuck in a well.

But the biggest reason I need everyone to stop talking about Balloon Boy is because I keep getting “Up Up and Away” by the 5th Dimension stuck in my head every time someone mentions it. In fact, I’m beginning to twitch a little every time the chorus goes through my head.

As such, I must subject you all to it as well: