Not much time today. Had to thwart a puppy jail break. Looks like I’ll be doing some fence repairs this weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s sad that Whitney Houston passed out in the bathtub and drowned. I guess Kevin Costner let her down, big time. But from all the news coverage, you’d think she was Gandhi or something. She certainly had a nice voice, but she never should have gotten hooked up with Bobby Brown (general rule of thumb: don’t get involved with somebody who is the subject of a Zappa song). Nothing to do now but eagerly await the toxicology reports, and then wait for the movie.

Today’s Wednesday, right? I’ve kind of lost track, here. I would be quite happy to learn that it’s actually Thursday, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t. Granny will be home refereeing between the extremely unhappy Fritz and the puppies. Unfortunately, it’s the only day she has off this week. Hopefully everybody will survive.

I might say that it sucks to have to go back to work today and leave the puppies. But I actually need the rest, so I’m kind of looking forward to it. Between trying to take everybody outside to play (and poop and pee) and trying to keep Fritz from killing one of them (things are still a little tense when we’re all inside, and the cats, well, they are definitely not happy with the new situation. I’m just hoping that the puppy containment area will hold them. Otherwise, I shudder to think what I’ll come home to tonight.

We had wanted to get Fritz a puppy of his own to play with, but we didn’t want to subject Siggy to the trauma of a puppy, so we held off. Until yesterday, that is. No one dog could replace Siggy. So we got two (they don’t replace him either, of course). I feel kind of disloyal to the memory of Siggy, but these guys (well, one guy, one gal) are awfully cute. Sadly, Fritz doesn’t seem to like them one bit.

But, anyway, I hate to subject you to puppy pictures, but here are Peggy and Bud.

Winter has come back to these parts a little bit. It’s only about 15°, and there’s a light, but steady snow. In fact, we may get a foot by tomorrow morning. That’s really not much of a big deal, and it makes everything look very pretty. I’ll probably even get to plow the driveway. Or take a nap. Could go either way.

This week has been a crappy one, critter-wise. Yesterday, my sister lost one of her cats. He was pretty ancient (over 20, so he goes back to my parents. Now we have no critters left that knew them), but that doesn’t make it any easier, of course. He was more or less blind, but his sniffer still worked good. Lately, he spent most of his time on his memory foam pillow in front of the pellet stove, occasionally taking a swipe at the other cat if she was dumb enough to get close (not so with the dogs; he loved them all, and they’d routinely slurp him). I’m really hoping that a period of happiness will now settle in. Oh well, time to clean out the garage or something.

I guess everybody saw that the FBI for some reason released its file on Steve Jobs (I didn’t catch if that was the result of a FOIA request or something, but I don’t really see the point). Apparently, he was kind of a self-absorbed dick. Gee, what a shock. I’m glad I never had to pursue a career with the feds and get a security clearance, because I really wouldn’t want to some day read what the people they spoke with had to say about me. I don’t think anybody would say I was a amoral liar or anything, but there may have been a wee bit of both licit and illicit substance abuse in my past. Not saying there is, mind you. Just that the possibility exists (I’m a little fuzzy on the events that transpired between, say, 1978 and 1987. Give or take. And maybe 1991 to 1998).

Rather frequently, the lo-cal morning news will feature some high school or another that’s putting on one of the standard musicals that every freakin’ high school puts on, and then will broadcast them doing a number from the show live, right there on your teevee.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done my high school musical penance (not to mention band, jazz band, and chorus concerts), and see no reason why I should be subjected to this shit now (especially in the morning). They get my goddamn taxes – is this really necessary?

Speaking of schools, by now you’ve certainly heard of this rather disgusting case of child abuse at the Miramonte Elementary School. As I understand it, the school district had wind of this for, like, a year, and they allowed this guy to keep teaching there while they investigated it. Then there were accusations about a coupe of other teachers there. And now, in the wake of a wee bit of criticism over that, school administrators have said, “fuck it” and fired everybody. Now, I’m all for firing child abusers and putting them in jail, but this strikes me as a slight overreaction.

I haven’t really been paying attention, though, so perhaps there are more facts and a rationale that I’m not aware of. But if you start firing the entire staff at every school, church, and company in the country every time you find a pervert on the payroll, all of us will be out of a job pretty quick (not to mention the government will have to shut down and the Supreme Court will have to close its doors). I mean, let’s face it, perverts are running rampant out there. Just look at the frothy mixture of candidates for the GOP nomination.

Speaking of perverts, why are people so eager to kiss Catholic ass? I mean, real Christians hate Catholics (even more than they hate Mormons), and consider it a cult. Isn’t it odd that we’ve gone from fearing that the Pope would control the US Government if Kennedy got elected, to, well, demanding that the Pope be allowed to control the US Government because Obama’s been elected?

Four words of advice to Obama and the Democrats:

Fuck the Catholic Church (just make sure you’re using birth control).

I can’t wait for CEOs around the country to claim they’ve seen the light and are converting to Christian Science, and it would be infringing on their religious freedom to make them pay for any health insurance.

So I’m watching the news this morning, and on comes a commercial for PACE CNY. PACE is for Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (personally, I think that’s stretching it a but I guess POAICE doesn’t have much of a ring to it). Anyhow, they showed the requisite old people on the short bus, old people on the wheelchair ramp, old people playing canasta or whatever, and then they say, “…taking care of the elderly 55 and over.” :omg:

OK. Just fucking shoot me now.

Did you hear the most important news of the day? Get ready. Sit down. Here it comes….

Adele is gonna sing again! Yes, that’s right. Adele will sing. Adele. Wait. What? Who?

OK, I know I’m old and out of touch and she’s probably really great. And there was something about “Simon,” which I can only assume is that jackass from the other stupid show. Or something.

Whereas this has been a shitty week, I decided to put a premature end to it, and take today off. I saw my Friday, and then raised it a Monday. So it’s a 4-day weekend for me. This is good, because my wife has been off all week (but has to go in today), and has been able to keep poor confused Fritz company, and I’ll be able to hang with him today. Not that I’m all that much fun for him. He needs a puppy. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.

So it appears that Republicans are going to force a fight over the requirement that employers cover contraception as part of their insurance plans. This is rather curious, as most people (other than the truly crazy, “every sperm is sacred” crowd) are on board with this. The Republicans are, predictably, framing this provision as “an attack on religious freedom,” which is pretty stupid, considering nobody will be forced to use contraception, and, instead, employees who don’t want to breed irresponsibly will have their religious freedoms attacked – all for the crime of working at, say, a Catholic hospital or something. Assuming the Obama Administration isn’t stupid enough to pre-cave on this (a huge assumption, given its previous track record), I think this will turn out to be a real bummer for the GOP – and not a fight that will do them any good in the long run.

Bad news, homos, heathens, and perverts: Rick Santorum stormed through the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and took the non-binding, what the fuck’s the point, Missouri primary. Better make a piacular (today’s word of the day) sacrifice and change your ways, lest the frothy fury of President Santorum rain down upon you. And nobody wants that.

It’s not all good news for the righteous, though. Yesterday, the godless 9th Circuit struck down California’s Prop 8, spouting some kind of cockamamie drivel about people having the right to marry whoever the hell they want. Balderdash, I say. Don’t fret, though. This will end up at the Supreme Court, where Saint Thomas Scalius and his hooded colleagues are sure to set things right.

It’s every-other Wednesday meeting day but, alas, the stupid meeting has been cancelled. It was cancelled last time around, too. I just don’t think this guy is taking this thing seriously anymore. Or perhaps he’s realized it’s a pointless time waster.

Nah, can’t be that.

Oh my gosh, the reviews are in for Madonna’s SB halftime show, and everybody agrees she was FABULOUS! I didn’t actually see her performance, but it’s of course impossible to miss clips of it, no matter how hard you try. I realize I don’t exactly represent mainstream America, but I thought it was, well, stupid. And crappy. And from what I could tell, she wasn’t actually singing. So I think the NFL could have saved itself a lot of money and had the Gay Men’s Chorus of LA dance around a cardboard cutout of her while they played a couple of mp3s. But, hey, to each his or her own.

It was nice to see Boston lose (though Gisele wasn’t too happy; perhaps they ought to hire her to coach the Patriots’ wide receivers next season). And of course it makes it a bit more likely that Tom Coughlin will join his teammates Floyd Little and Larry Csonka in the Hall of Fame some day. So that’s good.

Have you ever seen the stupid “Northern” toilet paper commercial. Well, I need to be more specific, because the ones with the bears are really stupid and strange. I mean, maybe my house was atypical, but my mom never inspected my ass for toilet paper residue.

But they have another one, with several women starting out with one saying it’s “time to get real about what goes on in the bathroom,” and another that says I should think about “what I want” from my toilet paper, and it’s all about “being clean” or some such shit (so to speak).

Um. I think that what I want from my TP is pretty straightforward – and not really brand specific (though I will admit that some are better than others). Basically, I just want something that my fingers won’t poke through (and won’t give me paper cuts). And if you’re using toilet paper to “get clean” then you need some basic hygiene lessons.

Yesterday was one of the most Monday-est of Mondays I’ve ever suffered through. I think work lasted about 63 hours. It was a good one to get out of the way. Hopefully today will be a little bit better.