Ha! Alan sent me a URL that is quite amusing: Just go here. Kind of tasteless, but anything having to do with zombies is going to be (kewl!). Includes this little FAQ:

Is Zombie Reagan really that much of an advantage? Doesn't John Kerry have the zombie vote locked up?
No. John Kerry, in fact, isn't really a zombie. He is more akin to Frankenstein's Monster, built out of parts stolen from graveyards under cover of night. He simply claims to be a zombie for political advantage.

I spent a lot of time yesterday going through a lot of the links on Lachelle's site (not linked to out of her preference); she went to the Libertarian National Convention this year. She made a comment about how white the party is; I think it's simply because too many people simply don't know about our party. I don't think he would call himself Libertarian, but IMHO he's doggone close: Thomas Sowell, even when I'm disagreeing with him, writes simply, clearly, and never fails to explain why he thinks what he thinks. His essays on 'cosmic justice' pretty much hit the nail on the head to explain why I am no longer a Liberal.

Absolutely nothing remotely interesting happened to me yesterday when I got home. I did finish Endymion. The sequel is on its way from Amazon, along with another Dan Simmons' book and Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love gift certificates for birthday presents.

It's a well-known fact: cats melt in sunlight. Fortunately, if you remove them from direct contact; they will wake up and ask for food. 

Jon has a few things he has to do before he gets his commercial pilot's license. He's kind of peeved about that. But while he was in town (Madison), he and I went to the Sushi Boat restaraunt. Pretty nifty; you sit at this bar where these little wooden boats circle around with different plates of sushi and other Japanese foodstuffs. You grab what you want and when you are done the waitress totals your bill by how many little plates are in front of you. I can pack away some sushi; at $1.50 a plate Jon and I racked up a considerable bill.

There was this one dish that kept circling around and around; it looked like barbequed baby octopus. I dared Jon to try it; told him if he ate one, I'd eat the other but he wasn't feeling too adventurous. That's what's neat about Japanese food - it looks so tasty and disgusting at the same time.

We finished season 2 of 24 last night. I really liked the first half of the season but the second half kind of lost steam. At least Mrs. Palmer showed up again. Things are always interesting when she's poking around, stirring up trouble. I guess Tony and Michelle are an item now since they had a little smooching session a while back. And Chapelle - could they have cast a more toady looking actor for that part? He just begs to be kicked in the nuts.

But now what am I going to watch? Season 3 just finished up. No word on when it's due on DVD. I've been meaning to watch Stargate SG-1 but I know Jon won't go for a science fiction show. Bugger.

A word of explanation about the photos below. I remember an old episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where Joel and the 'bots were discussing the lame props in a cheapo fantasy movie. Joel mentioned how if you gave things cool names, they didn't seem so lame. Like the Shimmering Shield of Surrender, Flaming Wand of Fiery Death and shit like that. Look, if you have never watched an episode of MST3K you are culturally deprived. I hear Netflix has a few on DVD...

Here are the two men in my life. My husband Jon and his Big Fat Kitty. 

Here is our lovely Evil Pool of Death. Note the Tiki torches in the background. 

This here's the Veridian Vortex of Doom, A.K.A. the pool skimmer. 

Jon is in the process of taking the test for his commercial pilot's license. If he gets it, that means he can legally ferry passengers for money. Needless to say, mister stressboy has had all his needles pegged in the red for the last week or so.

We did watch 2 eps of 24 last night; you know, nekkid Keifer might normally be interesting, but not when someone is applying ) scalpels, b) soldering irons, c) and tasers to said nekkid flesh. Those scenes were *not* pleasant to watch. And those White House bastards locked Ensign Ro in a supply closet! Heads will roll when Jack proves to be right once again.

Endymion is quite good. I recommend the whole series; just don't ask me to explain what it's about. I hate it when someone asks me what a book is about when I'm reading sometimes. I couldn't sum up these books in less than a thousand pages.

It has been a while since I have read anything Dan Simmons has written; he caught my attention with a short story whose title I have forgotten (Dying in Bangkok? Behold, the power of the Web: his site confirms it). It was about a soldier during Vietnam on leave and a vampire-ish monster who, because of her method of sucking blood, had victims literally lined up around the block. I remember it managed to be quite clinical and erotic at the same time. Anyway, I read Carrion Comfort and Song of Kali soon after that. Song of Kali is set to become a movie as is Hyperion. I doubt either will happen.

Nancy's husband, Mark, sent me this great link:The bad review revue. Ha, nothing rouses and inspires the poet in a critic more than a crappy movie!

P.S. I'm glad you're okay, Nancy. Sorry about your Saturn. I'm very happy with mine and glad I didn't buy that SUV I was looking at 5 years ago.

Here's another link: The Ruthless Guide to 80's Action. This page has reviews of 80's action movies. They spend a lot of time going over the homoerotic subtexts of a lot of these movies (scroll down to the photos of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Dolph Lundgren for a great laugh). They love Commando as much as I do. I haven't fully explored this site, so Caveat Emptor.

So besides two links o' the day, I also bring you a word o' the day:

prevaricate
SYLLABICATION: pre·var·i·cate
INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: pre·var·i·cat·ed, pre·var·i·cat·ing, pre·var·i·cates
To stray from or evade the truth; equivocate.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin praevricr, praevrict- : prae-, pre- + vricre, to straddle (from vricus, straddling, from vrus, bent).

I was reading an interview with my favorite redhead and he used this word. Mmmmmm, I just love it when a man talks wordy!

Here is our big airplane, a King Air 90. It doesn't have a nickname - though Wiley Coyote might have possibilities. Maybe not. 

Look, ma; no seats! Our King Air holds 13 without the co-pilot's seat - 11 with it. 

Here's more dials, switches, gizmos, doodads, etc. For something that's essentially 2 engines bolted to a metal frame, I'm amazed at what it takes to make it fly. 

Gonna do this backwards for viewing... 

Slow news day. I had another ground school Saturday, and then 2 skydives, a level 1 and level 7 AFF. That was it. Uneventful weekend. Spent most of my time sleeping, or reading Endymion which is as captivating as the Hyperion books.

Well, I did spend Saturday night at the Cullman County E.R. with a skydiver who had a hard opening. No real damage; he's just a hurting puppy for now. I hate that part of my job.

I was outed in the Damian Lewis mailing list I'm a member of; someone apparently did some web-surfing and found my site. A few disgruntled comments about my use of the term 'slamhound', but no real flame-fest. I hope it's understood that sometimes I use a snarky tone when talking about things. I blame all the time I've spent at TWoP.

Jon and I have been freed from the tryanny that is Bell South. Hooray! We are cancelling our land line and getting rid of our DSL line. Cable modem and cell phones make them redundant. We have never been happy with their service, anyway.

Later on when I get home tonight I'll have some more boring pictures to post; they are not of our cats.

Here is his Royal Blubberbutt in all his cutesy glory. Check out the pink nose. 

and here's the Big Fat Kitty. I need a better pic to explain just why he's Big Fat Kitty. 

Here's my 18 year old deaf girl... 

Let's see if this works... 

I'd like to welcome a new reader; well, somewhat new because I don't know when he started reading it. Can't get mad at him for not telling me because I didn't tell him I had started writing it. Hi honey! >>Smooch!<< Love you!

More 24 last night but only 2 episodes because Jon got back from work late. He had a large group of tandems yesterday so naturally it rained and was cloudy most of the day. He banged up his leg on landing and was limping pretty bad when he got home. He also suffered an allergic reaction to a couple of ant bites on that same limb. His foot was all swole up. Not his day.

The 60th anniversary of D-Day is this sunday. The Hitler channel will be showing plenty of documentaries. I'm particularly interested in any interviews with the 101st Airborne; kind of got caught up in their stories because of Band of Brothers. I'm especially fascinated by Richard Winters because by all accounts Damian Lewis's portrayal was dead-on and Winters is really that honorable a man.

Apparently his mother had been a Mennonite (he's from Hershey County, Pennsylvania) and he had a strong religious upbringing. Despite this he only seemed intolerant of incompetence. His best friend, Captain Nixon, was a raging drunk and he never judged him. Matter of fact, in one of the most un-pc things I have ever seen on a t.v. show, Winters gave Nixon the first shot at raiding a humongous wine/booze cellar that they captured from the Nazis. By all accounts he was a just leader who wouldn't needlessly put his men in harm's way. He took "follow me" to serious extremes.

I saw parts of Point Break last night, which is a hysterically macho movie. the director, Katheryn Bigelow, has as bad a raging case of man-love as I do; it really shows in this movie. Anyway, FBI agent Johnny Utah (*SNERK!*) goes undercover in a group of California surfers, let by Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), because he thinks they might be bank robbers. Surfing, drinking, chases, and skydiving, ensue.

I won't rag too hard on the skydiving scenes - they were ridiculous; but the photography was beautiful and I think they did a great job of capturing the beauty and excitement of a skydive. This movie is one of my favorite mindless entertainment movies. Plus Keanu is such a joy to look at.

Well, after my near-brush with discussing political issues in my last installment, I shall steer clear and discuss utter bullshit today.

First off, 3 more hours of 24. Yeah, I did notice the Wolfram and Hart toady from Angel, Daniel Dae Kim. Any relation to Daniel Day Lewis? And alas, poor Xander (I never knew that someone actually had that name). It's better to burn up than to melt away, I guess.

And just because I mentioned verisimilitude and gently spanked 24 about some of its computer shenanigans, I shall now gently spank it for its skydiving sequence. What was with the belly mounted reserve? He was using a sport rig - hence the 3 ring release system on his risers. And why were they not connected to anything until he left the plane? And what was with the goggles over the helmet? And the flare on the end of his foot - kinda makes it hard to see the ground, don't you think?

I'm just being mean. I did notice he jumped from a Cessna Caravan, which is a perfectly good airplane to jump from. I've done it myself, but not under those circumstances. Very enjoyable episodes, but with 9 hours left, I have to wonder what they will now concentrate on. Presumably who is trying to undermine the Presidency.

And in further news: IMDb's news and gossip pages, an ever reliable resource (pretend this is a sarcastic smiley), is reporting that that huge prick Michael Bay insists Kate Beckinsale was hired for her part in Pearl Harbor because she isn't that good looking. Jesus, if she's ugly, then I'm a troglodyte. I fully admit that Armageddon is a guilty pleasure; so it Pearl Harbor (Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. I'm so ashamed). Michael Bay has an ego that would make Frank Sinatra look humble. If you ever get a chance, the Criterion (!!!) edition of the Armageddon DVD has 2 commentary tracks. One has some of the actors, including Ben Affleck. His comments are hilarious. He points things out like gratuitous helicopters in scenes that helped overinflate the movie's budget, and he does a wicked impersonation of Billy Bob Thornton. The other track includes Micheal Bay, who convinced himself he was creating ART. He is a pompous, perambulating penis.

Nothing happened yesterday. I got home, let the frog out of the pool, made dinner, then finished beating up on the Greeks in Civilization. I joined Jon on the couch where we watched a few episodes of Cops then went to bed. The end.

I am going on yet another diet. This one is due to health reasons. My acid reflux is getting worse despite the Prilosec treatment so I just have to face facts and I have to*sob* quit drinking beer for a while. Maybe a long while. I also need to quit eating so damn much. I'm not going to watch the scale, because my goal here isn't to lose weight, it's to get control of my eating habits.

I'm going to go low carb in the sense of I'm going to knock the usual suspects out of my diet again - sugar, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc. and begin eating more vegetables. Protein is never a problem.

The tough thing is the beer. I don't consider myself an alcoholic, but I have gotten into the habit of drinking beer 5 or 6 nights a week. I had four beers last night; I woke up with heartburn. Damn, that hurts too much. So, we'll see how long I stay on the wagon. I'm sure I'll be bugging you about it for a while now. Weekends are the worst; everyone drinks and there's always beer in the beer fridge at the drop zone.

A group of Christians are taking a page from the Free State Project and are trying to organize a movement to move to South Carolina with the eventual goal being to secede from the Union. Good for them, I say. Look: it's wrong to try to impose your will on other people. So it has to be frustrating for like-minded people to live in a place where they are forced to live by someone else's rules. Naturally this cuts both ways. The non-Christians who live in South Carolina may become a minority and will be forced to deal with blue laws and dry counties. Like I do; the price I pay for living in Alabama.

So what am I saying? Am I saying that I advocate the Balkanization of the U.S: libertarians move to New Hampshire, Christians move to South Carolina, Texans all move back to Texas (you know they're dying to become an independent republic again)? Why, yes I am. Liberals could complete their takeover of California.

Would it be so bad for the United States to become a loose federation, like the founders intended? Look at it this way: Wyoming or Idaho or Indiana would not be able to invade Iraq as easily as our mega-nation did. Small means less powerful. That's a good thing.

What about the minorities? The communist that has lived all his life in New Hampshire, the Muslims that live in South Carolina, the Chicagoans that moved to Texas? Either move, or deal with the laws and the customs of the State you live in.

Just like I do, now.

And by the way: the last time South Carolina tried to secede, it didn't work too well. Just a reminder.

A rather uneventful Memorial Day weekend - it was marred by weather. I taught a ground school saturday morning - one student.

She did okay on the jump. Most people tend to overload on their first AFF jump anyway. She passed. The only other jump I did all weekend was a coach jump with another Sandy.

I played a protracted game of Civilization III most of Sunday and Monday at home. I did go back to the DZ Sunday night; went to bed at 10pm and was awakened for a tornado warning. Ah, Springtime in Alabama! The Air Evac people came and knocked on our trailer (Jon and I bought a camper and we stay there during the weekends) to warn us. We put our airplane indoors and waited out the storm. It was somewhat disappointing - no hail, no horrendous gusts of wind, no tornado, just lots of thunder, lightning, and rain, rain, rain.

So I went home Monday morning and let the obligatory frog out of the pool skimmer and played on the computer. I eventually stopped, and started reading Endymion, by Dan Simmons. Good far future science fiction - it's the sequel to Hyperion and the Fall of Hyperion. I'm kind of annoyed it's written in first person. I don't like first person novels.

Monday night Jon brought a stray skydiver home. The three of us ate Chinese food and watched Black Hawk Down, about the Somalian operation that went to hell in 1992. I'm very fond of this movie because it has 3 - count 'em, 3 listees: Jason Isaacs, Ewan MacGregor, and Eric Bana. It also has one of my guilty pleasures: Josh Hartnett. Sorry, I think he's adorable. He's in the same group as Damon and Affleck, and Keanu Reeves.

The rest of the cast isn't too bad, either: Ron "hottie from E.R." Eldard, Tom "Sorry, Heidi" Sizemore, Orlando "Legolas" Bloom, Jeremy "Don't be that guy" Piven, Sam Shephard (for such an earnest looking fella, he writes some outrageous plays), Ioan "It's pronounced YOO-an Griffith!" Gruffudd, and Ewan "I have a better American accent than that other Ewan" Bremner. Oh, can't forget William Fichtner, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite character actors. He's not that good looking (although I was deeply impressed with his nekkid bod in the highly recommended Go) - he's more ordinary than anything, but he's a damn good actor.

Oh, the movie? Erm, these Rangers and Delta Force soldiers try to kidnap some Somalis and find themselves in serious doo-doo when the entire town of Mogadishu tries to kill them. This movie is a keen illustration of the difference between highly trained soldiers and undisciplined mobs (over 1,000 somalis were killed compared to the 19 soldiers). It also is a keen illustration of why the good intentions of busybodies are never going to be appreciated. A very relevant movie to watch considering what is happening over in Iraq.

So! Umm, how was your weekend?