(no subject)

Tired, tired, good christ I'm tired. Rehearsals didn't finish up until after 10 last night and again I was "Demonstration Girl" so I danced most of it right up front. Did manage to make it through the double veil routine a few times all but flawlessly despite some serious confusion at a few parts. And Raks Suhaila is starting to seem like a do-able routine instead of an "Oh my god I'll never learn this!" panic.

I realized last night that this will probably be my last DDF performance for a while as next year I won't be able to devote the rehearsal time in what with work deadlines. So I suppose I should make the most of this one. I'm not exactly heartbroken about it, indeed I'm quite ambivalent. I'll miss spending so much time with the troupe, but not the stress and fatigue nor the anxiety about the performance itself. I'll be quite content to watch and applaude from the audience I think.

May see if I can sneak out of work early today before someone finds me fast asleep on my keyboard. Tomorrow I'm devoting to cleaning and possibly drawing and a tiny bit of sewing (maybe), if I can sneak in a little dance practice as well, so much the better. Sunday is gaming and dinner with elo_sf, both of which I'm very much looking forward to. And tonight, well after BSG all bets are off, unless I break down and imbibe some caffeine today.

Nice work if you can get it

via Rising Hegemon:

Today is the day that George Bush sets the record for vacation days for an American President, 336. Breaking the record in 4 years and 7 months, impressive in that they woke Reagan up after 8 years to inform him he had set an unbreakable level of iconic detachment.

From being born as the son of a son of a son of wealthy patricians, through the gentlemens grades of "C", to flying jets so as to keep the Viet Cong from invading the Gulf Coast to steal his blow, Dear Leader has been a notible, yet propped up unachiever his entire life. That he could so quickly lounge his way into the Presidential record-books is an impressive act of non-action indeed.

He's the Zonker Harris of Presidents. Way to go, fake Cowboy.

And religious tolerance once again peeks up out of its burrow, does not see its own shadow, and we declare a slight move back towards sanity in this country:

An Indianapolis father can share his Wiccan beliefs and rituals with his 10-year-old son, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday in a unanimous decision upholding parents' rights to share their religion with their children.

The court declared that a Marion County judge erred in approving a divorce decree last year that also directed the man and his ex-wife to shelter their son from "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."...

The case involved the divorce of Jones and Tammie U. Bristol, both practicing Wiccans. The Indianapolis residents married in February 1995, and their divorce was final in February 2004. Bristol and Jones have joint custody, and the boy lives with his father on the Northside.

Both parents united in their fight to have the religious restriction removed. Wiccan beliefs center on the balance of nature and a reverence for the Earth. Wiccans do not worship Satan, a common misperception....

Anybody want to win $250,000?

It's easy, all you need to do is the following (via BoingBoing):

Well, I've discussed the matter with my blog colleagues, and we would like to hereby issue a challenge to Dr. Hovind and his supporters.

We are willing to pay any individual *$250,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

You may submit entries here, and please, no meatball attachments.

This is in regards to the Church of Pastafarianism that worships the Flying Spaghetti Monster, "initially created to protest the Kansas State School Board's decision to teach "Intelligent Design" in schools."

Some of the church's practices include:

Codes of conduct:
# Prayers are ended with the word RAmen rather than Amen.

Benefits of conversion:
# Like the great noodles they worship, Flying Spaghetti Monsterists have flimsy moral standards.
# Promise of a stripper factory and a beer volcano in Heaven.

A rival faction, based on SPAM (Spaghetti & Pulsar Activating Meatballs), has formed and is calling for a Holy War against FSM. SPAMation claims to have the One True Letter to the Kansas School Board.

The picture is what kills me:



and a slightly more upscale one:



I may just need a flying spaghetti monster icon now...Perhaps instead of Intelligent Design we could call it Tasty Design?

Victory in Fairyland!

via Fafblog:

The Power of Imagination

Giblets will never understand these Iraqis. You invade them, flatten their cities, lock up and torture their relatives and what thanks do you get? Either a lot of explosives or the lamest candy-and-flowers display Giblets has ever seen. Weak, Iraqis. Very weak.

Well Giblets can end it all, and pretty damn fast. He has all he needs to end the war right now: an extra hundred thousand troops or so he intends to send to win the war. Where did he get them, you ask? Simple - for Giblets, at least. He got them with the power of imagination.

Yes, even now Giblets is searching his mighty mind for imaginary recruits and within one week expects to crush the insurgency with two thousand armored leprechauns, eight battalions of snuffalupagi, six divisions of heffalumps and the 101st Airborne Oozle Brigade! Guided by the unmatched tactical genius of Mr. Squigglesworth, Giblets's six-armed tap-dancing purple space squid and Secretary of Pretense, Operation: Wishful Thinking cannot fail! And if it does, Giblets will merely declare an Opposite Day. Losing IS winning in pretend!

Do you doubt the genius of Giblets? That is because you are made of stupid! Pretend troops are just what we need to fight for a pretend cause! Only Giblets's imaginary army will finally manage to locate Saddam's hidden stash of nukes buried deep within Fairyland! Only Giblets's fictional fighting men can spread democracy by discovering the long-lost Fountain of Freedom under Baghdad, whose magical waters turn everyone who drinks them into a fully-functioning republic! Only Giblets's dream draftees can end terror forever by assassinating the boogeyman! Everyone join hands and believe - or you stab our glorious playtime in the back! Onward, make-believe soldiers!