"I am happy to help celebrate Italian heritage. A parade that inspires such community anguish does not achieve that goal. Most spectators avoid the parade, which winds down streets that are either empty or lined primarily with protesters and police."

He also said efforts to manage the annual controversy is "like beating one's head against the wall."

For some reason, however; all he managed to do was piss off both sides.

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• Candy (my stepmother) was in town for the week.
• Loretta started her new job and moved into her new apartment (sort of).
• Insurance companies suck.
• Work Work Work.
• My brother Marc is not turning into Spiderman.
• Never. Ever. Let your neighbors find out you know anything about computers.
  

Free the Gnomes

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My 411

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Michael Jackson was found not guilty on all 10 counts yesterday. Go figure. It was a California celebrity "trial" after all. First it was OJ, then Robert Blake, now Wacko Jacko walks. I guess the good news is that Michael says he is not going to share his bed with young boys anymore. Wonder if this means he'll get rid of his "petting zoo" as well? I'm just glad the trial is over, I am so tired of hearing about that freak.

Speaking of freaks I am tired of hearing about. Here's another fine upstanding citizen I won't miss seeing in the news.

Iron Mike Crumpled Like Tinfoil

Mike Tyson got paid $5 million to get an old fashioned backyard butt whuppin' from unheralded Irish giant Kevin McBride. McBride only got $150,000 for making the former champion give up after 6 rounds despite Tyson's best efforts to break his arm, punch him below the belt, and ultimately attempting to head butt him into submission. The good news here is that Iron Mike's winnings will probably all go straight to the IRS. Looks like he might end up feeding all his pigeons from a park bench from now on.

I say good riddance to both of the Mikes, I won't miss either one of you...

Less than 24 hours after she reported "Mary" missing, my baby discovered that a little impulse shopping will cheer her right the heck up. She went and got herself one of these yesterday.

1999 Saab 93 Turbo

It looks and runs like brand new. One owner, low miles, clean Carfax, and loaded with gadgets she doesn't know how to work yet. She got a great deal on it too (about 2 grand under retail book value).

She hated to go into debt for something as trivial as safe and reliable transportation, but I gotta say that seeing that big old smile on her face was definitely worth every penny.

Didn't come equipped with a red thong though. Guess I'll have to do some impulse shopping of my own...

I'm busier than a three-balled tomcat right now, but here's a quick report of a few things that have my aporism fired up this morning before I hit the grindstone at the office.

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"A Texas A&M University student who had been feared murdered after disappearing nearly seven years ago has been found alive and working in Northern Kentucky.

Police spent hours since Brandi Stahr went missing in October 1998 searching for her body in wooded parts of Brazos County, Texas, at one point even questioning a serial rapist and murderer just hours before he was executed last year.

But a telephone tip from a person in central Texas to a Texas Department of Public Safety missing persons hotline led investigators to Florence, where Stahr has been working for the last five years at a Sam's Club, said Texas Ranger Frank Malinak."  --Cincinnati Post

It seems she got mad at her parents because they cut off her financial support when she started skipping class and got poor grades during her sophomore year. I guess the next time Loretta goes on one of her walk abouts I should probably just hang out at Sam's Club.

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Sunday evening, Colorado Rockies rookie sensation, Clint Barmes, stumbled and fell on the steps of his apartment building while carrying groceries from his car. He suffered a broken collar bone in the fall that will require surgery. Barmes was the team's leading hitter (and had one of the best batting averages in the majors), and was easily the top candidate for baseball's Rookie of the Year award by this point of the season. He is expected to miss at least 12 weeks of the season.

I wonder if he's been hanging out with Brian Griese (the former Bronco's quarterback that was known to fall down at his house on more than one occassion - usually while under the influence of malted barley beverages)?

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"Alleged cop-killer Raul Garcia-Gomez - and a string of relatives and friends accused of helping him elude an international manhunt - were arrested Saturday, almost a month after two Denver police officers were ambushed at a baptismal party.

Garcia-Gomez, who had been the subject of a police dragnet in Colorado, California and Mexico, was arrested about 6 p.m. in Culiacán, Mexico, about 1,000 miles south of Los Angeles. He was in the custody of U.S. marshals, who planned to bring him to Mexico City today to face extradition." --Denver Post

This scumbag brutally murdered Denver Policeman Donnie Young and wounded his partner Jack Bishop when he shot them from behind after the officers had requested that some drunken party-goers leave the premises. The off duty cops were hired to provide security for the party and were in uniform at the time of the ambush.

Since when do you need security at a baptismal party? The thing that really chaps my ass about this is a treaty that exists between the US and Mexico that will most probably prevent this douche-pump's extradition back to Colorado. Mexico will not deliver fugitives that may face either the death penalty or life without parole sentences for their crimes. I guess the only good news is that his only option is to sit and rot in a Mexican prison while the 2 governments sort it out.

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In other news, we all had a great weekend in the Colorado sunshine. The highlight was a quick trip into the foothills by Loretta and I on Sunday evening. Our first stop was to hunt and collect some wildflowers to add to a small garden bed around my mailbox. Then we had dinner at a quaint little place in Bergen Park where I coerced Loretta into trying their rabbit and rattlesnake sausage appetizer. The look on her face as she took the first bite was absolutely priceless. But the sausage was delicious and she was really glad she tried it. The dinner entrees were a bit more tame. She opted for stuffed shrimp while I enjoyed a buffalo porterhouse. It was the first red meat I'd had in months, man was it gooood.

After dinner we came back to the house and watched "Finding Neverland" together. Good flick, but it made us both weep. I hate when that happens.

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OK - that's today's update, time for me to get back to work...

Loretta skipped church again on Sunday. They have really been pressuring her to take on the responsibility of conducting their Wednesday night young women's fellowship on a full-time basis. She is having a hard time deciding whether she can make the commitment though. So she decided to lay out of church this week to think about it free of any of its environmental influences while she makes her decision.

She'd really like to do the class, but is afraid the time constraints may cause too much stress if she had to do it every week. She is changing jobs soon and she will not have Wednesdays off anymore. Her new job would only give her 2 hours to pick her son up from daycare and get them both fed and ready for the evening services at 6:30. Since they wouldn't get back home until around 9:00, it would leave precious little time for Jon to get any homework done before bedtime, or let her make any preparations for work on Thursdays. It wasn't a big deal when she had Wed. and Thu. off to do this class for them every once in awhile, but she really doesn't feel like she'll have enough time to devote to it on a weekly basis once she changes jobs.

The main problem here is that Loretta has a very hard time just saying "no." She knows this though, and as a result she has been basically avoiding the church ladies to take the time and think it through without feeling like she was being forced into accepting the position. But they are a persistent bunch, and have been calling her almost every day to ask her about it. She has been reluctantly avoiding those calls though. And now, since she skipped church and spent most of the holiday at my house, she was not able to return any of their calls over the weekend either. Apparently the church folks found this to be so unusual that they decided that something terrible must have obviously happened to her.

So they took it upon themselves to call the cops and have them go to her house to do a "welfare check." The police responded by sending 4 units to her home at 8:00 yesterday morning only to find no one home. So they called her work where a co-worker told Loretta that the police were on the line with an emergency call for her. She was absolutely terrified. She feared they were going to tell her that that her son had been in an accident or something until they finally explained the real reason they were calling was because someone at the church had asked them to check up on her.

What a bunch of meddling busy bodies! Loretta was big time pissed at them; I have never heard her drop so many F-Bombs! She is so angry at them for invading her privacy like this that she has decided she is probably going to change churches because of it.

Well. Isn't that special?

I guess this means they'll still need to find someone else for their Wednesday night class too...

Reuters has posted an article today that the FDA is investigating a number of incidents of blindness reported by users of Viagra.

Helllooooo - you're not supposed to use it by yourself for a "manual override" fellas.

*rimshot*

Didn't your mommies tell you that if you didn't stop doing it you'd go blind? You don't need Viagra for a date with Rosy Palmer, mmmmKay?

Good thing I don't need any artificial stimulation to get the lead in my pencil - my baby does that for me just fine thank you very much.

Memorial Day weekend is gonna be a Web Free Holiday for me folks - see ya'll Tuesday.

Sorry for the last post - broke my own KISS rule (Keep It Short Stupid). It was definitely not fodder for my short attention span theater fans, and upon re-reading it I found that it just reeks of the whole 3rd grade "What I did on my summer vacation" essay assignment thing. Geez. Suffice it to say, I am glad to be home and I had a great weekend. You can read the director's cut below if you feel like it. 

During my absence I have apparently been nominated for some type of Spaces award for leaving, erm shall we say, "interesting?", comments elsewhere. Thanks, I am humbled. Anyhow, go over to LeeLee's Space and cast your vote for the other more worthy nominees I'm sure you'll find there.

Now shut up Mike.

First we get Ask Santa! Followed shortly thereafter by Ask Satan. Now Ask God has joined the Spaces fray. What's next, Ask Osama?

Dear Osama, 

How many of your rag-head camel jockeys can fit in a Volkswagon and still deliver a car bomb? Inquiring minds want to know. mmmmKay? Thnx.

Hey, maybe Santa, Satan, God, and Osama could all start a bowling team or something...

Well here I sit, bored to tears in yet another crappy hotel room. At least this one has a good internet connection - as one would expect in a place that is virtually on the border of the Microsoft main campus in Redmond.

A lot of the other amenities seem to be a bit lacking though:

• Like water pressure - I can pee harder than this shower can stream.
• No maid service; this is an "extended stay suite" - apparently that means they don't have to clean it up until you leave.
• If you stay at least 4 days they will give you one complimentary "refresh service" during your stay; you get clean towels, new soap, and they'll even empty the trash - must take 'em at least 2 minutes.
• No shampoo is provided though - just bar soap.
• No more than one of those crappy 4 cup coffee packets per stay either - that was provided as a "welcome packet" until you have time to go buy your own coffee (and filters). Anyone ever notice that hotels are the only places that even have those "Skoal Bandit" coffee things?
• I do have a nice little kitchenette - like I am going to prepare "home cooked" meals while I am on the road with a big fat expense account instead of going out to eat.
• The "refresh service" does not include doing the dishes anyway.
• The refrigerator does sound like it might have asthma. 
• I do have a big, honkin' 19" TV with about the crappiest cable service I have ever seen - doesn't even have MSNBC and they are right next door to Microsoft. No FX either...
• The good news about the kitchen thingy is that it does have a corkscrew. So opening the cabernet was no biggy, had to drink it out of a coffee cup though - should have bought some of those plastic wine glasses when I was at Safeway getting coffee, filters, shampoo, and the wine.

All this for only $175 per night. Plus $9.99 per day for the internet connection.

Oh well, at least the geekfest over on the campus is going well. I am learning a lot of good stuff about the next generation of web services security enhancements that will come in right handy when I actually have to go back to "work." Talk about information overload though. I feel like I am about to dump core - urk, ack, uh-oh here it comes...

0101010000110101010101111011010101010100011010111010101010101001011010101010101010101010100
1110100010101100100100000101010101111101010101000011010010101110101010101010010000110101010
0101010101010101111101010000101010100100111101010101010011110101010101001010010101010101011
111101111100000000000010010010110110000000001010000...

*whew* I feel better now that I hacked up that binary hairball, sorry. It all just makes me want to sit here spinning the prop on my beanie.

Man, I can't wait to get home. Only 2 more days to go...