Easy to Imagine Children in Crawlspace of Creepy, Countryside Child Therapy Center

We went to a wedding in Warrenton, Virginia this weekend. Heading down US-29 towards the amazing property where the wedding was held, I passed what was probably the country's creepiest child therapy center. It was basically a decrepit country house with a decrepit hand-painted sign above the decrepit porch proclaiming that it was a child therapy center. It looked more like something you'd see on the news, surrounded by yellow tape and police sirens, right after a few blurry last-known photographs.

The Joys of Business Travel

I have recently been doing a fair amount of business travel. Here are the highlights from my trip home last Friday.

KANSAS CITY INTERNATIONAL: AMERICA'S CLOCKLESS AIRPORT

I had an important late-afternoon meeting that I expected would leave me with little time to make it to the airport. As it turned out, I left the rental car lot with about an hour before my flight home would begin boarding. However, after checking in (electronically of course, so as to avoid any human contact), I realized that I had no idea what time it was. My iPod battery was dead and my phone was deep in my bag. To my dismay, I could not see a clock anywhere, so I bought something because the time would appear on the receipt.

AIRPORT BARTENDRESS UNABLE TO PUT CHIEFS GAME ON BECAUSE MANAGER WITH AUTHORITY TO CHANGE CHANNEL WATCHING CHIEFS GAME IN OTHER AIRPORT BAR

There's not much more to this than the headline suggests, but I thought it was pretty funny.

AIRPORT SPRINKLERS, ON DURING RAIN STORM, AIMED PRIMARILY AT PEDESTRIAN WALKWAY

I arrived to a mild rain at Reagan National Airport around 11 p.m. I managed to stay relatively dry until I hit the pedestrian walkway to the remote parking lot I had parked in. Bounded by walls on both sides, there was no way to avoid being hit by the sprinklers that were apparently dedicated to watering 10% of the surrounding greenery and 100% of the sidewalk.

BARRAGE OF CONTRADICTORY TRAFFIC SIGNS APPEARS TO PROHIBIT EVERY CONCEIVABLE EXIT FROM PARKING LOT

Again, not much more to it than that.

"Paper or Plastic?" Asks Purported Standup Comedian

I stopped at a grocery store on the way in to work today to buy some water, Diet Coke, and something quick for lunch. What I had not planned on was encountering Andre, who is hopefully the world's only full-time grocery-store cashier, part-time standup comic.

I became concerned as Andre bombarded the woman in front of me with awful jokes. "My name is Andre. In Russia, my name is Andreas. In Mississippi, my name is mud." The woman in front smiled and laughed politely, which is more than I could muster.

When she left, Andre's routine went a little blue. After all, I'm a male so logically it follows that I must enjoy jokes about lesbians, right? Suppressing both a scream and the urge to grab the club of the policeman in line behind me, I suffered through his material by looking at the ATM card reader. He deliberately rang up my order slowly so that he could work in more jokes. I must have had "Yes, I'd like this instant soup and ten minutes of unbearable, Bazooka-Joe-caliber humor" written all over my face.

Andre claims to make $3000/year off of his comedy. Apart from people like me who would be more than willing to give him a tenner if he'd just shut up for a second, I don't see how this is possible.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

I declare jihad against Dr. Scholl's and its will-to-live-sapping "Are you gellin?" ad campaign. Die, fiends!!

No, but I am "writhing in agony." Will that work?

[later]

Here are some ideas for some new "Gellin'" spots:

[Exterior shot of poolside party]

SMUG MAN #1:
Are you gellin?

SMUG MAN#2:
I'm like Magellan, I'm so gel--AHHH! STOP HITTING ME WITH THAT PIPE! OUCH! OH NO, BLOOD! WHY?! WHY?!? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee?!?!?...World going (gasp) black. I just (gasp) wanted to tell the nice (gasp) people about the (gasp) comfort soles...urghhhh...

[Fade to black.]

OR...

[Exterior shot of poolside party]

SMUG MAN #1:

Are you gellin?

SMUG MAN #2:

Quit yellin', we're gellin'!

SMUG MAN #1:

Okay, cool.

SMUG MAN #2:

Hey what's that over there?!?

[A mushroom cloud appears on the horizon and a wall of fire
vaporizes them both.]

[Fade to black.]

Bush Nominates Harriet Miers After Imaginary Friend "Bucky" Unwilling to Serve

You have got to be f***ing kidding me. After the Michael Brown fiasco at FEMA and all of Bush's buddies that are warming chairs in high government posts, we get another crony nominated?!? For a lifetime appointment?!? I don't doubt that Ms. Miers is a fine lawyer and a "really nice" person. But was she on anyone else's Top 500 list? Would she be nominated if she weren't the President's pal? Hell no.

Alexander Hamilton summarized it well when discussing the need for "advice and consent" of the Senate in Federalist No. 76 (I can't pretend that I actually knew this, but it was mentioned in an excellent WSJ editorial on the subject this week):

"To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity… He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."

Look, I don't give a damn what her views or credentials are -- I don't think they're by any means stellar for a nominee to the Supreme Court -- she should not have been nominated. She shouldn't have even been on the list.

Worst. President. Ever.*

*Because...despite occasional lip service, he lacks the spending restraint that I typically like in Republicans, and has about 2,500,000% of the USDA recommended daily allowance of social conservatism and disregard for civil liberties that I disdain in them. Not to mention a total lack of such "wildcard" Presidential traits as judgment, common sense, eloquence, ability to instill a modicum of public confidence in even the slightest decision, etc.

Heroic Police Smartly Manage Scene of Accident That Was Not Otherwise Blocking Traffic

There is an on-ramp that I pass on my morning commute where, I swear, at least twice a week it seems like there is an accident (usually someone who thinks he can go does go, and runs into the back of the person in front of him, who didn't go). Anyway, as traffic slowed immediately after National Airport, I realized that today was probably such a day.

I could see the flashing sirens and gathered that I needed to get in the left lane because, I assumed, the accident was blocking the right lane. As I approached and eventually passed the scene, however, the cars involved had been moved completely onto the shoulder, out of everyone's way.

The right lane was closed because not one but two police cars had chosen to park diagonally across it, presumably to direct the traffic backup that they had just created.

**Sigh.**

(How could I possibly have another merging-related post?)