Homer'sWorld

So last night I dreamed I was Britney's new tour bus manager. The dream mostly consisted of me scrubbing and vacuuming the tour bus while encouraging her to spend more time with her kids. In real life I hate washing dishes. In dream world it was very satisfying knowing that by cleaning the tour bus kitchen, I was somehow putting Britney on the course back to normalcy and happiness.

Normalcy has returned to Tucson too. The U of Arizona is back in session and when I drive by the rec center on the way home from work I see all of the hotties, many of whom I'm now old enough to be their father. I don't feel that old. I'm pleased to see that muscles and scruff are apparently in, still. There are some young women going to college too, but I have only have a few seconds at the stop light to examine people from an anthropological point of view, and the guys get all my attention.

Home life has returned to normal. Mollie the elderly dog was in bad shape last week. Her back legs didn't want to help walk or stand up. But she has regained strength and can stumble around, tail wagging whenever it is treat time. I've never had to deal with an elderly pet before. She isn't in any pain, but the slow decline has started. Also on the homefront, the ant infestation (it was horrible) was ended through the placement of a few ant traps. I no longer have long lines of ants tromping through my house looking for dinner.

Three day weekend coming up. Brian is visiting from beautiful south Phoenix on Sunday. I think he will like the cooler temperatures here. We are having Indian buffet for lunch and then I'm taking him to a couple of places, one of which will be a mystery till we get there.

What are you doing for Labor Day weekend?

I've been following with great interest Synaptic Blue Al's posts about his close friend Miranda, who is a Sierra Club employee and is having a grand adventure. She endured a long flight from Canada to China via Air China, where they served pickled tripe as an onboard snack!

Miranda has been sent to take care of an orphaned panda cub named Nanuck at some research facility in the southern provinces of China. She emailed Al pictures of cute Nanuck and also another cub, Lola. It is a good thing she mentioned they were different cubs, because, honestly, all great panda cubs look alike to me! It was helpful that the pictures were labeled "B11nanukbearbaby," "B16nanuckplaypen," and "B41panda6" although I was a bit confused because the second panda is named Lola.

Here's a couple of screen shots I borrowed from the site. Just so you know, that material is protected by copyrights, so I'm making sure I mention that it came from Al's blog.

Nanuck and Lola, posted on 30 August 2007!


Nanuck, posted on 28 August 2007!

I did think it was a little odd that there is an English language sign in the background of Nanuck's tupperware photograph posted on August 30th. You can even sorta read the words: "---sonian National Zoological."


Nanuck!

Since this was China, I would have expected that the signs would be in Chinese, but maybe Miranda's Sierra Club employer had some signs made up special for their English-speaking staff. I know it must be real tough flying overseas to take care of darling, orphaned cubs!

Well you know me, I really can't tell the difference between one great panda cub and another. Why only a couple of years ago Chrisafer was campaigning to have the cub at the Smithsonian National Zoo renamed Butterstick. That didn't work, those darn zookeepers named it Tai-shan instead! That's because the Chinese view pandas as part of their national patrimony and require that all cubs get Chinese names! That's kinda interesting, because Miranda's cubs are named Nanuck (a Native American name!) and Lola (a Spanish name meaning strong woman).

So I really wanted to see more cute panda cub pictures, especially of lil Butterstick, and I did a Google image search for "panda Smithsonian" and up came their delightful website, just chock full of pictures of little Tai-shan and his mama Mei-Xiang.


A screen grab of some pictures of little Tai-shan at the Smithsonian National Zoo! Taken in September 2005!

Look at all of the adorable pictures. And like I said, all great panda cubs look alike to me. Even the little tupperware containers they hang out in and the signs partially visible in the background look exactly alike. I guess there is some unwritten rule that baby pandas have to be raised in exactly identical surroundings in Washington, DC and in the southern provinces of China. Who knew? I feel like such an idiot.

Well today a certain someone emailed me and told me I was an idiot. Well; that may be the case; but at least I'm real.

Warning: Super dull blogbud entry alert!

I have 102 blogs on my bloglist at the moment (I have a couple more cued up to add). Of those 14 bloggers (count 'em!) have been inside my house, including three from SF (Moby, God of Biscuits, Sam), one from DC (Jimbo), three from NYC (Patch, CFSCON, and Glennalicious), a couple from Phoenix (Aristoi and Cheapblueguitar), one currently living in Australia (Banal Chew), and four from Tucson (Boltgirl, Panchesco, Box Turtle, and Urswine Addiction). One of the new bloggers I'll be adding, Lopaka Lounge, has also visited several times and I've been to his house twice.

Beyond that, of the 102 bloggers on my list, I've met 47 in person. That's a lot; I guess I'm a sociable kinda guy. But the main point is, it really isn't that hard to meet another blogger in person. Generally the image they present on their blog is about what you see in person. I'm guessing people who meet me describe me as "smart ass." I'm also guessing that not many people would call me an idiot; however, I expect there are a few "people" out there who would disagree (TJ, is that a proper semi-colon usage?).

There are still some bloggers I haven't met who'd like to have dinner with. This is who would be sitting around the dinner table if I could magically transport them here:
- Durban Bud
- Large Tony
- AngryBlackBitch (she rules!)
- Journey by Myself

So which four bloggers on the internet do you want to have dinner with?

Just to be clear, I'm really not into dates in "tea rooms" because the Muzac really kills the mood and there isn't anyplace handy to set out all of the different brands of poppers I like to have around and most of all, most bathroom stalls don't have the necessary attachments for a sling.

I about yawned when I read that Senator Craig was into tap dancing. Those who speak loudest sorta thing. I did wonder, briefly, whether Jimbo or TJ had ever pooped in a stall next to him while he was busy peeking through cracks with his beady eyes. That would be just creepy. And smelly.

Why is it that all of the closeted Republican politicians are so fricken hot? It seems a shame they all live in faraway DC! I remember when my local, closeted Republican politician came over to have sex with my roommate (true story!). He got outed later on and ended up being an advocate for gay rights. That was the nice thing to do, in that sort of situation.

A reader wonders, "Is it possible for two bloggers to meet in person? Isn't that impossible according to the laws of nature or physics?" Why yes, dear reader, in certain circumstances, primarily on the east coast of the United States, it is difficult. But here in Tucson, I've had the pleasure of having Frank, Panchesco, Jimbo, Glenn, Brian, Jim, and Moby inside my 1927 Spanish Territorial style burnt adobe brick homestead in 2007, and nothing terrible happened.

It helps to have Roger as your friend. He is a physicist by training, he makes the unnatural natural and the impossible possible.

So I made three kinds of pizza. Trader Joe's pizza dough is a lovely thing although I wish they would put a smidgeon more dough in the bag so that the pizza would fill the entire pan. I called Brady to alert him to the pesto pizza with artichoke hearts, pinenuts, and spinach and he said tersely, "We're having an emergency, I'll call you back." I fretted through the entire party, wondering who was in the hospital, before he called to tell me that he or Patrick had spilled soda on the new wood floors. He then discovered that I had made pesto pizza and was suitably bummed out.


Frank and John, aren't they handsome?.

I also made a salad.

I had a little pre-party anxiety, worrying that guests wouldn't show up because of some exciting emergency, but in the end a total of ten arrived. Twenty percent of whom have a blog!


Moby and Brian, aren't they handsome?

After the first and second course, I had everyone wash their fingers in little bowls of perfumed lemon water (that's a lie!) and then we played Mexican loteria. Roger, unfortunately, is a terrible loteria player and was the only one not to win a 99 Cent store prize. Hopefully his nice boyfriend Richard will share one of his prizes. Frank and Moby hopefully have pictures of this happening, to prove it happened, because I was busy reading aloud the loteria images "Number 9, El Barril, Number 9, El Barril." Really, my Spanish couldn't get any worse.


Pineapple upsidedown cake, isn't it handsome?

I then made whipped cream. Forrest would later comment that until recently, he didn't know how one made this dessert sprucer-upper. It is really easy (not a lie!) and here's my little secret- I add a little bit of coconut extract along with the vanilla extract. It makes it taste extra yummy.


Frank, Homer, and Moby.

I really had a most excellent weekend. The only downside is that it is Monday and I have to go to the dentist to have a deep cleaning done (early periodontal disease!). And for some reason between 4 AM and 6 AM I had some truly scary nightmares, one involved me not being able to reach the brake pedal with my foot. Another one of which resulted in my shouting out loud, thereby waking myself up. Even now, half an hour later, I still out of sorts.

And in case you are wondering, Moby and I had a lovely time and nobody is mad at anybody. Did I mention how much my friends and pets liked Moby? That is not a lie.

My skin is salty from Richard's pool. I made 4-bean salad and went over and grabbed Patrick and we went up to play volleyball.


Forrest and Homer.

There were 12 of us and we played really well. The Phoenix team cancelled their scheduled appearance, but Roger and his friend Toogie finally showed up. We had a most excellent time.


Juan.

Among the topics of conversation was circumcision and I think everyone agreed that it is pretty nasty to cut parts of little boys penises off.


Roger.

I came back home so tired that I climbed right into bed and fell asleep.


Sunset.

So my soap opera was a detective show yesterday but today it was all home improvement and nature. I'm out at the ruins of a military fort, with the county obtaining the last portion. Watching as the backhoe scraped drainage areas and workers removed fallen debris. I get to sort through the mess to collect architectural elements and weird things like big concrete blocks with newspapers from 1920 stuck to their underside.


Fort ruins.

Suddenly the backhoe operator gets off his hoe and comes over and announces that a bee swarm had just shown up.


Africanized bees.

The bees gathered underneath the decrepit roof of a porch. If you click on the picture it gets bigger. The bees on the outside were busy fanning their wings, attempting to cool off the queen. Probably by tomorrow they will have moved on to some other location.

Besides this I saw three types of lizard, cottontail rabbits, and a very long green and yellow snake that freaked me out.

It's strange how many animals manage to live in urban Tucson.

Let's cut through the bullshit. Why should I care that a certain blogger is a fake? Maybe because he decided to involve real people in his adventure.

On July 17th, "Steve" announced that he had been mugged and that the muggers then went on to attack other people, one of whom was an 11-year-old epileptic girl who was shot after having a seizure. Two days later, on July 19th, he claimed to have attended the girl's viewing: "Additionally, I went to that girl’s viewing (apparently she had an epileptic seizure, which freaked the robbers out; and that’s why they shot her). I had to go. It was difficult. The family was extremely poor, and the mother was in hysterics. One couldn’t help, but cry; in reaction to the mom. I ’looked very rich‘ compared to the other mourners (I, and my friends, were the only ones wearing suits). I was afraid to tell them who I was.". On August 21st, he claimed the first of two trials was starting and in the comments for that day stated: "But my eye did catch the faces of the murdered girl’s parents. They recognized me from being at her viewing. So I walked over, introduced myself; and treated them to lunch. I feel so bad for them."

So back on July 17th I read this entry and then the girl's obituary. Something made me pause and Google the girl's name. No newspaper or television station accounts of her being shot. Not a whisper. To this day, nothing. No news about the "trial" starting. Nada. How likely would it be that the murder of an 11-year-old epileptic girl would not make the news? No police report. Nothing. And by the way, the father of the girl is a building contractor, the mother is a registered nurse, somehow it seems unlikely they are "extremely poor."

Apparently, I wasn't the only person who wondered about this. Yesterday a commenter, Bailey, raised the issue (see comment 27). Within minutes the link to the little girl's obituary disappeared from the original July 17th entry. Bailey was then attacked by "Steve" in a lengthy diatribe and accusations made that Bailey had left comments under multiple names. How likely is that?

So let's look at the facts. "Steve" used the obituary of a girl who may or may not have died from epilepsy to spice up his blog. This girl has a family who are grieving for her death, and he converts her death into a murder. If you were the father or mother of this child, how would you have felt if you came across the July 17th blog entry?

Last night I had a talk with a friend (a real person whose picture has appeared several times on my blog). He is a public defender for major crimes (homicide, attempted murder, etc) for Pima County. I asked him how long it takes for a trial to begin after a serious crime. He told me that it is on average 6 to 8 months and is often much longer. I then asked him whether it was possible for a trial to begin 25 working days after the crime was committed. He laughed and said, "That's totally bogus."

He then went on to list some of the steps needed for a trial to take place, including:

1). the detectives must complete their reports
2). evidence must be processed. DNA and fingerprint evidence has to go to the relevant laboratories and reports prepared.
3). all witneses have to be interviewed, typically on camera, and these interviews have to be transcribed.
4). the defendants lawyers have to receive copies of all of the evidence.
5). a jury has to be selected.
6). and so on.

Anybody who believes that a trial can begin on the 25th day after a serious crime, hey, I've got some swampland to sell you too.

Again, why does this piss me off? Because "Steve" used the identity of a deceased little girl to spice up his blog. Not once, but three different times. How would each of you feel if someone did that to one of your close family members?

So no, "Steve" I'm not jealous of your popularity. I have a strong aversion to liars. I'm also very curious how come no one named Marc (or Mark or Marcus), born in 1975 died on 20 August 2006. That's another very curious and bizarre story, apparently.

And by the way, Jimbo inside's are perfectly lovely.

Trash talk. I'm in the dumps. Literally.

Fake Bloggers.

Every once in while another fake blogger pops up. There was that Bent Collective thing (which, I've just discovered, is still stringing along folks). The guy in Australia that was supposedly bashed and in a coma. Some other guy who supposedly died- some chick did that one. Have I forgotten any? Oh look, there's a new one!

Here are some handy hints to figure out if a blog is fake or not.

1). Pictures. Fake bloggers typically have few, if any,photographs of themselves on their blog. And if they do have photos, often you could swear they weren't the same person. Often they claim they don't own a digital camera. Ask yourself how many people do you know, aged between 20 and 50, who don't have access to a digital camera. My Amish brother is, of course, one of those people. But he is the exception. He doesn't have a computer. Or electricity. I did convince him to take a picture with mine when I visited him in April. So he's real.

2). Extraordinary circumstances. If Blogger X seems to have a series of amazing, unbelievable things happen to them, then it is likely that these events are fictional. Examples can include frequent, bizarre accidents and the resulting trips to the emergency room, immunity from fatal or deadly diseases, organ transplants, surviving a criminal attack and then being asked to help in the investigation, and so on. If it smells fishy, it probably is. I once had a pathological liar for a roommate and he would slowly feed us amazing stories. Individually they were believable. But if you lined them all up, it became obvious that there were too many extra special events happening to the same fellow.

3). Inability to meet other bloggers. Sometimes the extra special events coincide with a planned meeting with another blogger. "Sorry, Blogger X, Blogger Y couldn't make it because he is on life support with a potentially lethal virus!" That actually happened to a fake blogger a couple years back. If a blogger refuses to meet you, despite living around the corner, what's up with that?

4). People dying. Lots of people die every day. Fake bloggers seem to revel in death. They have extremely elderly relatives (103!) who pass away. Those are the best kind of relatives to have. Or a mother who died in a terrible car accident and they found out in some particularly tragic way. That usually gets lots of sympathetic comments. And sometimes they die themselves. Alright, here in the United States everyone is required to have a Social Security number to do basic things. Like have a job or a disability check. When you die, this is reported to the Social Security Administration and it gets listed on the Social Security Death Index. So if you are a fake blogger, and you say someone dies, it is relatively easy to check their name (even using just their first name or a part of their first name) and date of death to determine if someone actually died or not. Similarly, if someone gets murdered, it is relatively easy to get on the internet and locate newspaper articles or police files on the event. Except when someone is not really murdered.

5). The Power of Google. It is really hard to create a fake person and then get all the facts right. Annoying things like how old one should be at a certain time. Police procedures. Healthcare protocols. What majors are offered at certain universities. Membership in a certain group. Thanks to the internet, it is super easy to snoop on people/places/events/facts and find out things. When I Google my own name, I get 1,470 hits. So people who write fake blogs should make sure they
never write about anything specific, because it is way easy to determine what is the truth and what is not.

Moral of this entry. If you want to write a fake blog and convince people you are a living, breathing person instead of a chunk of computer memory, do so. But don't get all upset when we find out and expose you for being a fraud.

Moby is coming to Tucson this weekend and I'm having a pizza party on Sunday night. What kind of cake should I make?

A). Coconut with coconut cream cheese frosting.
B). German chocolate.
C). White cake with whipped cream and fruit
D). Pineapple upside-down cake.

Satan.



If I believed in Satan he would look like Karl Rove (or perhaps Dick Cheney). What a sorry result of an orgasm. I'm sure if his father had known what kind of nastiness he was he'd have slapped a rubber on. Or two.

So he's off to "spend more time with his family." I wonder if he bothered to ask them whether they wanted to spend more time with him?

The new glasses.

Regular ones.


Reading glasses.

I decided to skip bifocals for now, I'm not that old yet,

Thanks to other people's shitty mortgages, my 401K is worth 89.71 percent of what it was a month ago, despite the profit sharing and my own contributions (currently I'm putting away 11 percent in that account). It's all magic money anyways and the likelihood that I'll ever be able to retire and take up painting nudes or becoming an opera queen is pretty minimal.

For my fifth birthday my Mama took me to the Ace Hardware on Front Street in Traverse City and I got to pick out a present with the five dollars that she gave me.

I remember walking down the aisle of toys they had there, past the Breyer horses, and there was a beautiful light blue house trailer.


Nylint house trailer.

You could lift off the white roof and look down into the two rooms. It was filled with furniture and pots and pans. I still have the piano and a frypan with tiny fried eggs inside.

My father thought it was terrible that I loved that toy. I had PeeWee dolls and I would place them inside and pull the house trailer around. Sometimes (often) there were tragic accidents and the trailer would roll over and the furniture would fly about. It was very exciting.

Mummy has the trailer at her house and I think next time I'm at home, I'll bring it back to Arizona. (the picture is from one selling on ebay, where it is over $200 at the moment)

I was going to have a pool party nipple identification quiz, but then the whole stress of figuring out which nipple to include and which ones to exclude was just too much. Plus I had too much sun yesterday and only just now am I recovered enough to enjoy life in the slightest.

So instead, why don't you watch this lovely Dirty Vegas video instead?

Pool Volleyball, part 1. As always, splashing around in Richard's pool was an excellent way to spend a hot Sunday afternoon. I made salsa and a cake and took them along.


Pico de Gallo Salsa.


Yellow cake with raspberry filling and bittersweet chocolate frosting.

Most of the pictures I took of people in the pool didn't turn out so well or had stray penises in them, so you'll have to look at these two.

Jeffrey.


Patrick.

I was so tired out afterwards I came home and went to bed early.

Post 1348. I broke two weed whackers trying to whack my weeds. My Ipod is defunct. I think I have a cavity. I broke a drinking glass recently. The mirror in my dining room fell suddenly from the wall and the fancy frame broke. My new glasses cost $700 when all was said and done.

I'm hoping this string of bad luck ends, like yesterday.

Totally unrelated: I had drink and dinner with Ray and Cobban last night.


Ray.


Cobban.

Middle Eastern food! The waiter was beautiful and a Jimbo-like butt.

Oh lord, Brian turned 29 today. Again. For the ninth time. I swear I don't know how he manages to remain so young and nubile. I suppose it is the "selling my soul to satan" thing.


Homer with the birthday man.

Why don't you go over to his blog and wish him "Happy Anniversary of his Departure from His Mama's Womb."

Conservative Christians spend an awful lot of time fretting about male sexuality. Back in the 19th century it was all about those damned polygamous Mormon men, fucking their multitude of wives. In the 20th century it was about controlling woman as a way to control men. The 21st century is about finding ways to demonize the gays. Yawn.

To me this is what the fuss about the San Diego firemen is all about. They are suing the City of San Diego because they were asked to drive a firetruck in the Pride Parade. Some spectators did inappropriate things, they say, like kiss each other, touch their niblets, or yell out phrases such as "give me mouth to mouth." I read through their affadavits of complaint filed to the Department of Fair Housing and Employment and several things struck me.

The first was that all four had been coached in their statements. Each statement is very similar, in the order of how they described the events and the exact wording of several offending phrases. Could the fact that they are being represented by a conservative Christian law firm have anything to do with this?

The second is that this is just the first of these sorts of complaints gay people will be seeing. Sexual harassment laws are very vague and broad. Basically, anyone can claim to be sexually harassed if one witnesses something one considers offensive. Know the route of the annual gay pride parade? If you are a fundamentalist Christian you could get yourself hired at a business along the route, and once the parade passed, you could claim harassment because you witnessed men kissing, dancing, groping, or doing anything that heterosexuals routinely do, but because gay people do them, they are somehow more lewd and disgusting. How soon before parade permits are denied because cities don't want the legal expenses involved.

Clever way to work the system. And those firemen, ask me if I believe they are telling the truth.

So many things to learn about. Every day I acquire many useless facts. This morning I spent precious moments watching music videos including several by a seemingly Charo-esque woman called La Tigresa, one of which had been watched over two million times. I'd never heard of her before, my loss.


La Tigresa del Oriente- "La Anaconda"

In my almost daily chats with Brian, I relate to him some of these obscure facts and observations. Yesterday it was the fact that not all gay men have superior grooming habits. At a recent pool party I was horrified to see someone with long, untrimmed toe nails. And I mean long.

Now Mollie, the elderly dog, freaks when I attempt to trim her toe nails. One time she pooped while I was doing so. I suspect there is some toe nail trauma in her past. But there is no reason, and less likelihood of a poop incident, for an adult gay male to not trim their toe nails. As Brian would say, "I'm just saying."

And as Mizzbird states in her blog (she's just moved to Tucson!), this is perhaps the best video of the mid-1980s. So full of energy and I always thought the guy with the moustache was hot (and he probably had trimmed toe nails):


Relax.

The pesto pizza went over well. So easy to make and everyone thinks it is hard. I know some bloggers like that.


Jigsaw.

Jigsaw was a littole doggie vacuum, looking for food everywhere.


Panchesco.

The pool was too cold for me, I have delicate parts.


Hot tub!

The hot tub was too hot for me, I have delicate parts.


Ken and Hiram.

The birthday boys blew their candles out twice for the camera. A good time had.

How I spent the rest of the day on Friday.

Nothing interesting happened to my penis in the last 24 hours. Or to my left eyeball or my right glenoid fossa. Did you know that the little bone between your nostrils rhymes with my name. It is called the vomer.

The computers at work have been down for three (count 'em!) three days. It is really hard to do anything at work when you can't do anything. So I'm sitting at home waiting to hear whether the computers get fixed and thinking about how humid it is (all of my kitchen cupboard doors have swollen shut).

I have a secret internet blog crush. If I told you who it was then you would know, so it is my little secret. I've seen a revealing picture. Damn!

Oops, the computers at work aren't working. Maybe I'll make a cake instead of working.

This weekend I'm attending a birthday party for someone named Hiram. That was my great-great-great grandfather's name. I'm very excited about meeting someone with that name. I'm taking along a pesto pizza, because I can.

Nothing exciting has happened to my penis since I started writing this post. That is probably for the best.

You can learn many important lessons while watching re-runs of America's Top Model while lazing about on the couch. Last night's episodes taught me to never sass handsome British fashion photographers because they are so important, serious, and full of themselves, that they can't understand something called a "joke." I also learned that modeling involved a lot of passion and hard work, and that sometimes one's body above the waist wants to model while the portion below doesn't. Who knew? I certainly didn't! I also learned that should I ever become decide to become a flamboyant runway walk coach, I could also get a job tearing young women apart because their cheekbones make them look some certain way that lots of computer manipulation can't fix.

This is the problem of not having fancy cable and it will only get worse once NBC drops Passions in September. My daily dose of trash tv will only get trashier. Goodness, whatever will I do. There are only so many hours you can stare at the hot guys on BMB or Seancody!