Not just flotsam, but also jetsam

I have a lot on my mind (people who know me will say, "That's new"). Sunday was a blah day that I spent surfing the net and riding my bike and wondering why networks program interesting stuff (the SNL First Five Years special) against ratings blockbusters (Desperate Housewives, which I watch). My wife says, only half jokingly I'm convinced, that this is why we need TiVo. Like I need a reason to watch MORE television.

Anyway:
WHY DOESN'T SHE JUST MOVE OUT????
Blogs are fun. Here are two that I found yesterday: Radio Free Nepal (I'm still waiting, Mr. President, for the invasion of Nepal, and let's throw in Togo, as well) and I Hate My Flatmate, which is quite evil but laugh-out-loud funny. There's also some fun stuff from the always-worth-a-look McSweeney's, including Rejected York Peppermint Pattie Commercial Blurbs, Ways In Which She Could Have Blinded Me With Science, and Four Ways In Which My Life Is Just Like Pac-Man's. Many thanks to Toner Mishap for bringing these to my attention, and also for this. Finally, there's an unpublished Batman story. I'm sorry, I'll move on now.

OUR PRESIDENT: IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE
A lot has been made about President Bush not denying smoking marijuana in these new "secret" tapes that were just leaked. Personally, I don't care if the president smoked marijuana, as long as he's not still smoking it -- it might actually explain a few things. (For those of you who are new to this blog, I don't like the president. Shocking!) However, it's more disturbing that he thought John Ashcroft would be a "very good Supreme Court pick." Now that's scary. (Yes, I'm being unfair, perhaps, to our vaunted leader. I'm a blogger -- what do you expect?)

WHAT PART OF "DROUGHT" OR "LIVING IN A DESERT" DON'T THESE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND?
So I'm riding my bike around the East Basin yesterday (Arizonans like to call it a valley, but it's really a basin, as Ron Wolfley calls it) and I rode past a gas station. Now, those in the know here like to tell us we're in the middle of a nine-year drought. It's also true that February has been weirdly rainy here in the desert, enough so that people are actually complaining about the possible alleviation of said drought and wishing the rain would go away. It's also true that it rained steadily all day Friday and Saturday. So what was going on at this gas station? They were watering the lawn. I kid you not. People keep moving to this area (why, I'll never know) and no one seems to care that the Colorado River has turned into a trickling stream. I give this blighted landscape 20 years, and then -- no more golf courses for you, old people!

THIS MUST BE WHERE HIS SON GETS IT FROM
I have less against Bush I than I do Bush II, but G.H.W. Bush said something stupid. In this article, he's quoted as saying, "I don't think there's ever been a tragedy that affected the heartbeat of the American people as much as this tsunami has done.(emphasis mine)" Now, I'm sorry, and if he had not said "American," I might be inclined to agree with him. But perhaps he's forgotten a certain terrorist attack from so many years ago (well, three)? I tend to think that affected Americans a lot more.

FINALLY, KNOW YOUR PRESIDENTS!
The Arizona Republic had a presidential quiz today in honor of this lame holiday (let's go back to Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's birthday, please! -- not to besmirch Martin Luther King, Jr., but he has his own day, after all!). I knew only a few of these, and I know a little about history. See how many you know! (I'm not going to link to the article because you'll just cheat -- I see it in your black hearts!)
1. Which presidents owned beer breweries?
2. Who was the first president to have his mother attend his inauguration?
3. Who was the first president to live in the White House?
4. Who failed to mention on his epitaph that he had been president?
5. Which president kept an alligator as a White House pet? (No, the answer is not "Clinton," and he named it "Hillary.")
6. Who was the first U.S. citizen to become president?
7. How many bachelors have been elected president?
8. Who served as president and vice president without ever being elected to either office?
9. Which president refused to accept a salary for serving as president?
10. Who was the first president to have a child born in the White House?
11. Which presidents won the Nobel Peace Prize while in office?
12. Which president trained to be a math teacher and created an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem while serving in the House of Representatives?
13. Which president invented, among other things, the pedometer, the swivel chair, and a machine to make fiber from hemp?
14. Which president had two of his vice presidents die during his term in office?
15. Who was the most recent president with a beard?
16. Who was the most recent president with a moustache?
17. Which president hated broccoli and banned it from his plate?
18. For which president did the Jelly Belly Candy Co. create a blueberry jelly bean so that he could keep bowls of red, white, and blue jelly beans in the White House?
19. How many teeth did George Washington have at his inauguration?
20. Who was the only president not to live in Washington, D.C.?
21. Who was the first president elected without the most popular votes or most electoral votes?
22. Which president was arrested while in office for running over a woman with his horse?
23. Who was president when the first telephone was installed in the White House?
24. Who was the first president to ride in an automobile?
25. Who took the oath of office from a woman?

Have a nice day! Next: religion invades the blog!