The Atheist's Nightmare

Did you know that Bananas prove God? I wonder what pineapples say about God? Coconuts?

He's right, though. I'm fucking terrified of bananas. Especially Bananas in Pyjamas. Those things are evil.

Saint John Paul - Patron Saint of Mystic Bullshit

It's a miracle! Pope JP cured a nun! Very Convenient because there is that stickler of a miracle that's required to be promoted to Sainthood. Kind of a "graduate thesis project" to be done in the off-hours. I'm rooting for JP, since he's pretty much embodied Catholicism for most of my life. I'll be able to tell my grandkids that I saw Derek Jeter play before he made the Hall of Fame and I saw JP on TV before he made saint. Let's hope the veteran's committee doesn't pull a dick maneuver when JP comes up for a vote.

Here's what confuses me...

The 46-year-old, speaking in a clear, poised voice, said she was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2001. Her symptoms worsened with time: Driving became practically impossible, she had difficulty walking, and her left arm hung limply at her side. She also could no longer bear to see John Paul on television, because he, too, was stricken — more seriously — with the disease.

Dude had the disease too and chose to cure her! Nice job! Voters like that! If it were me, I'd have used those magic powers on myself. But ladies and gentlemen, that's why I'll never be a saint like our man, JP. That, and because it's all complete mystical bullshit.

I'm So Tired

I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No, no, no

I'm so tired I don't know what to do
I'm so tired my mind is set on you
I wonder should I call you but I know what you'd do

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke, it's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep, I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks, I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got
For a little peace of mind

I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walter Raleigh
He was such a stupid git

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke, it's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep, I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks, I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got
For a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got
For a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got
For a little peace of mind

---

I need a nap.

UPDATED: I now know that not everyone will recognize the Beatles tune on the White Album from whence these lyrics came. At least, Toast didn't. Feel much better today.

Blogging Meme

Crap. I was tagged by Toast.

1. Do you do most of your blogging at home, at work, or at some third space? (A coffee shop, perhaps, or a library. Or a genial tavern.) Mostly at work. That's when I'm most able to quickly pop out and write something up. I've posted some at home, but find myself away from the computer more there.




2. Desktop or laptop? At work, my desktop. At home, one of my laptops.




3. Mac, Windows, or other? Windows Server 2003 at work. Windows XP service pack 2 at home.





4. Is your weblog a solo effort or a group blog? Just me. Not much of an effort, either. It's still in the larval stage. Not even sure what I'm trying to do here.




5. Do you allow comments? Sure. A few people have even left them.




6. Do you allow trackbacks? I'm not even sure what they are.




7. Do you have a blogroll? Kind of. I have links to Toast and my buddy Manuel's music blog.




8. What's your platform - Blogger, Movable Type, WordPress, TypePad, ExpressionEngine, Squarespace, Drupal... Blogger. Is Very Nice. Wa wa we-wa





9. Have you given serious thought to switching platforms; if so, why? Nah. I do this for fun. No reason to go too crazy about it.




10. Who's your webhost? Blogger




11. Happy with your host, or looking for a change? Is Very Nice.




12. If GenericBigMediaConcern.Com offered you boxes of cash to have your blog incorporated into their online presence (ala Greenwald at Salon or Sullivan at The Atlantic), would you do it? Yeah, absolutely. Why not? In fact, if I could have one gig, it would be a fantasy sports blogger/commentator like Eric Karabell at ESPN. I wouldn't even have to move.

Tag... Manny, aka a man who knows music, especially the kind I like well enough that he'll say "just trust me, buy it" and I do and he's right.

Tony - Get Well Soon

But in the meantime, Dana Perino is a fine lookin' woman.

Conservapedia - Baseball

I was messing with a buddy at work, playing the true "Ugly American" basically denying that baseball's origins began with cricket. See, he's originally from India (although now an American citizen) and he likes cricket. I told him I'd only believe that if it was in Conservapedia. So I went and checked. No entry. So I created one.

Here it is. Feel free to change it.

"Baseball is a team sport created in the United States of America. It has no relation to cricket. In fact, on the eight day, God created baseball because there was nothing on television. It came out fully formed and hasn't evolved in any way with the exception of some minor changes to the collective bargaining agreement."



Updated: Wow. That lasted all of 10 minutes. They already edited it and got rid of the truest parts. My username and IP has been blocked.

"dogs will always be inferior to cats."

So said Toast in the comments of my Poddery post("Uncle Toast" to my kids).

Frankly this perplexes me to no end. I think cats are just fine, but I don't see the appeal at all to having one in my house all the time. My daughter wants one, but thus far has only been able to explain this desire by saying, "They're pretty!" (she is 4, after all).

What is the appeal? Anyone know? Because when I look at a cat, I see the high school cheerleader of the animal kingdom. They preen and groom constantly and walk around with their noses in the air. They scoff at any human who foolishly thinks they might come over to say hello when being called. I just don't see it. Cat's are like a furry version of Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile, a dog does no such thing. Dogs are everything that a cat isn't: Friendly, Loyal and Useful. Indeed, a large part of the difference I see in that cats are not useful in anyway. Can a cat do any of these things?

Retrieve a bird you shot out of the sky?

Help a blind person across the street?

Find injured people in rubble after an earthquake?

Defeat a bear in mortal combat? (Old Yeller!)

No. A cat can't do any of that. Of course not. They're just cute. They're like supermodels, only slightly smarter. Screw Cats.

Because Haloscan sucks - Poddery goodness

Couldn't post this at TwoGlasses. Damn you, haloscan.
Here's mine:

* Ben Folds - "Losing Lisa" Rockin' the Suburbs
"She's sitting here beside me and she is gone."

* Iron Maiden - "Judas Be My Guide" Fear of the Dark
"Fight wars - Die in a blaze of glory. Come home - Meat in a plastic sack"

* Sublime - "Get Ready" Sublime
"load up the bong, crank up the song,
let the informa call 911"

* Ryan Adams - "Wild Flowers" Gold
"Poor Matilda, handcuffed hard to the wheel And steering wildly through love's fields, so blindly"

* Eminem - "Yellow Brick Road" Encore
"Let's take this shit back to basement
And we can disscuss statements thats made on this tape
And its whole origin of the music that we all know and love
The music that we all enjoy the music you all accuse me of tryna destroy"

* U2 - "Grace" All that you can't leave behind
"Grace, It's a name for a girl. It's also a thought that changed the world"

* Tyler Bates - "The Hot Gates" 300 Soundtrack
Awesome Soundtrack!

* Soundgarden - "Never Named" Down on the Upside
"I had a dog. He was a mix. He loved me like God"
This is why Dogs rule.

* Doves - "The Last Broadcast" The Last Broadcast
"You can't escape yourself. You can't just fall away. It comes to the point when you feel nothing This is the last time, cause I can see it in your eyes"

* Queen - "Fat Bottomed Girls" Greatest Hits
" Now I got mortgages and homes, I got stiffness in the bones. Ain't no beauty queens in this locality (I tell you). Oh but I still get my pleasure, still got my greatest treasure. Heap big woman you gonna make a big man out of me "
I like big butts and I cannot lie. No other brother can deny.

* Badly Drawn Boy - "Tickets To What You Need" Have You Fed The Fish
"I'm treading the borderlines and ruining people's lives by giving them what they need"

* Queensryche - "I'm American" Operation Mindcrime II
"If you voted for the man you're wasting time. He's got his fingers dipped in everyone's pie. The news can't wait to promote all the bullshit this government is selling.

* AC/DC - "What do you do for Money Honey?" Back In Black
"You're loving on the take
And you're always on the make
Squeezing all the blood out of men"
Not the most politically correct album ever, but easily one of the best.

I'm very happy with this 13.

Rove on Lieberdouche - "He's a personal friend"

Under the headline "GOP Gave Joe a Boost" the hometown Courant has this little gem.

On primary day, White House political guru Karl Rove called the senator. "He's a personal friend," Rove said later. "I called him. It was a personal call."

I know this isn't news per se, but Jesu-fucking-Cristo is it frustrating to see that little tidbit as Joe solemnly ponders his future and decides how best to end his tenure as a Democrat once and for all.

Sure, this is the public statement:

Lieberman has maintained that he has no intention of switching parties. He says that he is trying to use his independent status to build new coalitions and look for new approaches to bringing colleagues together.

So far, those new approaches have mostly been chastising critics of the President as "emboldening the enemy". If you're delusional like Joe and thing that you've been a "persistent critic of the Administration" (not the aforementioned 'personal friend') you might expand your delusion to think that is a new approach. It's not really. It's the same ol' H.J.B.S.

How is Joe's tenure as a Dem gonna end? With a lot of serious soul-searching, taking only breaks for the sabbath and FoxNews before regretfully laying the blame at the feet of the Democratic Party who abandoned him while being consoled by Tim Russert. But, hey, you haven't lived until you've nestled into Big Timmeh's loving arms and gotten a kiss on the forehead. The man has pillow-soft lips.

Strangely, I look forward to that day. Sure, it will be hugely frustrating to see my home state Senator finally turn against my party. But the wolf will have at least cast off his sheep's clothing and the Democrats who couldn't stomach a vote for Ned Lamont will finally see what they've done. And it will pave the way for his natural heir Dick Blumenthal to take over.

No friggin' way.

No self-respecting geek would ever set foot in this.

No way, no how. Where's the Dilbert tear off calendar? Where are the coffee stains? The pile of CDs? Crappy, uh, I mean fantastic art from the kids? Giant ball of rubber bands? That place sucks. So does this one and especially this one, too.



Here's what a real geek's cube looks like:

Note the "Great One" coffee. The nasal sprays. Wires askew. The iPod and giant black headphones. The thousand page techie tomes. This is where work gets done.... occasionally.

Big Bottom

Hear ya go, just because it's awesome:

The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin'
That's what I said
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read

My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I'd like to sink her with my pink torpedo

Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about bum cakes, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?

I met her on Monday, twas my lucky bun day
You know what I mean
I love her each weekday, each velvety cheek day
You know what I mean

My love gun's loaded and she's in my sights
Big game is waiting there inside her tights, yeah

Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?

My babies are probably not gay: Not that there's anything wrong with that

A buddy of mine sent me this link. Is your baby gay?

Check out some excerpts.

---

Pity the poor fetus. There's a lot coming its way. And now there's talk on a conservative evangelical blog of a hypothetical hormone patch that an expectant mother might wear to eradicate her fetus's natural gayness.

The patch, the biological determinism: It's all conjecture, for now. But it hit like a theological IED when it turned up earlier this month on the blog of the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the leading voices of the 16 million-strong Southern Baptist Convention. He blogged on these issues under the appropriately provocative headline: "Is Your Baby Gay? What if You Could Know? What if You Could Do Something About It?"

---

A ridiculously offensive idea, of course. Why even address the moral and ethical absurdity of this "religious leader's" eugenics plan to cleanse the world of queers? It's bullshit on it's face. What's made obvious is that when these religious wackos try and apply science using their flawed and irrational base assumptions that a) God exists and b) he hates gays then you get this kind of despicable evil gobbledygook. It's utter nonsense and the idea that that this guy speaks for anyone, much less 16 million baptists is fucking terrifying.

Now, on the other hand, if we had a test and patch to determine if our kids were going to grow up to be Baptists... I might be interested.

[sidebar]
I have two kids and my wife and I spoke openly about the possibility that one or both of them might be gay. We agreed that if that happens, it wouldn't matter a bit to us, but that we'd have to help them adjust to how it may affect how they are accepted by others.

In fact, having kids has completely crystallized my feelings about Gay Marriage. Before I had kids, I held a completely intellectually and ideologically based opinion that any two consenting adults should be allowed to marry, regardless of their gender. That position made the most logical and ethical sense to me. But, one day my daughter changed all of that for me. We were watching Cinderella (again!)and it was the near the end and she was excited. Her favorite part of the movie is when Cinderella and the Prince get married. "Here it comes!", she said. They kiss in the carriage. She loves it. I thought to myself, what if she were a lesbian? Would she be this excited about a 'civil union'? Probably not. And that's where intellect and ideology didn't quite cut it. If my daughter were a lesbian and she wanted to get married, then goddamn it, she should be allowed to. Same goes for my boy.
[end sidebar]

I began this post saying that my babies probably aren't gay. Every parent certainly considers what their kids future is and at times you get glimpses in their every day behavior. Allow me to elaborate: As it seems it's genetic, my kids exhibit some behavior that I wouldn't expect from someone genetically predisposed to be a homosexual. Notably, there have been many times that my daughter has been so flirtatious with teenage boys that her Dad has envisioned needing to imprison her from ages 15-30. And there has been twice that my three year old son has been rendered mute and awestruck by the beauty of a little girl he was playing with. It's weird to see ayour boy stop playing with trains and have a "goofy love face" come over him. He got positively stalker-esque. And last and not least, there was something that happened in the bath this Saturday that caused Dad to step in and put an end to it immediately and then proceed directly to the kitchen to wash my eyes out with White Pepper and Clorox. I may never get over that and my eyes will never un-see it. So, my kids may not grow up to be gay, but growing up to be on Jerry Springer isn't out of the realm of possibility.

Intelligent Designers - Quick Question

Why did God give me sinuses? Did he want to smite me with this headache? Why design them such that they throb and ache and generally make me want to punch someone in the face? Was it the donut email? Goddammit, God. My head hurts! That shit is not cool at all.

TiVo Scheduling from my Phone?

As an absolute TiVo-zealot, I love this. Already I can schedule my recordings from the web. I can order shows and movies from Amazon.com and watch them on my TV. Now, next time The wife and I are out and I've forgotten to DVR something, I can use my trusty Verizon LG8300.

That's some sweet geekdom right there. Love it.

This is truly reefer madness!

This story is unbelievable. 41-year old lady in California has an inoperable tumor in her brain. The Government, apparently having run out of local democratic officials to prosecute, has said, "Put down the joint, bitch!"

Raich, who suffers from many ailments, says marijuana keeps her alive by easing pain and bolstering appetite.

"Today I found out I am basically a dead man walking," Raich, who once worked as an accountant and massage therapist, told Reuters. "Today the court said I don't have the constitutional right to basically stay alive."

This is truly offensive. Please note that in California the use of marijuana for medical purposes is legal. This is a case of the feds trumping the state government. Please hold for the trememdous cry or outrage for this invasion by big government into the sacred jurisdiction of states rights from the Republicans, Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute .

[crickets chirping...]

ahh... Nothing. So, while the government fucks around, keeping marijuana illegal, this lady's gonna have to sit and worry if the feds will bust in her door, seize her medical marijuana and toss her dying ass in jail. I guess worrying about the tumor in her noggin wasn't enough.

Look, I am firmly of the belief that after a shitty day at work, I ought to be able to hit my supermarket for a six-pack of Magic Hat #9 and a 4-pack of Marlboro Jamaican Lights. That ought to be my right. I have begrudgingly become used to the fact that, for completely arbitrary reasons, this is not allowed by law. When I see idiocy like this, however, it pisses me off to no end.

Let the dying woman have a joint, for the love of the FSM!

Fuck!

James Dolan uses "surge" strategy on the Knicks

Because, you know, more of a bad thing is always the answer...

I think Isiah has clearly done a pretty good job of coaching the team. What he's been pretty spotty at is building the team. His main problem is that while almost every move has increased the talent level of the team, every move also has two problems: Zeke consistently overpays and the pieces don't fit when they get on the floor.

Even still, if he did nothing else, he traded for Curry who is a truly dominant offensive force and drafted David Lee, who is the second coming of Charles Oakley. And unlike any Knick team since the Van Gundy regime, this team plays with passion. Unfortunately, they're still not very good because they don't play consistently.

The 2008 season ticket slogan. "Your New York Knicks: you can watch them without barfing or slipping into a coma"

Amazon Unbox + TiVo = Merely OK.

A while ago, I put up a post talking about Tivo and Amazon's new partnership. It's a real, live offering now. They offered a 15 dollar credit for Amazon Unbox, and I quickly jumped on the freebie, so I could test the service out.

The service comes in two flavors, Rent or Buy. Figuring that the difference between the two was mostly the lifetime of the downloaded file (30 days for "RENT" and indefinitely for "BUY")I was most interested in the "BUY" option. So I cashed in my 15 bucks on downloading "Babel" (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett). I did this from work. I logged into Amazon, clicked on "Amazon Unbox" and then selected Amazon+TiVo. This required me to enter the email address I had registered at Tivo.com which is used for online scheduling, etc. Then, I had 15 bucks of virtual cash burning a hole in my pocket. I clicked on "buy" from the Babel page ($14.99) and selected one of my two TiVo's to download it to (you name them on TiVo.com - Mine are named "bedroom" and "living room"). I chose the Bedroom TiVo because it has a DVD burner and I wanted to see it TiVo was slick enough to allow me to burn the flick to DVD. And voila! The file begins downloading. I went back to work. One feature of note is that I haven't just bought the downloaded file, but the right to download it again from Amazon. So, when I whack it from my TiVo to reclaim space, I can download it again.

When I got home, I checked my bedroom TiVo and there it was: A TiVo "folder" called Amazon Unbox and in it was Babel. Can't burn it to DVD. Bummer, but maybe that's coming with a software update, right? Still, it's Strike One. I check out the quality and it's excellent, both in terms of video and audio.

Later that night, I sit down on my couch to watch the movie. My two TiVo's are wirelessly connected through my home network which enables one of the coolest TiVo features - Video Sharing. I can watch a program on TiVo A that was recorded on TiVo B. Of course, this should work for Amazon Unbox programs. Argh. Strike Two. I "bought" this, right? I can't transfer it from one box to another? Ack.

I log back into Amazon and find, upon reading some small print, that each download is dedicated to being on just one box at a time, and only 2 "PCs" and two "Mobile Devices" (read:not an iPod). You can change which PCs can play your media. Each TiVo box counts as a PC. And I am allowed to "backup my movie to DVD". Reading even smaller print teaches me that means backing up the amazon file to DVDRom, not creating a DVD playable in normal DVD players. Annoying.

I then decide that I'll just download it to my Living Room DVR and watch it from there. I click download and sure enough, the next time I check my DVR list there it is. I click on the Amazon Unbox folder and try and watch the movie. No go. Message comes on screen "You must wait until transfer has completed". Strike Three. You see, the movie file is 2+ GB in size and that's just way too long to wait (it later turns out that it took 2hrs, so I'd have to watch a movie while waiting to watch a movie).

This is something that TiVo needs to fix. When transferring programs from DVR to DVR or PC to DVR, I can watch almost immediately. With Cable On Demand, you can watch almost immediately. Having to wait until the entire program downloads is just too long. And the mere fact that the download took about the same time as the movie makes it self-evident that you should be able to watch as you download. Lame.

It's official "Buying" is useless. And the price is not low enough to give up the flexibility and control you have with an actual DVD. Perhaps when we all have Fiber Optic lines running to our houses, but not now.

Renting? Renting is better. The cost is lower (a still too-high $3.99) and the length of the rental is 30 days. If they adopted the Netflix subscription model, it might even be more attractive. As it is, given the ability to begin the download from any internet location, you could consider it like Netflix without the mailbox. No need to get the movie or send it back. I personally think that a fairer cost would be 1.99

The really compelling bit about all this was that this is just software. All of a sudden, one day, I could download a movie from Amazon and watch it on my TV. That's pretty cool. The "buy" implementation is terrible. It just doesn't offer much value. The "rent" implementation is much more interesting, but I still think that the price is a bit high. It has some benefits over traditional renting (selection and no store or mailbox to visit) but two hours to move it from one place to another? That's hardly "on demand" and even less is it this (from the TiVo website):

With the click of your mouse, they can be re-downloaded back to your TiVo box and ready to watch whenever the mood strikes.

Sure, if you know the mood will strike two hours from now.

300

Extremely Succinct Review: Holy Fucking Shit!

Less Succinct Review: Audacious and Pretentious. You may not love it, but you've never seen anything like it. No scene is a throw away, at least visually. Each is filmed like it is a decadent fashion ad, even the ones featuring decapitated heads flying in the air or charging armored rhinos. This is movie isn't eye-candy, it's eye-porn. It assaults your senses on the screen and through its wicked soundtrack.

Many have tried to look at this as an allegory for the quagmire in Iraq. To them, I say, "Bah, you're waaay overthinking this flick" Indeed, you will hear words that will echo those of politicians on both sides. But making some kind of statement? I don't see it that way at all, and I really looked. I see it as a story of a principled rebellion. The creepy androgynous and strangely super-tall Xerxes trying to negotiate with the austere, chiseled, principled and honorable Spartans. I just can't see a way to fit that into the War on Terrah(tm).

How's the plot? There is one, I won't recount it here and like most porn, it's the least interesting thing about what you're watching. You won't and shouldn't see this movie for that. You'll see this for stunning visuals, the avalanche of action and the performance of Gerard Butler, who enters the pantheon of celluloid ass-kickers with his portrayal of Leonides.

Rundown
Favorite scene: the big mutant dude.
Scene that sucked: the senate
Gratuitous Naked Chicks: Check!
Gratuitous Naked Man Ass: Um, Check.
Thing that annoyed me in the theater: Stupid Bitch behind me that felt the need to tell all of us that she didn't agree with a particular choice of the queen because she felt it was sexist. She's lucky I didn't pull a Leonides on her punk ass.
RATING: 4.5 of 5 Possible Couches.

Quick Album Recommendation - Sing You Sinners - Erin McKeown

by Erin McKeown.

I had never heard of her until I caught a co-worker surfing (when they should have been working - for shame!) to find a nearby store that had a copy of this album. I was intrigued by his description and the goofy retro album cover and checked it out. I loved the iTunes samples and quickly bought it(too quickly, I'd say. Those apple guys have made it real easy for me to spend 10 bucks at a time. Clever bastards).

It's breezy and light in the style of 30's-40's standards. All covers of old tunes, some well known (Get Happy, Paper Moon, Just One Of Those Things) some not. It's kind of a peppy, swinging female version of Chris Isaak or Michael Buble. She keeps the sweetness coming from beginning to end and you'll end your listening session with your ears having that same minty-and-refreshed feeling your mouth gets from brushing your teeth. It's very enjoyable. The highlights are Get Happy, Cou Cou, the title track - Sing You Sinners and an interesting jazz take on Cole Porter's Just One Of Those Things.

I was quite surprised to find that the rest of her catalog doesn't seem to be at all like this one. This is confusing and impressive, because she handles this album with a level of assurance of someone who has been working in this style for a long time. Her last album was more of a rock-folk effort.

As such, I don't know what the next album may look like. But I'm interested to see what's next.

BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Ol' Newty was having an affair while chasing after Bill.

Oh Right-Wing Hypocrisy, I love you so.

Updated: CNN hypothesizes the confession is to clear way for prez run from Newty? Wow. I imagine that he'd do pretty well in the south, but anywhere else? Doubt it.

Careful Rudy, these guys eat their own

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. This is what happens when you align yourself with Republican base.

These people, aside from truly believing that Jesus will return to earth sometime soon (perhaps to be a judge on American Idol), have gotten very used to having political power way beyond the level of influence they deserve. What is the difference between this guy commenting on Rudy's candidacy and a mullah commenting on the political happenings in Iran? None, if you ask me. Both are scary as hell.

And Rudy, you CHOSE to join with these guys. After you showed true leadership after 9/11, your ambition got the better of you and you went over to the dark side. At first, I thought it was just The Bush Administration using you. Then, I saw that you were using them, too. The moment for me, one of your fans up to that point, was when you stood up on behalf of the Bush Administration during the Republican Convention. That's when you're "maverick" status died and I buried it in the graveyard next to "Mel Gibson is cool" and "Jim Fassel - Offensive Guru".

I liked you as mayor of NYC cleaning up time square and the bureaucracy. I loved you in the post-9/11 chaos. You disappointed me with your ambitiousness after that and now, you may just find out that the Republican Party was using you for "street cred" more than you were using them.

Good Luck.