Grab bag

Been a bit since I last posted, been busy with work and running around. I've got a bunch of oddities bouncing around in my head.

We went to IKEA last weekend to get a new bookshelf that serves as a divider for my office and the rest of the front room. We got the Expedit it swallows books, because it is designed to be double sided. While we were there I saw a family out shopping. They were very quiet. The husband and wife were ignoring each other and the little boy was sitting in the shopping cart. This is normal, everyone has had a long week, IKEA can be stressy etc etc. What was not normal was the fact that the little kid was in the shopping cart balancing a portable DVD on his feet and watching a movie. How fucking ADD have we become as a society that children aren't stimulated enough at IKEA (Swedish for primary colour)?

My internship is ending a month and a half earlier than I expected. Which is nice. Because I wouldn't want to blow my "broke at Christmas" streak.

Lucas now runs, or capers.. or something faster than a walk. It is quite astounding. One day he can barely go 3 steps with out falling, a week later it is a whole block.

We watched the US Pres debates the other day. Half way through my wife looked at me and asked, half rhetorically, half seriously, about Bush: "People vote for this man?" I could only shrug and suggest to her that it took all kinds. I know that a lot of people a lot smarter than I am (and a few a whole lot dumber) have had a poke at this, but suggesting that the way to fix unemployment is through sending people back to community college is silly. If you are a 55 year old PhD, or IT specialist, what exactly are they going to teach you at community college that will get you a job? Also, who will be paying your mortgage while you study for your glamorous new career in phone sales?

It's moose hunting season. I don't hunt, and I guess I am against it. But I suppose if you eat the moose and aren't just out to blow things away that is a different matter. Anyone who tells me that hunting moose and deer is sport is a liar. You could hunt most deer I have seen in the wild with a hammer or a rolled up magazine. Anyway, how I know that it is hunting season is because Lucas and I saw a moose head mounted on the top of someone's car. You don't see that very often anymore, I suppose it is half practical (moose are big, most vehicles are small and dead moose stink) and ego (look what I killed). Anyway, (keeping in mind that I don't eat anything bigger than chicken) I'm looking at the moose and thinking "whoa that is a seriously big, dead beast" and a woman walks by. She covers her eyes when she sees the moose and almost falls off the sidewalk avoiding looking at it. How much do you want to bet that at some point in the next 24 hours she eats some dead cow? People are very odd about that. Kill an animal on your own, and you are a savage and the animals carcass can not be looked at. Have someone kill an animal for you and then package it on styrofoam? MMM. THAT'S GOOD EATIN!