Turn your sarcasm detectors on

We're all aware of the abomination that occurred Tuesday in Delaware.

Well. It seems O'Donnell's Democratic opponent was a Republican until his early 20s, when he went on a life-changing study abroad.

In which country did this transformation take place?

KENYA.

Where, obviously, he was recruited by the anti-colonialist Marxists to be Obama's right-hand man in handing America over to the Muslims. IT'S ALL IN THE ARTICLE, PEOPLE. Christine is the only person standing between us and Sharia.

I give it 3 days before the crazies take this and run, alleging a conspiracy that involves Obama, Coons, Joe and Beau Biden, and Castle.

The little things

11:25 AM me: the meetings are scheduled for eastern time
but the notes all say EST and i'm getting annoyed
it's EDT now, dammit!

3:10 PM me: now someone on the west coast used PST
DO I HAVE TO START BLOGGING AGAIN?

Wow

Well done, Post editors! It's not like he's from a district that might matter to any of your readers, right? Michigan, Montgomery County, all the same!

M Slash 1, DC 0

I am pleased to announce that I have emerged victorious in my fight against the Man. I went to traffic court yesterday to fight the parking ticket that was wrongly issued to me (or, at least, to a Subaru with the same tag number as my Pontiac), and had the ticket dismissed in about 3 minutes. The judge did a double-take when I answered “No” to the question “This ticket was issued to a Subaru with license plate number …, is this correct?”, and things just went uphill from there.

Shockingly (or not so), my story was not the most appalling of the group. One poor woman parked illegally in a street cleaning zone, got towed to a rush hour zone, then got towed from there to a meter, resulting in three tickets in a matter of hours. Luckily, the judge found the towing records in the system to verify her story, and dismissed the last two tickets. I assume that the towing company chose those spots on purpose so they could continue ticketing and get some sort of financial "thank you" from the city. Oh, DC!

Police Ineptitude

I was driving over to a friend's house last night, when I noticed that there was something on my windshield. I pulled over to grab it, thinking I had gotten a ticket for missing street cleaning or something. No. It was a parking ticket for not having a parking permit displayed. The brilliant officer put the ticket on my windshield RIGHT NEXT TO WHERE MY PARKING PERMIT IS PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED. Moreover, the ticket has my tag number and state, but lists the car as a 3-door Subaru, when I drive a 5-door Pontiac.

How did this happen?

Either DC has started allowing illiterates in their parking enforcement corps; this man is a complete idiot; or he saw a 3-door Subaru the first time he drove through and then thought my car was the same one.

Now I have to go fight this ticket, all because of this man's inability to notice a sticker on my windshield. No other traffic cop has had this problem.

I can't wait to tell all the lawyers at work about this.

Our quarterback, ladies and gentlemen

Oh, come on, Donovan! I knew a tie was possible in the NFL; I even remember the last time the Eagles played to one! (Against the Ravens in the short-lived Bobby Hoying Era)

I DEMAND RESTITUTION!

Last night, I made a horrifying discovery. It came to my attention that someone to whom I am related, and whom I admired greatly, has never seen A Charlie Brown Christmas. She claimed this failure is due to her "not being much of a Peanuts person."

Now, if you know me, you know that there are few things in this world that I love more than Snoopy. I was upset this year that I couldn't watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. One of my first toys was a Linus doll. I had a baby blanket with the Peanuts characters on it. My distrust of France started with the creepy chateau in Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown. Hell, when I was little, I begged my parents to buy a puny tree for Christmas, and, when they refused, I dragged it around the lot yelling, "I HAVE MY OWN MONEY! I'LL BUY IT!"

Needless to say, I am disturbed by this development. I found it apropos that, shortly after she made this statement, we watched the commercial featuring the Macy's Charlie Brown balloon beating Stewie and Underdog for the Coke balloon. Go Chuck!

Warrior!

It's only 1:30, but today has been marked by both great joy and tremendous horror.

For the good news, I filled up for $2.01 this morning in Newark! I feel like it's 2003 again, which makes me 5 years younger.

This feeling was short-lived, as I just took a look at the top songs in iTunes. Number 38 right now is a cover of "All Summer Long" by some group called The Rock Heroes, and off of their album....
A Salute to Kid Rock.

I feel dirty just typing that.

OK ! (?)

When did people start putting spaces before punctuation marks, specifically exclamation points? I've seen many an email lately that looks like this: Thanks !

I'm baffled. It seems to be affecting people of various age groups and with high levels of education. It's not even an over correction, like when people say they "feel badly" instead of "feel bad" because they think the adverb is the right way to go.* Since there's no common punctuation mark that I can think of that needs a space before it, I don't understand where it's coming from.

*It isn't, by the way. If you regret something, you feel bad about it. If you have problems feeling, then you feel badly.

WTF?

I was browsing the Halloween candy at CVS today, and I saw the most frightening product of the season: mini bottles of Vitamin Water designed to be given out to trick-or-treaters.

Listen, people, whoever gives this crap out deserves to get their house TP'd. Good lord, at least go for the pretzels!

I want my shoes!

I ordered something from Amazon, and got an email on Thursday saying that it had shipped. There was no information from FedEx until Friday, and please look at its journey:

Date	Time	Location	Event Details
October 3, 2008	06:57:00 PM	WASHINGTON DC	Arrival Scan
October 3, 2008	07:43:00 AM	WASHINGTON DC	Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit

Even if they were delivering it on foot from the other side of the city, it shouldn't take 11 hours.

UPDATE: OH GOOD LORD:
October 4, 2008 10:53:00 AM WASHINGTON DC Arrival Scan
October 3, 2008 06:57:00 PM WASHINGTON DC Arrival Scan
October 3, 2008 07:43:00 AM WASHINGTON DC Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit

JESUS CHRISTMAS

If the Eagles defense were to murder the entire offense after this game, I would understand and completely support their decision.

Glaring omissions

I didn't watch much of the Emmys last night, but I did see Josh Groban's "tribute" to classic theme songs:


The first thing that jumped out at me, of course, was the absence of this masterpiece:


And this one:



And THIS?



I could do this all day, you know.

Public Service Announcement

OK, Google searchers, I tried to ignore what you might have meant when you searched for "slash loves animals?" but I'm afraid I can't stay silent any longer. Whoever searched for the phrase "slash with animals", please seek help. You have problems.
Thank you.

WTF?

Did any of you watch Jeopardy! Monday night? WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT NEW FINAL JEOPARDY MUSIC? I think we should start an email campaign. Who's with me?!?

Hypocrisy!

And we got upset that the Chinese had a girl lip sync because the singer wasn't cute enough? Where's the outrage over this?

A rare serious rant

If no congressional representation and a higher likelihood of being called for jury duty weren't bad enough, I found out today that my imminent move to the District means my tax dollars will be spent on this appalling plan. Oh, you say kids will prefer getting paid as opposed to serving detentions or attending summer school? How insightful of you! Hey, I've shown up to work every day this week, should I ask my boss for a little extra money on my next paycheck? It'll really encourage me to come back on Monday!

As my co-worker said, I don't know if I'm outraged or dumbfounded, or both. What does Michelle Rhee think will happen when these kids enter the working world? People already think MY generation expects praise for doing what we're expected to, but we're going to seem like Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation compared to the ones growing up now.

Now, if you excuse me, I've got to get the kids off my lawn before I can leave for my canasta tournament.

Only amateurs sit down!

We had a night on the town in Montgomery County on Saturday, and I've got to say I'm relieved to be leaving it soon after what I saw. Our first stop was the County Fair, and we spent half an hour in line for the popular exhibit "The ATM" (and not even the one by the Cheese Booth!). Jess, tired of waiting to get cash, pondered telling the police officer nearby that she was having a diabetic fit and needed funnel cake ASAP. You laugh, but the fair had prepared for such an event:


This was at the same booth where I got fried Oreos. They were delicious.

Next, we went to karaoke night at a bar in Kensington. It was horrible. No one recognized one of the best songs from the 80s, performed to perfection by Jess and me:


Instead, they seemed to prefer this crap:



WTF is that about? Poor Taylor, having to deal with psycho older women who want a fling with their local barista.

I will admit that things were better at the next bar, where the people were more enthusiastic about our encore performance:

ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE

Hasbro has announced completely unnecessary changes to Clue. "Kasandra Scarlet"? "Special powers"? "Jack Mustard, football player"? NO WRENCH?

How will future generations learn how to pronounce the word "colonel"?

OUTRAGE

From the swimming commentators: "If you're a young girl and you're not cheering for Hannah Miley, well..."

Hannah Miley is Australian. I demand an investigation into why our swimming announcers are encouraging our children to root against Americans.