My spam inbox gets some really entertaining things in it in addition to the usual crap.

The surrealist award goes to the one titled: "Make yourself look really spiny!"

The unintentional comedy award goes to the one titled: "Hi sweety! Remember me?" The first line of the message (displayed by default in Gmail) reads, "i am a hot brunette girl, a brunette with brown eyes, looking...", which would be a little more believable had the sender not been named Alberto.

The catty commentary award goes to the one titled: "Construction crews fill Paris Hilton's hole".
Runner-up: "Taliban votes Nicky Hilton cuter than Paris Hilton".

The battle of the sexes award goes to the one titled: "Bomb her womb from your huge cannon!", which is certainly the most entertaining "enlarge your penis" ad I've ever received. I've certainly never taken the phrase "the battle of the sexes" quite that literally.

2002: Wow, Gov. Palin's skirt is tight.

2008: They're both talking, but nobody's saying anything. >>Oni su govorili i govorili i govorili, a nisu rekli ništa!<<

2009: I'm not really warming up to either of them, but I'm really starting to like the moderator. "Neither of you really answered the question at all, but let's move on."

2012: At first, it seemed like they were both getting sidetracked, but now, they aren't even hiding the fact that they're not bothering to answer Ifill's questions.
>> Ifill: "I'd like to ask about your respective candidates' health plans..."
>> Biden/Palin: "We're going to talk about taxes instead."

2016: Sen. Biden does a better job of sounding like he knows what he's talking about. Gov. Palin's sticking to generalities, and using a lot of words that feel good, but ultimately don't mean much. I have a feeling, though, that that will mean an awful lot to "Middle America", if there could be said to be such a thing. She uses words that resonate well with lower- and middle-class families, and I think they'll flock to that. As Izzard said: "Seventy percent how you look, twenty percent how you sound, and the other ten percent..."

2020: Biden doesn't call income redistibution redistribution, he calls it "fairness". Look, be honest with us, and call a duck a duck. Newspeak much? Don't redefine a word or us. It's insulting to our intelligence.

2025: Both of them seem to be saying, "Let the middle class have their money, and let's screw the companies they work for!" Different approaches, but same tactic.

2027: You can hear Biden breathe into his microphone as he seethes at Palin's remarks.

2029: Adjust the principal of home loans? Are you mad? That's gonna make the mortgage crisis better: "Let's cut off even more of the cash flow to the banks that are failing!"

2034: It's easier for me to listen to them talk about the financial crisis, because it's a topic I freely admit to not knowing much about. It kills me to listen to them talk about energy. Gaah.

2036: On gay civil rights:
>> Ifill: "Let's talk for a moment about some policy that it's not politically correct for you to disagree with, but not politically expedient for you to agree with."
>> Palin: [mumble mumble mumble]
>> Biden: [mumble mumble mumble]
>> Ifill: "So you're agreed then."
>> Both: "Yes. New topic."

2040: On Iraq: Insert your own joke about coitus interruptus here.

2042: Iraq, again:
>> Biden: [well-reasoned point]
>> Ifill: "Gov. Palin?"
>> Palin: "Oh shit." {Maybe if I pause long enough, I can run out of time?} [half-decent party-line recovery]

2046: When did "homeland" become a word we used outside of the vaguely imperial-sounding context of the Department of Homeland Security?

2047: You know, for someone who's supposed to be such a master debator, he's really not very impressive at all, which is a polite way of saying "he's utterly crap at it." He's better than she is, but not by much.

2048: Ifill: "Will you please, pretty, pretty, please, with a cherry on top, actually answer this next question?"

2050: You know, Biden, I somehow doubt that Allah speaks audibly to the governmental ministers of Iran. I think that Ahmadinejad has a pretty damn big influence over how his military is run, thanks.

2056: All this talk of nucular nuclear weaponry. Is it 1984 all over again? Or heck, even 1954. Maybe all those fallout shelters in the older buildings at UT will be useful after all.

2100: You know, Biden looks an awful lot like Emperor Palpatine. I half expect to see Force lightning flashing from his hands every time you see those veins at the side of his head throb.

2101: I'd read an article on CNN saying something about how Gwen Ifill was supposed to be a bad choice for a moderator because she was expected to be very partisan, but she's been really even-handed for the entire debate.

2106: Palin: "John McCain, who knows how to win a war..." Oh, like Vietnam?

2109: Palin seems to be smirking there a lot, like she's preparing a a devastating response, but nothing of the sort ever really comes out of her mouth. Both of them spend so much time trying to defend their own respective candidates that they never actually manage to talk about anything else at all. Then again, maybe that was their intent.

2110: Biden: "Can I respond?"
>> Ifill: "No—"
>> Biden: [IGNORES HER COMPLETELY]

2112: Palin seems to be having a lot of difficulty with the clutch, or so I am left to assume given that she's been stalling so often.

2115: Palin does make a good point about having at least some experience in an executive role, even if it's not much. Neither Obama nor Biden do—though nor does McCain for that matter. McCain does at least have a history as a commanding officer in the Navy, which does help.

2119: American exceptionalism? Gag me with a spoon.

2122: For the love of all that is holy, stop using the word maverick! I swear, it sounds like I'm listening to a basketball game in Dallas.

2126: Truthfully, I think that if indeed government works as smoothly in Alaska as Palin would have us believe, it is only because there aren't as many people to bitch and moan at each other as there are everywhere else.

2128: Wow, Biden made it through the whole debate without a single snide reference about teen pregnancy!

2131: Memo to Biden: I don't like ExxonMobil either (indeed, I frequently refer to it as "the evil empire"), but there are more big corporations out there than just them. Also, and this goes even moreso to Sen. McCain, there are more executives in a company's organization than just the CEO.

Top Gear reruns are on the telly right now. For those of you who've never seen an episode, I'll point out one of the show's real strengths: its incredible soundtrack. It's not composed for the show; rather, some guy chooses existing songs and takes five-second cuts of them for appropriate moments. By and large, the choices he makes are stellar. However, for the preview of what will come in the next season (of reruns), they chose the following song, the irony of which becomes apparent as soon as you hear the first verse:



Or, for that matter, the name of the song: "No Cars Go", by Arcade Fire. As it happens, this is my favorite song of theirs.

So I'm back in Houston now, and there is once again internet. I had resolved not to complain about lack of internet since there are people around here still lacking power entirely (especially since now the weather is not the delightful shade of autumn that it was last week), but I was feeling a bit disconnected, as the internet is the primary medium of communication with a couple of close friends.

The apartment is just fine. I wish, in hindsight, that I had stayed, since I love storms so much, but evacuating was a wise decision, especially since I was sick. I know that these apartments have had termites before, and had these visions of the apartment collapsing around us while The Maternal Unit and I would be trapped in the laundry room for five hours, with me opening up the door every third minute to hack something out of my throat. Not fun. As it turns out, even though the eyewall supposedly passed through here, the only thing that fell off were some shingles. Consequently, there are some damp spots in the ceiling. Our dining table is a little warped, as it's untreated pine, but it's fine. The only thing we really lost was a decorative mat that one of our friends gave us after one of her sojourns in the Caucasus.

My life is more or less back to normal now. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am indeed thankful for it.

Our neighbors at the Hilton are having sex.

The Maternal Unit shouted through the wall, "You can call the baby Ike!"

He's very enthusiastic about this. They've been at it for a while, but had taken a break.

KXAN in Austin is very helpfully piping through coverage from KPRC in Houston. Right now, they're showing parts of town near where I grew up, on the west side. Things there aren't looking too good. My guess is that they're showing the west side since that's what they can actually get access to.

Eee.

ETA: My aunt has helpfully pointed me to hurricane photos on Yahoo!. Those of you who would like to know what you're missing (heck, what I'm missing, for that matter) can look here.

In Austin. The Maternal Unit and I evacuated due to Ike, the eyewall of which was due to pass through our apartment. We weren't in a mandatory evacuation zone, which struck me as strange, as our area is very near the coast and was expecting significant flooding. Left Shadowfax in Houston, in his garage. Hope he's ok.

No idea what things look like in my area of town, and there isn't much of a way to find out short of going back, which we'll do probably tomorrow. Power's out over nearly all of the city, and the distributing company expects that it'll be two weeks or more before power's fully back on. It's hard to get a real sense of just how bad things are from the news coverage, though, since most of it is from Galveston Island, which has been completely submerged in previous hurricanes, so you sort of expect a lot of flooding there. Much of the structural damage they've shown has been from buildings of obviously poor construction. 'Course, there's no real telling how good your own home is until it goes through a storm, so...

We left really late; we couldn't decide if we should stay or go. By the time we left, the winds were starting to pick up, and some of Ike's outer bands were starting to reach land. The advantage to doing this is that most everyone else who'd planned on leaving had already left, and the roads were comparatively clear. The drive, normally about three hours, only took four. And while there was a lot going on on the roads that was rather annoying, there wasn't much in the way of people doing really crazy, dangerous, wacko garbage.

Got last night's dinner at Banzai. The owner still remembers me, nearly two years after graduation. The service was never bad at Banzai, but it has gotten better, and that's always good. Haruko, we tried calling you, but it went straight to your voicemail.

If you're in Austin, and disappointed that I haven't got in touch with you, please know that I'm sick. I've been sick since Monday evening, and haven't been at work since Monday. I'm starting to come out of it, and am probably not contagious, but for the fact that my body is still making its own weight in nasopharyngeal mucus every second day. Yesterday, I began coughing up things that would be an inspiration to science-fiction B-movie concept directors. Actually, they look a lot like what you see in this endoscopic photo of a gastric ulcer.

I had said that I'd grow my beard again when the weather got cool. It is not cool yet, but I've been out of the office so long that I had some decent growth going, and today, shaved it into shape.

Every year, one of my coworkers goes hunting on the first weekend of dove season. And every time he talks about the "white-wings", this song starts going in my head:

Separated at birth: ( Images Under the Cut )

I walked into the house after work, and to my surprise, The Maternal Unit was here, having come home from work early (in relative terms, anyway). She was watching "The FBI Files"; this particular episode was about a series of bank robberies. They made reference to an armed confrontation with the suspects led by Special Agent Shawn Johnson. Instantaneously, an image came to mind of her in a gray suit and lavender blouse, with the blonde-highlighted Cheri Oteri hairstyle she was sporting at the closing ceremonies, holding a gun.

Gymnastics on the mind, this week's (or is it last's? Who even knows anymore?) vídeo is one that Ian sent me recently. It's been in my head for the last two days. Mason v Princess Superstar: Perfect (Exceeder)



This is actually a mashup of two songs: Mason's "Exceeder" (music) and Princess Superstar's "Perfect" (lyrics). While I like the song, I bemoaned the trampy hobag slutarrific lyrics to Ian. What is she, in heat? Keep it in your leotard, honey. Women like her and the men that would "tap that" as the expression goes, if my understanding of the dialect is complete, are a big part of why I hate going to nightclubs. Have at least a little respect for yourselves, let alone for each other.

Having said that, I've listened to both of the original tracks. "Perfect", itself the real source of my problem with "Perfect (Exceeder)", is really just forgettable. "Exceeder", without any lyrics to beef it up, seems kind of insufficient, yet another nondescript house track. It's a bit like a cafeteria salad: Good for what it is, but not too special, and at the end of it, all you really want is a bowl of pasta. And yet somehow, when the two tracks are combined, they add up to more than the sum of their parts. The new combination, even with sluttasticness undiminished, manages to be really fun, something that works its way into your head and makes you want to dance. I'd call it catchy, but the rest of that joke would write itself too easily.

I'll let Haruko comment on the video itself for me:

Haruko: I am REALLY disturbed
Sfida: By what in particular? That one girl's fake eyelashes?
Haruko: It's...somewhere in between Cobra Starship and Pickle Surprise
Haruko: And also a bit of Gunter, with the girl-on-girl action
Haruko: But without the sideboobs

During the women's artistic gymnastics broadcasts, much was made of the Jedi-style recruitment of future gymnasts at the age of three, removing them completely from their homes and families that they may be trained for a craft.

The gymnasts aren't the only ones who suffer through this militaristic regimen. One of the Chinese synchronized swimmers asked her new (Japanese) coach for a weekend off. When the surprised coach asked him why, she replied that she hadn't seen her family in twelve years. Some would say, "that's dedication," but I question how much of that is really her own choice. And you know what? They still lost.

And that, my friends, is a travesty.

In more or less unrelated news, I will say that I really liked the attitude of the Americans, who said [paraphrased]: "We aren't aiming for a medal. We're aiming for a standing ovation."

Olympic middleweight boxing is on. I don't mind it, but I'm not ecstatic about it, either. The commentators, I believe, had been boxers themselves when they were younger, and one of them may have taken one too many punches to the head. This affords me some amusement. Wit (or rather the lack thereof):

Degale (Great Britain) has complained to the referees that Correa (Cuba) has bitten him on the shoulder. And the judges did just award Degale two points as penalty to Correa. Now, this doesn't mean that Correa's hungry. What it means is that he's getting frustrated.

Really? No shit? He's not just wanting lunch?

Even still, who is he, Mike Tyson? What the hell is wrong with you that your first instinct when frustrated is to bite someone? Geez, check this guy for rabies.

And what may be the most surreal part of all this is that the crowd is booing Degale at the medals ceremony. They wanted the biter to win. Explain this one to me?

More fun from my spam inbox:

I'm not exactly knowledgeable about cocaine and the methods by which one takes it, but I was pretty sure that eating it wasn't the usual method. And thus, this one leaves me mystified:

From: Top News Agency
Subj: Weekly Top News: Sperm-Flavored Cocaine All the Rage in LA

This next one is just surreal:

From: Tao Splane
Subj: Britney Sues Vagina for Divorce

Having highlighted the plight of the SLOvenes in races, I would now like to call attention to the Brazilians, whose abbreviation is BRA.

This is of course fantastic when you're watching women's beach volleyball, when the BRAzilians have a giant BRA splashed right between their boobs, written on what is nothing more than, well, a bra. A sports bra, yes, but still, a bra.

From my spam inbox:

From: MSNBC Breaking News
Subj: msnbc.com - Breaking News - God Destroys Boise for not Being Gay Enough

Warning: Do not click on the link in this entry unless you already know how (or don't give a damn about) how the women's vault finals end.

Wikipedia is not without its faults.

I wanted to look up some information about a particular gymnast during the commercials. There was a single paragraph about her, which totally blew the ending of the competition I'm watching.

::sigh::

Watching rowing right now. Although I've never done it, I do have a fondness for it. In a sense, you could say that I owe my existence to it, since both my parents were rowers, and that's how they met.

I always root for Slovenia when I see them in an event. (Aaah, Motherland!) But the Slovenes have an unfortunate handicap for racing events—if you believe in omens. It's just kind of bad to have "SLO" on the side of your craft in a racing event.

It's really ironic that I haven't worked out in a week and a half because I've been watching this great celebration of athleticism on the television.

This weekend, Monica and I chatted briefly about the Olympics. Naturally, swimming came up, and I brought up my other favorite water sport: diving. [The order of this conversation was cleaned up in the interest of reading comprehension]

Sfida: yeah. one thing i like about diving is that the men don't shave, and that makes me feel better
Sfida: i don't get how now suddenly men are supposed to look like boys
Monica: dude, what is it about you and body hair?? hehe
Sfida: girl, you've seen me without my shirt on
Monica: geico?
Sfida: ow, burn
Monica: :P
Sfida: i like my hairy chest.
Monica: for athletes it's not for the look
Sfida: says who? i understand why it's necessary for swimmers, but
Monica: well athletes who play contact sports or are prone to injury shave to prevent infection
Sfida: bah.
Monica: haha. remember that gap commercial way back in the day....
Monica: there was a guy, a man's man, if you will, with a really hairy chest...
Monica: and the ad was addressing the ladies, how if they wanted to stay warm this winter they ought to purchase, i think it was cashmere,
Monica: or find a real man.
Sfida: i love it. i am so using that line
Monica: ^_^v
Sfida: of course, i don't really think it would work on most women. i certainly doubt that it would sway you
Monica: hm, i'm afraid if a guy walked up to me, ripped open his shirt and said "here's a real man" i'd raise a skeptical eyebrow and walk away.
Monica: it's about tact. hehe.
Sfida: oh come on. could you imagine me doing that?
Sfida: i mean, maybe, but only if i was already married to her
Monica: oh, oh, oh... it'd be perfect if you were wearing your linen pants with a crips white shirt on, but open, and the wind blowing.... and you just standing there posing... then that guy who does the dos equis commercials with the real smooth deep voice, can say, ladies, here's a real man. *end scene*

I'm skipping a show about cars to watch a sporting event. There's a first time for everything, right?

In both of the subjectively-scored events that I've watched (gymnastics and synchro diving), and for both genders, the Chinese teams have been getting vastly better scores than they deserve. It's really starting to piss me off. The US women's gymnastics team really got shafted, especially on the uneven bars. Meanwhile, one of the Chinese girls lands flat on her back after a vault and got nearly a 16. And I'm supposed to believe there's no bias?

On men's synchro diving, the judging was all really fair — except when it was for the Chinese divers. The Germans, the Russians, the Americans, the British — every last one of their dives that was shown was scored fairly. The Chinese? None of their dives were better than mediocre, and some were downright ugly, but their scores were untouchable. What gives?

Oh, and the Chinese women's gymnastics team? Deng Linlin, He Kexin, and Yang Yilin are totally not over the minimum age of 16. I don't care what their official competition passports say. They are no older than 12.

And the 4x100 relay: I was so happy, and so proud. Partly, yes, as an American, but mostly because I wanted to see that mouthy twit Alain Bernard eat his words. And after that race, the French looked very gray, very grave, and were very silent.