When truck culture goes bad. Er, worse.

http://truckinweb.com/features/0506tr_quad/

I'm so glad our boys are over there protecting our WAY of LIFE. (via Autoblog).

"Just tighten up that vagina wrench."

Today was a pretty good day. Had lunch with eamajyn and it was great to see her looking strong and healthy and snarfing up a plate of Crab Cooker. We went to the pier and snarked at the tourists and peered into the ocean like... well, like tourists.

There was some glorious sitting around to be had. I'm damned good at sitting around, and grateful that I have the opportunity to do so.

Had mongolian BBQ for dinner. Despite the increasing sketchiness of that place, food safety scares, etc., I really like that food. I suppose if I can survive ceviche off a roach coach in Pico-Union I shouldn't worry about questionable mongolian delights.

Because I am the Enemy of Fun I didn't go bowling with my friends tonight. I should probably take advantage of these opportunities because vita brevis etc.

D's was comfortably crowded tonight, with the Recovery Crew and the kids and the bad jazz and lots of stuff going on. It felt like years ago, when that place was reliably entertaining on a Saturday night.

The purpose-driven Mercedes

From today's LA Times. This guy can't write, nor can he have a consistent opinion about his subject. The people he interviews are awfully revealing. Who bought those 14 Mercedes on 9/11? Who refers to his girlfriend as "upgraded"? Why are they interviewing Objectivists? WHERE'S MY MACHETE?

Livin' Extra-Large
By Scott Duke Harris

April 24, 2005

In the 50 years since Walt Disney built "the Happiest Place on Earth" in a land where suburbia was crowding out citrus groves, Orange County has evolved into a metropolis fit for a marquee. Once a humble supporting character in the great American drama, it now comes across as an action hero on steroids, all pumped up and shiny for the 21st century with a swaggering prime-time sobriquet: "The OC."

A county supervisor got so carried away with the pithy title of the hit Fox soap opera that he suggested changing the name of John Wayne Airport to the O.C. Airport—John Wayne Field before snickers shot him down. But just as Disneyland now seems a quaint diversion here, the far-right politics that once distinguished Orange County from the rest of Southern California are a footnote. OC is all about the good life now, and livin' it extra-large—sort of like that towering statue of the celluloid cowboy down by the baggage claim.

Strange how a county that was once so conservative, so square, got so happening. Take it from a native: The old Orange County was a quilt of largely hum-drum communities with their discrete charms. Now its 34 cities and unincorporated patches have mutated into a mega-city with more than 3 million people and its own identity and ethos. The new OC is a Todayland for people with serious money or a reckless way with a credit card.

Caren Lancona loves the high-energy, soft-focus OC. She is in her element motoring around greater Newport Beach in one of her two Mercedes-Benzes, usually the pewter Kompressor Sport with the vanity plate BSCENE—a plug for her ad agency. "This used to be all surfing and skateboards," says Lancona. "Now it's Monte Carlo."

( Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall enter Chapter 7 )

What a country!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the The finest Russian evangelical hard rock band in existence.

Three parts Yakov Smirnoff, two parts Spinal Tap, and one part Stryper. Tasty. Oh, also completely freakin' insane.

Let's listen.

Apparently they really, really like both Sacramento and Bognor Regis.

via metafilter

Romance is overrated.

romanceoverrated, originally uploaded by redmaenad.

She, and her shirt, are right!

courtesy ranai

A little sunshine (Quicktime)

http://www.zacharyallen.com/zach_allen.html