Clemens and McNamee Testifying in Front of Congress

With the Middle East enjoying a new, lasting peace and prosperity, all of our constitutional rights having been restored, and the economy booming Congress finally takes the time to focus on whether or not Roger Clemens used steroids and/or HGH.

You can watch it all live on MLB.tv or Baseballchannel.tv

Kanye West and Daft Punk at the Grammys

As much as I hate to admit it, Kanye’s The Graduation is pretty high on my playlist right now, one of the main reasons is this song which was a pretty nice spectacle at last night’s Grammys. Apparently it was the first time Daft Punk has ever appeared on television.

Happy Politicking

I’m sitting here watching the results roll in from Super Tuesday and watching the candidates come on and give speeches to their admiring masses.  The one universal truth about each of them, Republican or Democrat is that it is evident that we have made the 100% transition into personality politics.

Each one, in turn, stands up there and goes on and on about everything that is fucked up in the country and how they are going to fix it.  Each has their own niche of what they consider important and what’s most fucked up to them.  But each of them delivers the speech, talking about the war in Iraq, the current administration’s fellating of special interests and the general disinterest of current politics for the people, each speech said with huge smiles and posing for the cameras.

It’s like it’s a fucking plague in this country for a politician to get up there and get angry about what’s going on.  That’s who I would vote for.  The one that got up there and didn’t have it in them to talk about the dead, and the poor and the hungry with a huge smile on their face and yak about how they are going to fix it.  I think we’re a little passed the time to be happy about the current state of our political climate.

Tide of American History Turning as Rich White Guy Gets Beat Down by a Black Guy and a Chick, Concedes Defeat

It’s true.  John Edwards apparently got tired of showing up at debates only to be pretty much completely ignored, I’m sure not even coming close in any of the primaries didn’t help either.

The two-time White House candidate notified a close circle of senior advisers that he planned to make the announcement at a 1 p.m. EST event in New Orleans that had been billed as a speech on poverty, according to two aides. The decision came after Edwards lost the four states to hold nominating contests so far to rivals who stole the spotlight from the beginning — Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Don’t worry John, I’m sure you’ll still be able to get by on your boyish good looks.  Oh, and your millions and millions of dollars.

Not Smoking Makes Me Sleepy

Pretty much everytime I’ve quit smoking for the first couple of days I feel like I could sleep almost constantly. Here’s my schedule for the last 12 or so hours.

• 2am: smoke last cigarette ever.
• 5ish am: finally fall asleep.
• 9am: wake up to take care of some work that had to be done this morning.
• 10:30am: back to bed
• 1:30pm: wake up, walk dog to pet food store for dog food, get a sandwich for lunch, come back home
• 2:30pm: fall asleep again.
• 5:00pm: force myself to get up, write this, feel like going back to bed.

I feel like a junkie. Fuck you right in the asshole R.J. Reynolds.

Quitting Smoking Redux

As the new self proclaimed man of the people I really have to start taking care of myself again. For whatever reason no matter how many times I’ve tried and no matter how long I’ve been successful at it I always go back to smoking. When I’m not smoking I can’t stand it, everything about it disgusts me. Still, somehow I glamorize it, I hold on to that part of me that has always smoked. That part of me that probably felt like I wasn’t good enough to not smoke. That cold, bitter part of me that almost instantly judges people who don’t smoke as people who I probably wouldn’t get along with.

At some point tonight I will smoke my last cigarette ever. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking and fuck you. Besides the time is not far off when I have to be in peak physical condition to prepare for my bid for the White House via an entire candidacy run on YouTube and Facebook. I would drop more details about the platform I’m running on but I don’t need these hacks running now biting all up on my ideas. I digress.

So that’s the deal. Less smokey, more exercisey. Although I still have tonight to hate fuck the shit out of about a half a pack of smokes. But after that I’m never talking to those bitches again.

Did Playing the Joker Drive Heath Ledger Over the Edge?

Speaking of insomnia, in one of his last (if not his last) interviews Heath seemed pretty fucking traumatized by the role he had recently finished filming as The Joker in the new Batman movie. The pic to the right is of Ledger on Jan 19.

It is a physically and mentally draining role — his Joker is a “psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy” he said cheerfully — and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much.

“Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.

Even as he spoke, Mr. Ledger was hard-pressed to keep still. He got up and poured more coffee. He stepped outside into the courtyard and smoked a cigarette. He shook his hair out from under its hood, put a rubber band around it, took out the rubber band, put on a hat, took off the hat, put the hood back up. He went outside and had another cigarette. Polite and charming, he nonetheless gave off the sense that the last thing he wanted to do was delve deep into himself for public consumption. “It can be a little distressing to have to overintellectualize yourself,” is how he put it, a little apologetically.

When method acting goes way, way wrong.

Insomnia

I really need to get back to the gym. Work and stress and other stuff are compounding my inability to sleep. The gym holds the cure.

Insomnia is a sleeping disorder characterized by persistent difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep despite the opportunity. It is typically followed by functional impairment while awake. Insomniacs have been known to complain about being unable to close their eyes or “rest their mind” for more than a few minutes at a time. Both organic and non-organic insomnia constitute a sleep disorder.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 60 million Americans suffer from insomnia each year. Insomnia tends to increase with age and affects about 40 percent of women and 30 percent of men. [Wikipedia]

I still like my new white noise sleep machine though. I actually think it does help when I can focus on it long enough to zonk out.

Without a Skipper, You Ain’t Nothing

I have a pretty cool desk.

New Study Confirms Bush is a Liar, Sky is Blue

Can’t we go back to the good old days when Presidents used their power to get blowjobs rather than killing Americans for profit?

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

Btw, has anyone played that new game on the Wii, whoa.