Wednesday night personal

No gym tonight, even after a nap. Was tired. Worked hard today with almost no let-up up to the very end. Glad the supervisor was back from vacation today.

Walked most of the way to the gym, then turned around and walked back home. (At least I got some walking in.) Humidity is 85%. Maybe that's what was making me feel tired. I feel fine now, back in the A/C. (No, actually I am tired.)

Did a few chores. Next, "Restaurant: Impossible."

I like that show. Tonight I didn't find it quite so interesting, since it was about a sports bar in Delaware that serves food ("Scrimmages")*. Not into sports. Don't go to sports bars (or any bars these days, alas). (Miss my local gay bar that closed.)
______________________
* The pictures of the bar on the website are from before the revamping on tonight's show.

Tuesday night personal

No posting last night. Three new TV shows in a row, beginning with Anthony Bourdain in New Orleans and Cajun Country. He's back to slaughtering animals on the air - this time a pig, which he himself shot in the head with a pistol, and a large turtle, which someone else beheaded. (I couldn't watch this stuff.) I thought he'd stopped showing it for his daughter's sake. If he's going back to it, I'll stop watching the show. I think this is one aspect of reality that doesn't need to be treated so graphically on the TV. (My opinion.)

"Intervention" was good. Cute, smart musician/songwriter/singer from Arkansas - very talented but on a downward spiral, drinking 30 beers a day and doing otherwise nothing nowadays, supported financially by his parents. He'd been successful for a number of years performing with his band (but even then he'd drink 10 beers before a show).

Has two kids. His wife, also into beer, had recently passed away after going into convulsions trying to quit cold-turkey (at that point they were each drinking 40 cans a day). Too bad the intervention was ultimately unsuccessful, although that's not uncommon. He quit treatment in Baton Rouge after 22 days and took the bus back to Arkansas. He's living back with his parents (and kids) and back on beer.

"Millionaire Matchmaker" had two guys. One was a prince from Austria (shown above) and the other a nerdy young guy from Groupon. Pretty good, but goofy-looking guys.

NHC: 'CENTER OF IRENE APPROACHING THE U.S./CANADIAN BORDER'

[Click on image to enlarge it]

Just got back from the grocery store and called my friend in Canada, who's in the direct path of the storm. He said the wind has calmed down. (The "NHC" is the National Hurricane Center.)

Sunday evening personal

Back from KFC for dinner (so-so). Called my friend in Canada. He's OK. We've talked a few times throughout the day. I'll call him again later. So far, he has power. The area where he lives has its occasional share of tough weather (like blizzards), so the infrastructure is sound.

Irene 5:00 p.m. update

[Click on image to enlarge it]

CONGRESSIONAL BACKLASH: Republicans Could Pay Greatest Price

From The Huffington Post here.

WASHINGTON — Americans are plenty angry at Congress in the aftermath of the debt crisis and Republicans could pay the greatest price, a new Associated Press-GfK poll suggests.

The poll finds the tea party has lost support, Republican House Speaker John Boehner is increasingly unpopular and people are warming to the idea of not just cutting spending but also raising taxes – anathema to the GOP – just as both parties prepare for another struggle with deficit reduction.

To be sure, there is plenty of discontent to go around. The poll finds more people are down on their own member of Congress, not just the institution, an unusual finding in surveys and one bound to make incumbents particularly nervous. In interviews, some people said the debt standoff itself, which caused a crisis of confidence to ripple through world markets, made them wonder whether lawmakers are able to govern at all. . . .

'Glenn Beck: Hurricane Irene "a blessing"'

From Chris at Americablog here.

What is it with right wing extremists who see catastrophic events as "blessings?" CNN:

How many warnings do you think you’re going to get, and how many warnings do you deserve? This hurricane that is coming thorough the East Coast, for anyone who’s in the East Coast and has been listening to me say ‘Food storage!’ ‘Be prepared!’

… If you’ve waited, this hurricane is a blessing. It is a blessing. It is God reminding you — as was the earthquake last week — it’s God reminding you you’re not in control. Things can happen. Be prepared and be someone who can help others so when disaster strikes, God forbid, you’re not panicking.

Not a blessing for the 15 18 people who've died in it so far, along with their families and friends.

Kathleen Parker on Rick Perry

Here.

That we are yet again debating evolutionary theory and Earth’s origins — and that candidates now have to declare where they stand on established science — should be a signal that we are slip-sliding toward governance by emotion rather than reason. But it’s important to understand what’s undergirding the debate. It has little to do with a given candidate’s policy and everything to do with whether he or she believes in God. . . .

Perry knows he has to make clear that God is his wingman. And this conviction seems not only to be sincere, but also to be relatively noncontroversial in the GOP’s church — and perhaps beyond. He understands that his base cares more that the president is clear on his ranking in the planetary order than whether he can schmooze with European leaders or, heaven forbid, the media. And this is why Perry could easily steal the nomination from Romney.

And also why he probably can’t win a national election, in which large swaths of the electorate would prefer that their president keep his religion close and be respectful of knowledge that has evolved from thousands of years of human struggle against superstition and the kind of literal-mindedness that leads straight to the dark ages.

Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but Perry makes you think they are.

Local update

It's pouring down rain here. (That's the repotted dracaena on the right. She's doing very well in her new berth.)

Irene 2 p.m. update

[Click to enlarge photo]

[From The Weather Channel]

See here too.

Sunday mid-afternoon personal

Just called friend in Canada. He said the storm is just starting there. Big gusts of wind, lashing rain. There's a river that runs through the town, not far from where he lives. But I don't think he'll be affected if it overflows. Hope he doesn't lose power. [Click on the photo to enlarge it.]

Sunday personal

Was up at 11:00 and turned on the TV to CNN. Anderson Cooper is in Battery Park, NYC. Things not as bad as anticipated for this area, at least. Fifteen people have died in 6 states. 150,000 people without power in Rhode Island. 900,000+ without power in New York State. Four million people without power along the East Coast.

Still not letting the cats out. (It's 90 F., feels like 101.) Eagerly awaiting arrival of the cat door for the slider.

Was in the kitchen, feeding the cats, and turned around and saw Lucas sitting up in the cabinet. (He'd jumped right up in the spot where I store Boozy's dry food.)

Ate a Jimmy Dean's ham Breakfast Bowl, some Dole's Cherry Mixed Fruit (in juice), and a bowl of my vegetable beef soup (delicious!). Last night I finished the soup off with more dill, some Louisiana hot sauce, and grated Romano cheese. One of the best soups I've ever made, especially considering I made it with an old roast and frosty old frozen vegetables from last year.

Irene at 11:00 a.m.

(From Google Earth - Click to enlarge)

Saturday night late personal - Hurricane Irene edition

Making some vegetable beef soup out of the leftover sirloin tip roast from last week (on sale at Publix, of course). Had some Emeril's vegetable broth and a can of crushed tomatoes in the cupboard. Added a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, a couple of beef bouillon cubes, a little dill, and the cut-up roast. Will add a package of frozen vegetable soup mix the last half hour.

It's tasty already (after an hour or so of simmering).

I haven't really given much thought lately to cooking, I guess with all my concentration on stuff at work (like taking that test I took on Thursday). Just been doing the basics - roast beef and chicken. Frozen vegetables and canned artichokes or five-bean salad, etc. Lots of frozen Lean Cuisines. Good enough, but I haven't really concocted anything or made a recipe. Before work took over, I was always making soups, stews, gumbos, a kick-ass West African tuna casserole, etc.

Well, the test is over and I'm back to making soup! Maybe next weekend I'll feel like making my delicious salmon loaf (have two cans of salmon in the cupboard, waiting). I'll go grocery-shopping tomorrow and make sure I have everything I need to make that. (Located the recipe earlier.) It's like I'm coming back to life.

Had a great chat with my friend in Canada tonight. Hurricane Irene is headed his way, and he had already begun his hurricane party with some brandy and Canada Dry ginger ale (to be continued tomorrow). The storm hits there at around 3:00 in the afternoon. He lives inland just north of Maine, and hurricanes hardly ever happen there. (But he lived here for many years and knows about them firsthand.) Hopefully he won't lose electricity.

[Later] Soup turned out great. Can hardly wait to eat it!

Saturday night personal

I'd thought about calling my friend in STL/FTL, but I'll just let him call me this time. The Magic Jack is connected. I'm no glutton for punishment, and this person, a (gay) Republican (or at times a self-styled "Blue Dog Democrat"), nowadays can't resist tossing out a Republican talking point or whatever at some point in the conversation. He knows where I stand politically, and I avoid bringing up politics altogether with him. (It's pointless.) He should also know it's pointless for him to do so. About the last thing he said when I called him a couple of weeks ago was that I would stand to suffer when they go about cutting Social Security. Fuck him, asshole. Sorry he has cancer, but...

(I think he has a lot of internal conflict going on, but I'm no psychologist.) (I regard gay Republicans generally as dangerous to themselves, gays, and everybody else. Look at Ken Mehlman.)

The Right meanwhile is getting meaner and meaner. Like wanting to have unemployed people tested for drugs (they're already testing welfare recipients in Florida and finding that the poor do drugs far less than does the general population). And did I mention that Marco Rubio is turning out to be an asshole?

And I just saw this ("Ron Paul hurricane plan: 'We should be like 1900'"). "The official candidate of liberty wants to go back to the good old days of (non-existent) federal disaster response."

And this ("Boehner and Cantor unsure about emergency aid for hurricane without budget cuts").

* * *

[Click on photo to enlarge it]

On a more upbeat note, lately they've been sprucing up the lobby here. It's never looked this nice in all the years I've been here. This was most recently a basically empty area with a round cement table in the middle, topped with a vase containing dead cattails or something, and a couple of sad-looking, wilted corn plants standing in crappy pots against the walls.

Saturday evening personal

Another hot one today. Cats have wanted to go out but I haven't let them. Don't want to ice up the A/C again and spend two hours de-icing it.

I'd heard about pet doors designed for sliding glass doors and looked them up on the Internet. Found something I thought would be suitable and then ran out to two nearby pet stores to see what, if anything, they had in stock. At one of the stores (Pet Supermarket), I would have to order it, and it would take 4 weeks for delivery. That one also wasn't quite tall enough. I pointed this out to the salesperson, and he said I could always return it. I'd rather not.

At Petco, they had the doors in stock, but they were also too short. I didn't even bother to talk to a salesperson about them, since I knew from my research that this model requires drilling holes into the sliding-glass-door frame. (I'd rather not.) When I got back home, I ordered the one I thought was suitable (the "Ideal Hefty Pet Patio Pet Door" - for fat cats and small dogs), in a bronze color to match the slider. ("Ideal" is the brand.)

Came to $234.88, including very reasonably priced ground shipping (it's being shipped from La Crosse, Wisconsin, I think). It's made of aluminum and has safety glass at the top and of course the pet door below. (I might have to tint the glass.) The top adjusts to the exact height of the slider frame (mine is 94 1/2") and you secure it with thumbscrews. (You can watch a movie here.)

The door itself is made of Lexan (used to make astronaut and football helmets, among other things) and should never need replacing (according to the movie). There's a brush material around the edge of the door to seal it and magnets at the bottom to keep it in place. You can also lock it. The whole thing is less than an inch wide, and comes with weatherstripping.

If it works well, I might just put the cat boxes out on the terrace (my realtor did that), to cut down on cat litter being tracked through the place. (But would I want to clean the cat boxes in the stifling heat?) (And with Boozy's kidney condition, they require cleaning often.) At any rate, I'm looking forward to getting the thing. I made a note to the online store that I live in a condo and the delivery people may leave the package outside my door.

The sun is going down now, so I lowered the A/C (i.e., raised the temp), closed the vertical blinds on the slider, and cracked the door open. Of course Lucas went right out.

These pet-door inserts can be very pricey. Since my terrace is not accessible to other people (or racoons, for that matter), I didn't need anything really fancy. I hope what I got will suffice.

TGIF!

Back from gym and watching "Three Weddings." Really hot (and muggy) outside, even at this time of night (85 F. but feels like 93, or 86 but feels like 95 - according to either TWC or local NBC channel). Humidity is 70 percent. This morning was pleasant but then it started heating up as the day wore on. Felt like a steam bath.

Well, two of the brides are vegetarians. That's not fair. Most people aren't vegetarians. Food is one of the ratings categories on the show (along with venue, bride's dress, etc.). Maybe the food the vegetarians weren't eating, which most of the other guests were eating, was good. So their food-rating is skewed. I can see them having a vegetarian on the show every once in a while, but definitely not two on one show.

I thought all the weddings were lovely, and they all scored well. This was a new Chicago show. Two of the weddings were held in venues with palm trees and a glass ceiling.

[Later] It was feeling a little warm in here, so I decided to check the A/C filter. I hadn't changed it in a while, and the A/C has been running a lot lately. The filter didn't appear to be that badly clogged but I changed it anyway.

However, the first thing I saw when I opened up the A/C to access the filter was ice covering the coils. Then I looked further inside and ice was covering everything. Not a good sign. (The ice forms because of insufficient air flow, and then the coils won't cool the air since the ice insulates the coils.) I'm letting the ice melt now with the A/C off and have a blow-dryer blowing hot air inside it. Diagnosed the problem on the Internet here (where I got the photo). Hopefully it was just the dirty filter. (Thank G*d for the Internet.) The ice is melting rapidly.

Hmmm. I just saw this (a little rough but on point):

An air conditioner that keeps running constantly can freeze it's own pipes.

Why does the thermsotat go so low? Well, if it's 71 degrees and terribly humid, you'd like it alot better at 64 degrees with little humidity, which the A/C can do. However, if it's 99 degrees and humid, and you set it to 64, and you leave a door open or have alot of in/out traffic, you can cause it to run so long it freezes its own pipes.

Saw this last year on my neighbors unit. He left the A/C on 68, his wife had the windows open and went out... and it was around 97 degrees all day. By evening, the sucker was blowing warm air and as it had literally froze it's own pipes. 

[Emphasis added.]

So maybe keeping the slider open lately for the cats had something to do with it. It's been too humid inside, and the A/C has been running constantly to keep the place cool (75 F. for me). The moisture in the air condensed and froze up on the coils.

Actually that makes more sense, since as I said the filter wasn't that dirty. (Originally I wasn't even going to replace it yet, though I'd just cut a new one.)

So it's all Lucas's fault!

(I figure the ice build-up happened over the past couple of days.)

Well, the ice is melted now and the A/C is running again, blowing wonderfully cold air. Whew! Glad I discovered the problem. (Better yet, that I discovered it on a weekend night since right now it's pushing 2:00.)

Almost TGIF!

Took the day off today. At the time I requested to take it off, I didn't have anything planned for it. But then I decided I'd use the day to study for and take a certification test required by my employer.

Got up at 10:00 and drove down to the jeweler's to pick up my bracelet. (It had finally been fixed.) Then came home, made coffee, and started studying. After a few hours I was getting burnt out and decided just to take the test and see what happened. (If I'd failed it, I would continue studying and take it again.) Well, I passed it the first time. I could probably have scored a little higher if I'd finished my studying, but I had a decent enough score (way above what was required for passing). Whew!

Then I got cleaned up and walked up to E.'s restaurant for dinner. (He's there 6 days a week now.) Not a lot of people there (at around 6:00). Had pea soup, a house salad, and a brisket platter with broccoli souffle. And lemonade. Guess what - E. wasn't wearing his wedding ring. (!) I didn't ask him about it, but I did ask him whether he was still living at the same place and he said yes.

Very humid tonight. Had to curtail Lucas's access to the terrace. The A/C is really cranking.

So, it looks like Hurricane Irene is headed straight toward New York City!

[Later] Watching fascinating show on building the new skyscraper at Ground Zero.

Wednesday night political

"Marco Rubio says Social Security and Medicare made Americans weak"

From Daily Kos. He's such an asshole. I've been paying into Social Security all my working life and expect to get something out of it. I think most people do.

From Kos:

And if Marco Rubio's grandfather had known about those [government] programs, and how they were weakening us as a people, he'd never have fled to America from Fidel Castro's Cuba. . . .

See TPM here.

Of course, one might argue that the reason welfare programs were created -- with great popular demand -- was precisely because in all too many cases "communities," "families," and "churches" weren't doing an adequate job.

(I wouldn't really call Social Security "welfare." It's not a government handout - rather, it's funded by payroll deductions.)

Bad-mouthing Social Security may not be such a smart thing to do for Marco's political future.

Wednesday night personal

Was at gym tonight after a nap. Have arranged to take tomorrow off. Have things to do.

Watched a new "Restaurant: Impossible" tonight. Now watching an animal-hoarding follow-up show, which is a lot more interesting (and lot less of a downer) than the usual animal hoarding shows, or hoarding shows in general.

Next: A regular animal hoarding show. One of the hoarders is a retired female trial attorney who hoards lovebirds (she has 250). The other hoards venomous snakes.

Tuesday evening personal

Just made some chicken salad from the leftover roast chicken. I love chicken salad, on white toast. Will have half a sandwich now, along with a bowl of Del Monte "Citrus Salad" sprinkled with Truvia. I prefer the Del Monte red grapefruit, but it's packed in grapefruit juice and I'm really not supposed to drink that. (There's a conflict with a medication.)

Tonight I'm watching two new "What Not To Wear"s and the new "Millionaire Matchmaker" I didn't see last night.

Lucas had another lizard in the house just now - he must have snatched it up out on the terrace after I got home and opened the sliding door for the cats to go out (hot and muggy as it was).

I rescued the lizard - it was still viable - and threw it into the treetops off the terrace, but Lucas is still on watch in the area where he'd been tormenting it. I guess that will keep him busy for the night.

No ice cream at work today. (But we had plenty of chips & dips and vanilla wafers left over from yesterday.) Gym tomorrow!

Quake damages Washington's National Cathedral

From Reuters here.

'Study: "Massive decline" in use of Facebook'

Ha! From Americablog here. I don't miss Facebook at all. As a matter of fact, it made me feel bad. Enjoyment was a net negative, even beyond the privacy issues.

Monday evening personal

Having a cup of tea after work and watching MSNBC. Tonight three new episodes of my favorite shows are coming on at the same time, at 9:00: Anthony Bourdain, "Design Star" and "Millionaire Matchmaker." Anthony Bourdain will be in Kurdistan. I'll watch that and catch the other two later in the week. A new "Intervention" follows at 10:00 (it's a girl).

Someone brought a bunch of junk food into work to day, and I ate it (I can't resist). Nabisco vanilla wafers and tortilla chips with three kinds of dip - Nacho cheese, spinach, and salsa. And it's only Monday. What do you bet that tomorrow someone goes and gets ice cream. And I eat that too. (Little wonder I fast on the weekends - well, almost.)

[Later] "Intervention" was very good, but I didn't cry.

This is funny

From David Waldman at Kos here ("Romney plans totally non-weird expansion of vacation home"). He's tearing down his $12 million oceanfront home in La Jolla, CA and replacing it with one four times the size. But...

In the confusion over whether this particular house has two bedrooms or three [it has three], the Romneys apparently also became confused about the sheer volume of married sons and grandchildren they had, which accounts for their sudden and somewhat-too-late realization that the home they purchased three years ago was inadequate to their needs. I'm unable to discern from published accounts just how many of those five married sons and 16 grandchildren materialized only during the past three years since the purchase, though one imagines the number must be substantial. And surprising!

(Read the whole thing.) I was able to locate the home on Google Earth. Take a look below, because - except for the lap pool and spa - it won't be around much longer. (The last photo is from Waldman's post.)

[Click to enlarge photos]

Romney's such a prevaricator. But he is handsome.

Sunday night personal

I'm back from the store and all my chores are done. Roast beef sliced for tomorrow's lunch. Pills boxed. Medicine applied. Some socks sorted. Looking forward to watching two new "House Hunters" and a repeat of the last "Design Star," which I hadn't seen.

[Later, after "Design Star"] I'm glad they kicked Cathy off. She was always touting her past achievements and credentials. As for her performance on the show, she really didn't live up to her own hype of herself, and her bulging eyes were a distraction. Nobody wants to watch someone hosting a TV show with some kind of weird tic.

Somebody left this comment on a "Design Star" blog here.

oh my gosh!!! this woman cannot accept that anything is her fault!!! and those eyes of hers bug out all the time, does she think that looks attractive or intelligent? i would not be able to watch a show with a host that has eyes straight out of a horror show. ugh!!! good riddance cathy, you only impressed yourself.

Sunday evening personal

Gave Boozy a "sitz bath" this afternoon. I dread bathing him since he makes such a racket, but the vet said that at his age, he may need help keeping clean. He was pretty clean, however. He does a good job, considering his age and his medium-length coat.

By the way, the "model" for the dream man (in post below) is Pete Murray, a popular singer-songwriter in Australia. Looks a lot like that maintenance guy here, but I think the maintenance guy is better looking.

Driving up to the grocery store when the sun goes down and Costco is closed. (Costco is next to the Publix and generates a lot of traffic.) Not much on TV tonight.

The cats ate (or, in Boozy's case, also rolled in) catnip out on the terrace after their dinner, and after I'd whisked away one of those Polka-Dot Wasp Moths, which Lucas had discovered earlier and begun to torment. Maybe it was moribund, but in any case it was slow and wouldn't fly away. A perfect victim for Lucas.

'What Would Hillary Clinton Have Done?'

(I was a Hillary supporter myself and often wonder.) Also from The New York Times, here.

The political site Talking Points Memo recently ran a post asking to hear from readers who felt that Clinton would have handled the debt-ceiling crisis better than Obama. On HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” the host asked if liberals should have buyer’s remorse for choosing Obama over Clinton. “Yes,” replied the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who said that Clinton might have been a “more effective negotiator” with Congress, while Maher noted that “she knows how to deal with difficult men.” The Daily Beast’s smugly headlined article “Hillary Told You So” relied on scads of unattributed quotes from grumpy Democrats: “No one ever had to tell Hillary” that the economy was crucial, “Obama has no spine,” “Hillary is tougher.” . . .

There simply was never going to be a liberal messiah whose powers could transcend the limits set by a democracy this packed with regressive obstructionists. That doesn’t mean we can’t hope for, seek and demand better from politicians and presidents. But we can’t spend our time focused on alternate realities in which our country, its systems and its climate are not what they are. With advance apologies for returning to one of 2008’s most infelicitous phrases, it’s time to let go of the fairy tales.

'In Miami, Tourism Rises With the Heat'

"An off-season boom is transforming the city and its environs from a wan summer ghost town into a magnet for visitors." (Miami is no "ghost town" in the summer. That's downright silly and ill-informed.) From The New York Times here.

“Summer here has practically caught up with winter,” said Rolando Aedo, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has seen occupancy rates at luxury hotels jump by 16 percent the first week of August, compared to the same period last year.

Torrid temperatures (the mercury last week climbed to the mid-90s) had done little to scare off visitors, he said, since so many were experiencing heat waves at home. In summer here, he said, “the lines are shorter, the drinks are cheaper, and there’s always a breeze on the beach.”

As a result, the gap between the low and high seasons has conspicuously narrowed, with Miami and Miami Beach welcoming 3 million visitors in the third quarter of this year, compared with 3.4 million in the peak months. Deal hunters and heat seekers alike descended on Lincoln Road, the eight-block-long pedestrian street that is South Beach’s town center, chattering in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian — and a smattering of Brooklynese.

At least half of all visitors are from international markets, Mr. Aedo said, many from Europe but especially Latin America, where, in some parts, winter is just setting in. . . .

At any one of the string of strenuously hip hotels lining Collins Avenue, among them the Raleigh and the Delano, and to the north, the W hotel and the fabled Fontainebleau, visitors gossiped and preened in wispy caftans, eyes darting now and then to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of Cameron Diaz, who has been seen around town on the arm of Alex Rodriguez; Jennifer Lopez, who was said to have embarked last week on a whirlwind shopping spree at Hermès, Dolce & Gabbana, and Pucci; or Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who recently kicked up their heels at the Soho Beach House. . . .

In Midtown, a Miami equivalent of SoHo, Mariano Toledo, the Tim Gunn of “Project Runway Latin America,” dined with Candela Ferro, a television personality, and Nina Surel, an artist, at Gigi, a Bauhaus-like warehouse-turned-restaurant that is a gathering place for local artists, actors and young entrepreneurs.

“Summer or winter, Miami feels fresh,” Mr. Toledo said. “You have the feeling here that everything and anything could be about to happen.” . . .

'The surprisingly gay world of insect sex'

"Homosexual behavior isn't just a vertebrate thing. But what can bugs teach us about our own sexuality?" (From Salon here.)

Sunday afternoon purrsonal

Just finished repotting the dracaena. Fortunately I'd bought enough potting soil for the job. Here's Lucas looking out through the sliding glass door, pining to go outside. I let him out for a while but enough is enough. It's hot out there and was getting uncomfortable in here. The door is now closed till later this evening, when it cools off some.

The dracaena should do a lot better now. It was totally root-bound. The entire plant slipped right out of the old pot, part of which I broke into shards with a hammer, to line the bottom of the new pot. I also fertilized with Miracle-Gro.

BTW, I slept very well last night (no estazolam) and had a dream about one of the maintenance guys here (movie-star good-looking, with a cleft chin). He told me he knew I liked him by the way I looked at him every time I saw him (he could see it in my eyes), and we ended up in a (shirtless) embrace. Wow! Best dream I've had in years. (Wish it were true.) I feel sorry for him when he has to mow the parkway out front in the blistering-hot sun, but I guess it helps keep him fit. He does it in the mornings when I'm walking to my bus stop. (I just hope he's wearing a sunscreen to preserve his good looks.)

Huntsman: 'I just don't know what world that comment would come from. You know, we live in the real world.'

(On Michele Bachmann's contention that she would get gas prices below $2 a gallon.)  See TPM here.

In an interview with guest host Jake Tapper, Huntsman assailed his Republican counterparts with specific criticisms. For former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, the dig was on flip-flopping: "You know, if we were to talk about his inconsistencies and his -- the changes on various issues, we'd be here all afternoon.". . .

A comment I found on estazolam

"works wonderful! very bizarre dreams, but some are very entertaining, no nitemares,so does'nt really bother me. werx good"

Saturday night purrsonal

Loaded up and ran the dishwasher. Then got cleaned up and drove down to Home Depot just as the sun was setting. Speaking of the dracaena on the terrace, it's in sore need of repotting and generally not doing well in its (cracked) clay pot. So I bought a much larger, plastic pot to better hold in the moisture during the dry spells (when I neglect to water it). It's a sage green that kind of matches the paint job out there. Also got two bags of soil (plus a box of mini-floodlights for the kitchen ceiling). By the time I got home, it was dark, so I'll repot the plant tomorrow.

I let Lucas out for a while when I got home, but he's back inside now - bored and up in my space, seeking attention.

Whipped up some crab salad with capers and lots of cayenne and had some of that on melba toast (and the last of my stale saltine crackers). Watching "Color Splash" now. Oh, and I'm roasting a sirloin tip roast that I bought last weekend. (It was about time.)

Jon Huntsman Blasts Rick Perry Over Evolution, Climate Change, Ben Bernanke Comments

Also from The Huffington Post, here.

Huntsman said he couldn't remember a time when "we actually were willing to shun science and become a party that was antithetical to science. I'm not sure that's good for our future and it's not a winning formula," according to interview excerpts released Saturday ABC. The full interview is set to air Sunday.

See here too, from The Guardian.

Texas governor's stance on economy and global warming may play well with the US right, but it turns off independents

Facebook 'Like' Button Declared Illegal In Germany

Ha! From The Huffington Post here.

BERLIN (Associated Press)-- A German data protection authority is "unliking" Facebook's "Like" button.

The state of Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, Thilo Weichert, on Friday ordered state institutions to shut down the fan pages on the social networking site and remove the "Like" button from their websites, saying it leads to profiling that violates German and European law.

Facebook insisted Friday that is in full compliance with European data protection laws.

On Friday, Weichert issued a statement saying technical analysis by his office shows Facebook violated German and European data protection laws by passing content data to the social network's servers in the U.S.

"Whoever visits facebook.com or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be tracked by the company for two years," Weichert said. "Facebook builds a broad individual and for members even a personalized profile."

A Facebook spokesman conceded that the company can see "information such as the IP address" of users who visit a site with a "Like" button.

"We delete this technical data within 90 days," said the spokesman, who did not give his name in keeping with company policy. "That is in keeping with normal industry standards."

Weichert's office ordered website owners in Schleswig-Holstein to "immediately stop the passing on of user data to Facebook in the USA by deactivating the respective services" and threatened to take legal action if they fail to comply.

He also urged Internet users in general to "keep their fingers from clicking on social plug-ins" and "not set up a Facebook account" to avoid being profiled.

The keepers of Germany's strict privacy laws have repeatedly clashed on issues of privacy with international Internet giants, such as Facebook and Google – often with success. . . .

(Emphasis added.)

Saturday afternoon personal

Armando Llorens now does a radio show at 10:00 a.m. Saturdays on Daily Kos Radio on Sirius/XM. Today I signed up for a one-month trial subscription and will try to catch the show next Saturday, even though that's a little early in the a.m. for me. I wanted to listen to a rerun of today's show, but apparently that's not an option.

Armando, who posts on Talk Left as "Big Tent Democrat," does the show with David Waldman, another of my favorite bloggers. You can see David talking here.

David's bio at Daily Kos:

A participant in online communities since the early 80s, David found Daily Kos some time back in mid-2003 and has stuck around ever since. A non-practicing attorney, a former Capitol Hill aide and Hotline staff writer (back when Chuck Todd was an intern), David now works in marketing so that he will not be eligible to answer telephone surveys. He has developed a particular interest in lending to the discussion the procedural knowledge he gained from C-SPAN immersion therapy during his days on the Hill, and as a result holds the world record for Longest Online Series on Parliamentary Maneuvers that Didn't Happen, namely, the Senate's "nuclear option." David is married to a moderate Democrat who once helped launch FOX News, and worked for the parent company of Eagle/Regnery Publishing, though in fairness, she was young and needed the money. The children are being raised as Democrats, so there is no need to call the authorities.

One of my all-time favorite bloggers

Armando Llorens, formerly of Daily Kos, now at Talk Left. You can listen to him here.

Jon Huntsman, the GOP's reality-based candidate

Love this.

The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party - the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012. When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science - Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.

(Seen on Daily Kos) See here too.

Saturday personal

Was up at 11:30 (after staying up till 3:00) and drove down to the vet and the jeweler's. The clasp on the bracelet that E. gave me was still not functioning as it should and will be fixed by Monday. (I'll pick it up later in the week.) At the vet's I bought another bag of the dry kidney food for Boozy and returned what was left of two cases of the canned kidney food (i.e., 36 cans) which Boozy couldn't stomach. I now have a $30+ credit at the vet's. (All that food I'd bought cost almost $100.) There was no problem with returning the canned stuff. (I'd been afraid I might be stuck with it.)

It's hot outside and Lucas wants to have unlimited access to the terrace to watch for lizards. He's already been out a couple of times, and that's that. The door is now closed to keep me comfortable and save $$$ on A/C. Lucas can go play with a ball or take a nap.

(He's taking a nap.)

I noticed there's also a Polka-Dot Wasp Moth up in the dracaena out there. These come from the oleander tree growing just off the terrace. They look deadly but they're perfectly harmless.

Laundry night

I hate TV on Thursday nights these days. Nothing grabs me. Good time to do laundry. I'm almost out of undies and low on socks. The cat box will also get some needed attention.

[Later] All chores done. Lucas loves lying on the warm, fresh laundry.

Settling in now, watching a new "House Hunters." Next, I don't know what. I recently saw the next "House Hunters" (in Singapore)."Man v. Food"? "Beyond Scared Straight"? "Extreme Chef"? I think I'll read on the computer. With "Man v. Food" in the background. (I'm hungry.)

Phaal curry at Brick Lane in NYC. The hottest in the world. (The cook is wearing a gas mask in the kitchen as he prepares it.) Adam Richman has milk to drink on the side. Reminds me of a meal I had years ago at a Thai restaurant on S. Dixie Highway. It was so hot I needed something to quench the fire. I asked for a glass of milk, but they didn't have any. So I was chugging ice water.

[Back to "House Hunters."]

From the wordy Glenn Greenwald here:

In fact, so dominant was the Bush White House over Congress that Dan Froomkin, in 2007 -- when Democrats controlled both houses -- memorably observed: "Historians looking back on the Bush presidency may well wonder if Congress actually existed."  In sum, nobody -- and I mean nobody -- was talking about how weak the presidency supposedly is before Barack Obama was inaugurated: neither in the domestic nor foreign policy realm.  To the contrary, just a few years ago, the power of the Presidency was typically conceived of as far too robust, not too limited.

[I rarely read Glenn Greenwald's columns in their entirety, but then, it's Thursday night, so I might.]

But to the point -  while I'm no Obama apologist and am also disappointed in his leadership, I have to say that the parties back then were not nearly as polarized as they are now, owing to the intransigent Tea Party faction on the Republican side.

However, since the Teabaggers in effect precipitated the downgrading of U.S. credit, which in turn saw the stock market go crashing again, the Teabaggers are now widely despised. See a Salon article from yesterday here - "Tea Party people less popular than many other hated minority groups" (e.g., Muslims and atheists). They're almost as widely hated as the "Christian Right." (Who knew?) See here.

[Later] I never did finish Glenn Greenwald's column.

Lizards and Liza

Lizards, lizards everywhere! Or so you'd think, watching Lucas. He's still on high alert around here.

Also watching the season finale of "Rocco's Dinner Party." Liza Minelli's there to celebrate her 65th birthday, along with Marvin Hamlisch, Alan Cumming, Sam Harris, Sandra Bernhardt and Kenneth Cole (plus Rocco).

Sandra Bernhardt is a bitch, complaining about almost everything. She looks ugly and unhappy (always has, to my mind). Never been a fan.

I guess the best chef of the night won - not the one I was rooting for, however (the opera singer). But her main dish, the filet mignons (one of Liza's favorites), were poorly executed, according to Rocco (I could see she was definitely struggling to get them to come out correctly on time). (Time being a big constraint in this show.)

The other contender, a caterer in NYC, did a beef stew that apparently everyone found delicious, even though he prepared only half the number of courses as did the opera singer, who BTW had had her own restaurant and done the whole chef thing. She got out of the business because she found it way too exhausting - and she had her voice to "fall back on." She now's the lead soprano at an opera company in New York City.

Was at the gym tonight, after a nap with Lucas. I'm still not letting him sleep in the bedroom tonight. I'm still afraid he's too keyed up over the lizards and will wake me up too early with his meowing. I was really dragging on Monday, fighting fatigue from bad sleep on account of Lucas's lizard frenzy. I have to be on my toes at work, especially nowadays with so many people out of work and willing to do my job for less.

Liza looked good, definitely not your 65-year-old granny (but I assume she's had some work done). (She looked a little fake, I have to say.) She's tiny, too. Who knew?

Actually, the lizards on the terrace aren't green, but I loved the photo. Most of the lizards of my childhood were green (anoles), which we erroneously called chameleons, since they could change from green to brown (and back). The lizards out on the terrace are consistently brown, and not as handsome as the anole. (I haven't seen any anoles in a while. Maybe they're dying out from global warming.)

Tuesday night personal

Watching two new "What Not To Wear"s. The second one is the "Top 10 Resistas" (i.e., the most difficult cases). Hilarious. I remember most of these.

Then watched a rerun of the latest "Millionaire Matchmaker" - one of my favorites. Really good show. It was the premiere of the latest season, which originally aired last night at 9:00, as I was watching the latest Anthony Bourdain. I'll continue to watch the new "Millionaire" shows in re-run - Bourdain is better for Mondays (need the escape it provides). (And I mean traveling to a distant place.) (It's on the Travel Channel.)

Got a good night's sleep last night, with Lucas shut out of the bedroom. Then right when I got up this morning, I spotted a partially damaged lizard lying motionless on the living room floor near the terrace. I immediately threw it off the terrace and ran to the kitchen to wash my hands.

So that's what had been making him so crazy - a lizard inside the house. (This was the second one I've found lately.) I suspect he brings them in. I rescued the first one, but I'm afraid it might've been too late for the this one.

I won't put up with Lucas torturing lizards if I can help it. But that's his nature. It's like cats playing with mice before they eat them.

Lucas will not be sleeping back in the bedroom tonight, however. I'm afraid he'll wake me up too early again with his meowing over lizards. I just can't take it. I'm not what you would call a "morning person" anyway (I'm a night owl by nature), but I have to go to work in the a.m. and need my carefully allotted, albeit minimalist sleep to function at my best capacity. (To repeat, I felt great his morning and all day today, with the usual coffee at two intervals.) On the weekends, however, the rules are looser.