Random

No need for me to wait, because I wanna.
No need, two, three, too late, because I'm gonna.
Hate to say, "I told you so."
-- The Hives

I'm loving this new Punk, and I'm not talking about that Blink182 wannabe stuff. The White Stripes, The Hives -- this is some good stuff. Reminds me of the early 80s all over again.

I never thought these words would ever be typed by my fingers: Today, I'm identifying with robont. I got bit up by noseeums Saturday while fishing. Yesterday was a bit annoying, but today -- oh my lord. I got out of the shower this morning, and it looked like I have some sort of mini version of the chicken pox going on. I am bit up (almost) everywhere and I'm itching like mad. Grr.

The tooth filling actually turned out to be this afternoon instead of this morning, but luckily I listened to my answering machine before I went to bed and got the reminder. The front of my top lip is numb now, especially to one side. I feel like Elvis. Thank you -- thank you very much.

Oh yeah.

More randomness:

So I have this dream last night about one of the ladies that work in the leasing office. A...very...interesting...dream. I mean, she's cool, and has these darkdark brown eyes, but this dream is really out of nowhere. So I get home from the dentist and go get my mail, and she happens to be walking by. We chat for a while, meanwhile my lip is all numb and while I can't help thinking about my dream last night, it feels exactly like I'm drooling and my nose is running. Nice, eh?

(no subject)

My favorite columnist is currently George Will. I don't always agree with his conservative ass; by my moderate libertarian political definition, I agree with him perhaps 50% of the time.

But the man is a master of his craft in a craft that has declined unbelievably in the last two decades. Will uses the English language like Toscanini used his baton. In his columns, he refuses to bow to the vernacular (with the exception of occasional irony,) using subtle, yet entirely proper, control of every word and mark of punctuation. Unlike modern columnists of liberal or conservative bent, Will never resorts to arguments of loaded hand-waving. Many columnists today attempt to disguise their personal opinion by cloaking it in populism: "Surely, today's society should..." or "Common sense would argue...." Phrases that appeal to something that "every American" should clearly see are flawed from the start as "every American" has clearly shown throughout history to be of many different viewpoints for just about every issue that has faced the nation. One of Will's favorite opinions is that congressional gridlock is a good thing. Americans don't agree on anything, so for true representation of day-to-day congressional action, neither party should have the advantage. It is only in cases of clear national difficulty, when liberals and conservatives (and closet libertarians) in Congress are united, that far-reaching laws should be passed.

However, my real love of Will's columns, aside from any political rhetoric, is the pure, and unconscionably rare, work ethic of researching his subject matter. Will doesn't just argue a point of view, he tosses out example after example after example of how things relate to situations in the past, or to scientific principles, or to legal or constitutional precedent. His research, of course, is solely in support of his conservative viewpoint, but even biased research (as long as it's accurate) is preferable to masking opinion in faddish zeitgeist. If more columnists, of either political bent, were to support their opinions with history or fact even half as much, perhaps I could read more than a paragraph ;)