i’m a contrarian. so sue me.

anyway, i’m reposting it here, because i’m lazy and because it was fun to write:

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

Jamie’s Modified Rule: There are 24 true random things about me, and one false one. Can you spot the lie?

1. My first home was in a holler in Kentucky. It was at the top of the holler, which is a good thing when no one has indoor plumbing. Our house was one of the few that had plumbing, though only the toilet was inside. The bathtub, due to space considerations, was on the front porch.

2. My first pet was a dachshund that I named President Nixon.

3. My grandmother was a habitue of Chicago speakeasies, where she gained her lifelong habit of drinking only shots of whiskey. With few women in the speakeasies, many men would buy you mixed drinks that were heavy on the alcohol, and she wanted to carefully control her intake.

4. I French-kissed Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

5. Thinking I was bisexual, I married a woman who later came out as a lesbian. After our divorce she remained one of my best friends. No harm, no foul.

6. My partner Kirk and I were married in the home of Hedwig, the Jane Street Theater, by a Unitarian minister, with the reception hosted by Mistress Formika of Wigstock fame.

7. As a child, I was knocked unconscious when my sixth grade girlfriend hit me over the head with a Pepsi bottle. I had two-timed her.

8. Until my recent break in employment and return to school, I had been continuously employed since age eight.

9. My high school nickname was “Flash”. For various reasons.

10. I have eaten: chitlins, cracklins, rattlesnake, squirrel, andouillette sausage (see: chitlins), tripe, kidneys, liver, octopus, eel, sea anemone, possum, and lots of Peter Luger steak. I have not yet eaten sweetbreads. I was also a vegetarian for ten years, and a vegan for five or so of those.

11. I once picked watermelons, for one day, for very little pay.

12. I got braces on my teeth as a high school graduation present.

13. When younger, I could put both of my feet behind my head and walk on my hands.

14. I advised a high school journalism staff that produced one of the nation’s first desktop-published yearbooks, and the editor of that yearbook got a job after high school making twice what I did as a teacher. I also advised the nation’s first CD-ROM yearbook.

15. I have Morton’s Toe.

16. As a child, I was knocked unconscious when I attempted to take a door off the hinges while standing on a chair. The door’s spring closer, contrary to what I thought, did have some spring remaining.

17. I have owned the domain name “queerspace.com” since 1998.

18. I have been in each of the 48 states of the continental U.S.

19. I shook hands with Bill Clinton.

20. My first car was a 1965 Rambler American 4-door sedan. I paid $200 for it, put nearly 75,000 more miles on it, and sold it for $275.

21. Until I moved to Reading, PA, each time I moved was to successively larger cities.

22. As a child, I was knocked unconscious when diving headfirst into the television. I thought Romper Room was a place I could get to that way.

23. I peed in the bathroom at CBGB’s.

24. I once had a burger and a beer with Anthony Bourdain.

25. I have a lovely one bedroom coop apartment in New York for sale.

via daily kos. there’s not much this guy can do right, is there?

there’s something to be said for voting for someone using the effectiveness and cohesion of their campaign organization as a criteria.

why should you care?

you shouldn’t, except that he’s distributing the funniest, most over-the-top campaign literature you can imagine. it’s a comic book he wrote himself.

but richie rich or archie it ain’t.

from the associated press article on the subject:

Some Oklahoma County voters can expect to receive comic books in the mail soon, but the subject matter will have a serious tone.

The 16-page publication prepared by Commissioner Brent Rinehart’s re-election campaign lampoons gays and criticizes Rinehart’s political opponents. It also features an angel who supports the embattled commissioner and Satan, who supports his critics.

“It’s more or less a story of my experiences of the last four years of being the county commissioner of District 2,” Rinehart told The Oklahoman, which obtained the comic on Wednesday.

Toga-wearing gays, political figures, trench coat-clad henchmen, concerned residents and Rinehart make up the rest of the comic’s characters.

In one sequence,
Satan says: “If I can get the kids to believe homosexuality is normal!”

The angel replies: “Hey Satan, not with Brent around you won’t!”

the comic book must be seen to be believed. it’s a must-read.

perhaps we should introduce mr. rinehart to larry craig or mark foley, two other crusaders on the evils of homosexuality.

but i want to focus on one particular line that had kirk and me hooting with laughter.

and of course there’s a long hilarious discussion on digg.

hopefully by november this guy will, at a minimum, learn to read a teleprompter, a skill you think he would have acquired by now.

or, perhaps, i should hope that he won’t learn.

let me zoom in for you:

putting aside the misspelling of tilapia, it’s not very appetizing to use fish gelatin for the pasta (not sure why pasta needs gelatin anyway?) in a dish of grilled chicken caesar.

ick.

here’s a sample:

Let me say this much: I have to admit admiration for the pure balls-out, high-octane creationism that’s on offer here. Not for the Creation Museum that mamby-pamby weak sauce known as “Intelligent Design,” which tries to slip God by as some random designer, who just sort of got the ball rolling by accident. Screw that, pal: The Creation Museum’s God is hands on! He made every one of those animals from the damn mud and he did it no earlier than 4004 BC, or thereabouts. It’s all there in the book, son, all you have to do is look.

i had to stop reading, because i was at work and in danger of laughing so hard i’d disturb the nearby cubedwellers.

this one’s a classic.

City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the Sioux Gateway Airport’s unflattering three-letter identifier — SUX — and instead have made it the centerpiece of the airport’s new marketing campaign. The code, used by pilots and airports worldwide and printed on tickets and luggage tags, will be used on T-shirts and caps sporting the airport’s new slogan, “FLY SUX.”

make lemonade out of lemons, and all. were they given any other options?

Sioux City officials petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to change the code in 1988 and 2002. At one point, the FAA offered the city five alternatives — GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY — but airport trustees turned them down.

my god, how could you turn down “gay”? think of the glbt tourist dollars that could be coming your way. sioux city: the new p-town. key west of the extreme north.

you can’t make this stuff up if you try.

At least according to the hysterically funny [and dead-on accurate] cartoon at the link above.

via digg, which certainly has its share of idiotic commenters. feel free to leave your own idiotic comments here, in our worldwide race to the bottom.

and often insightful as well.

as was the case with a recent post: 29 june 2007, the day the world changed. it’s set up as a fake message to the apple faithful, on the occasion of the release of the iphone. but here’s what he has to say about the thousands of people lined up for hours, or days, for their iphone:

It’s about saying, Look, I realize there’s something bad happening in Darfur, and there’s some kind of AIDS epidemic in Africa, and there’s some crazies who want to blow us all up, and there’s a war in Iraq where thousands of people are dying for no reason — and yes, those things are important, and someday we may take to the streets to say something about them, if we can think of anything to say about them, but for now we Americans take to the streets for this cause.

i can’t recall reading a better summary of the times in which we currently live.