Yay!

My buddy Fishie made the Madison Rollin’ Dolls.  Congrats, girl!  Now time to pick a team and a name.

Open Letter to all Republicans

This is a very good read!  It’s a bit more “emotional” than my moderate sensabilities are used to, but sometimes the truth is painful.  I really couldn’t find much he wrote about that I disagreed with.

Truth in Headlining

Bush arrives in Texas; Residents urged to leave

Get Your Facts Straight!

I’ve mentioned this resource before, and I will mention it again.  The FactCheck web site is a treasure trove of investigative journalism that I, quite honestly, haven’t seen the likes of in at least the past 8 years.  I’ve been reading their articles since the 2004 elections and have seen nothing but un-biased reporting of the facts. They don’t appear to care about democrat, republican, conservative, liberal or moderate.  They only care about the facts, which is quite refreshing.  You will find no opinions or fluff pieces here!

I must warn you, though.  In the years I’ve been reading their articles, I’ve become slightly more cynical of the political process and MUCH more cynical of political advertisements (I no longer believe any political ads until they’ve been thorugh FactCheck’s sieve).

So if you are like me, more interested in the facts than the rhetoric, I strongly urge you to subscribe to their e-mail newsletter.  What’s nice about it is that it provides solid summaries of their findings.  If you want more, or want to find out where they got their info, each e-mail provides a link which will take you to their web site which has ALL this information.

I’m a passionate moderate and I approve of that web site.

Politics I Can Believe In

After reading this, I like Barak Obama just a little bit more.  Maybe some will take his words to heart and I’ll start seeing more real news items posted.  For too many years, there’s been too many similarities between the “mainstream” and the “tabloid” news outlets (such as The Enquirer).

Taste of Madison 2008

In what has become an annual event, I attended Taste of Madison this weekend, though I went both days this year.  I went on Saturday with mom & bro Gordy.  Sunday was “all bro” with bro TW, bro Gordy & I all in attendance.

Mom showed up pretty early Saturday, so we went to The Brocach for brunch @ 1100.  As usual, the food was fantastic, but in hindsight, that wasn’t wise considering we were still rather full by the time Taste of Madison started.

After a leisurely brunch, we wandered the Dane County Farmer’s Market, which was closing early due to the upcoming festivities.  Technically they were supposed to be off the square at 1PM, and the vendors took that quite seriously!  A good number of them were already packing up at 1215, and every one was gone by 1.

Saturday’s Taste of Madison was HOT!  There wasn’t a lot of shade to be had walking around the square, so everyone in attendance got a good dose of sunlight as they were hunting for yummies.

One thing I noticed is that while they got all the recycle bins out in time, none of the garbage cans could be found. Though there are many garbage bins on the inside and outside of the square, ToM creates a LOT of trash, so additional trash cans are placed in the middle of the street – about 2-3 cans per side. By the time they started rolling out the trash bins, the cans that were on the sidewalks were overflowing! One can we noticed had trash piled about 5-6 feet high in this pyramid of refuse that actually looked more like art than trash.

Another thing I noticed were the incredible numbers of females wearing very short shorts. I’m sure part of this was due to my libido running on overtime that day, but another part was due to an article I read recently about how the Dane County School District now mandates a 3-inch inseam on shorts. I would think such short shorts would be uncomfortable due to the inevitable “creepage” that would happen, though when I asked mom, she said that back when she wore those types of shorts, they weren’t uncomfortable at all.

What was uncomfortable was the fact that it seemed I was noticing every woman who was wearing one of these really short shorts. I felt like a lecherous perv due to my increased mojo combined with my attraction for the female leg. One one hand, it was a “duh” moment. Is it all that surprising considering my friskiness? Seems perfectly normal to me. On the other hand, I felt bad ‘cuz these women were just out on a hot day and here I was, looking at them like objects instead of people. In the end, I just chalked it up as normal sexual desire. I kept my hands to myself and did my best to do the same with my eyes (which were thankfully hidden behind mirrored sunglasses), so in the end I think the only turmoil was in my head.

One final thought for the day was for such a large gathering of food vendors, I never hear of people getting sick afterward. With all those people handling the food, out in the open, with all the customers around, one would think food-borne illness would be rampant, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I think that’s quite a remarkable accomplishment!

Anyway, the three of us eventually ran out of steam around 4, which was perfect.  Bro had to go to work by 6 and mom needed to get home to get some sleep for her night shift. It was a good day, and while none of us put on suntan lotion, none of us got sunburned. Though I did get this little triangle of tannage on my chest below my neck.

On Sunday, the three amigos ventured to day 2 of ToM. There were a LOT more pople out that day and it seemed a LOT hotter than the day before. It felt like the Sun was following three footsteps behind everywhere I went. Since my libido was much lower than the day before, I was going to see if there really were lots of women wearing those really short shorts or if it just seemed that way. There were just too many people for me to get a really good “count”, so I quickly gave up. I was astonished how many people were there! The streets were clogged, and everywhere you looked, there were people lounging around. I don’t do well with crowds, so I just kept to my little bubble and avoided looking at the masses of folks as much as possible.

Overall, it was a good time. Just about every food establishment in the Madison area was there, so the selection was great. Most of the food was fantastic (kabobs tended to be over-cooked, however) and the selection was varied and affordable. So if you’re ever in the Madison area around Labor Day weekend, I strongly urge you to give ToM a shot!