Welcome To The Theocracy

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin,"

- Katherine Harris

I don't even know where to begin with this crap. This would be the legislature that doesn't care if I drink arsenic but does want to stop me from enjoying alcohol. But let's not get bogged down in all that. Just what exactly is a sin anyway?

Eeeewww

So I'm trying to explain to Lisa's 85 year old grandfather what exactly happens when you undergo invitro fertalization and have a surrogate mother carry your child. He understands that my semen and Lisa's egg will be combined outside her body and that a viable embryo will begin to grow and divide. He get's that the embryo will then be inserted into a woman, not Lisa and that the other woman will carry the baby for Lisa. He then asks me "why can't you just have sex with the other woman?" I say "because Lisa wouldn't want me to. I don't want to and the child would be mine but not Lisa's so it woudn't be the same."

Tom's response? "OK then do that thing in the dish."

Like the decision is his to make.

Why Does Hollywood Hate Me?

Here's a list of the most hated movie "dicks" of all time. With one exception they're all Waspy White Males. What about Sigourney "Scrawny Beaver" Weaver in Working Girls?

Fuck'em if they can't take a joke. I'm not sorry for being a White Male Wasp. Hollywood can munch on a bowl of my nuts.

Now how do I get rid of some blue salamanders and trees?

Bad Parenting

I believe they call this the law of unintended consequences.

Up and Down

As good as my news has been, Lisa's isn't. She's miscarried our two embryos. We have one more chance with our insurance paying for it. The future is still open.

It's A Small World, After All

So I go to the new teacher orientation meeting today. Who do I see at the meeting? The mother of one of my oldest dearest friends. Who walked up to me... and mind you, I can't tell you how many new years and birthdays and drunken high school hijinks I've had at her house...

So anyway, I walk in and I smile at her and she smiles back. Then later I smile at her again and she smiles back and I know she totally doesn't recognize me. I am completely not registering on her radar at all. She holds out her hand and introduces herself to me and I introduce myself. She still hasn't connected the wires in her head that we've known each other for decades. I say you're Marthadot's mother. Still no register. Then bammo, like finding $20 in the washing machine at the laundry mat, it hits her.

So Marthadot, I saw your mother today.

It's About Time

I got a job. I am now, pending a criminal background check, a High School Science Teacher in a small town north of Boston in the great state of Massachusetts. I have 3 sections of Physics and one Chemistry. I start orientation tomorrow and need to work out lesson plans for two subjects so blogging isn't going to be daily for a while.

Endless Summer

Can't talk now... I've got a job interview.

The Persistence of Memory

The other day Barney watched me clean out my big fish tank. When I finished he jumped up on the now empty table that we used to keep the little tank for Kitty Cat Fish on. He sniffed at the things that are in its place and gave a soft meow.

Nobody can tell me that animals don't have feelings, memories or personality.

Shakes On A Plane

Hey! Does anyone remember those guys in England who were accused of planning the worse crime against humanity ever? Come on. It's only been 9 days. None of them have been officially charged with anything. None of them had tickets to get on a plane. Few of them had passports. No one actually committed any crime unless watching documentaries about terrorism is a crime. Thought crime perhaps and maybe Great Britain has just such a law against thinking.

Binary explosives from a chemists perspective.

Pure Acetone
30% Hydrogen Peroxide
Sulfuric Acid

Also needed an ice bath and several hours

Pure acetone is easy to get. Hydrogen peroxide is easy to get at 3% concentration 30% not so. Simple distillation of the H2O2 from CVS can yield the needed solution but it's dangerous. Once procured, mix the two liquids, they're quite stable but very flammable.

Get your ice bath and chill the mixture. Add dropwise sulfuric acid, slowly. In two to three hours you might have enough triacetone triperoxide high explosive to blow out a window or two.

And those solutions of starting reagents? They have to be contained in glass with a teflon cap. They'll eat their way out of a #5 recyclable pex plastic water bottle long before you get to the airport. In any event, sitting in the bathroom for too long will force the plane into an emergency landing long before you have enough TATP to blow your hat off.

Oooh look over there it's something to keep you from thinking for your own god damned self.

Am I the only person who's noticed that in the last couple months the best in-depth news reporting has been for how they failed to find Jimmy Hoffa in a field in Michigan, how they failed to find JonBenet Ramsey's killer in Thailand and nobody has seen Tom Cruise's ugly baby?

Frankly I'm more frightened by bureaucracy then chemistry.

We Suck

Linky

I don't have anything more to say.

Inflation Hits Home

I come from the union of a large Greek family on my dads side with that of a small Wasp family on my mothers. It didn't last long. But that's not my story here. There's nothing in the world like a Greek wedding. It's a party like no other. Loud, raucous and fun. Especially when you're a kid. And even more so when people start throwing change. That clinking across the dance floor really gets the party started.

My family tradition has always been to let the kids collect the change. Whatever they catch they keep. I was the kid rubberized knee panels sewn into dress pants were invented for. As soon as we got to the reception hall I'd be circling the dance floor like a cheetah on the Savannah ready to charge into the herd for the kill. Only go after silver, don't be fooled by pennies. I know the sound of a quarter over a nickel on over 30 different kinds of hard woods. White pine is my favorite, it has a pleasant 'ting. All the cousins would get $10 or $15 at every party.

When Lisa and I decided to get married it was the one thing about getting married that I really looked forward to; the day when my family would throw money at me and the next generation would scoop it up. Keeping the family tradition alive. On the day we forgot to tell Lisa's family about the tradition. My family threw money while her family looked on in horror. My cousins collecting the change with Lisa's family ordering their kids to behave themselves. The kids caught on quickly and wanted in on the action too. We had to have the DJ explain the tradition and the Santamaria kids sprang out like an over wound Swiss watch. One of Lisa's cousins came up to us with about $30 cupped in his shirttail thinking he had to give it to us. He was doubly psyched when we explained it was all his. That's how the extended families met for the first time but it did get the party started.

I was the kid in the family who figured out that if I sold my change back to my drunk uncles they'd keep throwing it. I'd grab about $3.85 in a handful and bring it up to them for a quick Fiver. They'd throw it back out without counting it. It didn't take long for my cousins to figure out that little trick too. I'd usually clear upwards of $40 a party, with my cousins pulling in about the same. We had it good. Or so we thought.

Last night at dinner, my cousin Marianne told me that the family no longer throws change anymore. Kids are coming home with $80 - $100. My incredulous reply? "Bastards! They Throw Bills Now?"

I'll miss that sound but at least the party keeps going.

I'll Take A Side Order Of California Condor Eggs, Over Hard.

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. – Plato

We can all agree that murder is a bad thing and we shouldn’t do it. It’s an easy no brainer. OK that’s one problem solved. No you mean we need a law to say that murder is bad and no one should do it. Is there a law? Yes. OK then, problem still solved. We can all rest easy at night since there are no murders. What do you mean there was a murder. Doesn’t the law say something about not murdering? Oh it addresses the punishment to be meted out to murderers. OK go and punish the guilty. Job well done.

What do you mean it’s against the law for me to cut this tree down? This is my property. This is my tree. I don’t want a tree here anymore. I want to cut it down. I’ll make sure that it doesn’t fall on the house and tennis court next door to my property. What do you mean the salamanders used to live here? Who the fuck are the salamanders? Oh little slimy lizard. OK where are they now? Endangered, huh? Are there any left anwhere? You mean there are plenty? Not extinct, in fact listed on the endangered species list as “Least Concern” There are tons of the little bastards everywhere just not in Massachusetts. Were there ever any in Massachusetts? You don’t know. But they might someday want to live under my tree here so I will go to jail if I cut it down.

What do you mean I have to pay taxes on my land? It’s worthless. I’m not allowed to cut the trees down. Fine I’ll pay you taxes on worthless land, here’s a few bucks. Go away. What do you mean it’s worth $5,000,000? Another lot of land in town sold for that much money. Are there any trees on it? Why can they cut their trees down? No standing water? There’s no standing water on my land either. OK come over and we’ll perk test it. See the water is flowing out the bottom of the hole. What do you mean it’s too slow? Well then the land isn’t worth $5,000,000 now is it? If I can’t cut the trees down and build on it I’m not paying taxes like that for it.

Who are these men with guns?

Mother Fucking Snakes

Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers or Showcase Cinema in Revere? It's a tough choice. Tickets aren't on sale yet. I'm thinking about the 7pm in Danvers for the full on "kiddies date night" effect. I might even bring toilet paper and toast.

Too Little Too Late

Haverhill wants to allow abandonned down town industrial factory space to become mixed light commercial and residential use buildings.

Two things leap out of this article. That the state knows god dammned well that manufacturing jobs are never coming back here so there's no point in holding onto industial zones. This has the added "fuck you" for the commonwealth by making it harder to open up the possibility of attracting industry in the future. Also, the residential uses will allow one and two bedroom apartments but no god damned 3+ bedroom units.

Fuck the family with more then one or two kids and fuck the parents if they need a good manufacturing job.

Wasteful American Dreams

Part two of this.

Americans are fucking stupid. We have no sense of time and absolutely no consideration for anyone but ourselves. I blame 'The American Dream', that nebulously defined concept driving our culture is destructive to the very ends it strives to deliver.

Suburbia

A baby is born. It's parents look down on it with pride. All of their hopes and dreams made flesh. The parents bring the baby home to the box containing their lives. The child is nurtured until school age then educated to be like the neighbors children, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. The parents struggle to make their lives comfortable and still save for college where "the real education" begins. At 18 the child is sent away at great expense to the family. A high paying job requires a college degree that will put somebody, be it the parents, the child or both in debt. After college the child is sent to work with the primary goals of making money to afford their own place and finding a mate to have their own family with. Eventually the child is successful at both. The child is an adult now with a box full of children of their own. The parents, now grandparents need care. Nursing homes are expensive but they have a house they can sign over to the nursing home and some meager Social Security and pension income. Their wealth is lost but it doesn't matter their children are doing alright creating wealth of their own. Now the second generation spends their savings to provide a safe box to raise their children and educate their children so they may make their own family with a box in the suburbs. The second generation winds down their life in a nursing home paid for with the last of their wealth. The third generation now with a family of their own continues the cycle.

Three generations of wealth wiped out because parents can't wait for their kids to move out and kids can't wait for their life to start. How much further could the family have gone had they stayed by each other. How much more wealth could the family have amassed if the children didn't buy a home but simply combined their household with that of their parents. Why give it to strangers so you can die alone in a nursing home? Why not give your house to your children, share the pension so that the children don't have to work two jobs and never visit the nursing home? Spend time with the grand children so they don't end up trapped in the cycle of wealth creation and absorption inherent in The American Dream.

They call it 'The American Dream' but I often wonder whose dream it is. It's not something a sane man would conjure up as the ideal existence. It seems to benefit most those who would destroy a close family. Those who don't care about the future.

30 - 6 - 2

Guy Fox Day

The latest terror threat is BS. If it was really meant to cause the greatest amount of damage it wouldn't be to blow up the plane on landing, when there's no fuel in the wings. At most, crashing a plane before landing will only kill a couple hundred people, those on the plane and the one or two guys the plane falls on. Terrorists could kill more people with a scisor jack to the tracks of any rush hour city subway train. How much of the Green Line track is exposed when it's beyond Kenmore Square?

Again, I'm not afraid of Terrorists. There are too many easy ways to kill me for me to worry about needlessly complex plots hatched by cave men living on the other side of the world. I'm afraid of The United States Government. If you're not then you're not paying attention. I wish we still had The Bill of Rights to protect us. No one should fear their own government.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. " - Thomas Jefferson July 4, 1776

That is what the Second Ammendment is for. It's too bad we were so successful getting rid of it in Massachusetts that we're telling other states how to live.

What A Bunch Of Fuckin Assholes

Does our government have any clue what life is like?

Due to the nature of the threat revealed by this investigation, we are prohibiting any liquids, including beverages, hair gels, and lotions from being carried on the airplane.

So leave that Insulin at home. You're not going to fly with your life saving medicine if it's in liquid form. Mothers, don't forget that tasting the baby formula renders it unsterile.

We need to put an end to the harm and terror Homeland Security visits upon innocent travellers.

At the very least, we need to protest in some way. From now on, every freedom loving American who travels by air should go to the supermarket and purchase a can of formula before they fly. Men too. When the DHS Gestapo find the baby formula take a sip then let them take the whole can and despose of it themselves. When the airport has to throw out open can after open can of liquid that smells horrible when it sours they won't be so quick to fuck with us. Remember, they're going to fuck with one of us anyway but they can't fuck with all of us.

Editors update:
By the way, remember when you couldn't fly with nail clippers and then DHS said you could. It was because the screeners missed so many nail clippers and got letters from people saying "you took my nail clippers away on this date but didn't take them away from my sister/spouse/friend on this other date... What the fuck is going on with you?"

If they're inept at stopping it they might as well allow it.

Live Free Or Die

A couple weeks ago I went to the beach with some friends from the central part of the state who have two young boys. We also had a surprise visit from a friend living in Ohio. We made a big day of it, coolers and toys and all. We went to Lynch Park where I have free parking. The beach there is sandy with gravel between the high and low water marks and flanked by rocks on both sides. It would have been fun but the life guards refused to let the boys in the water with swim fins on. Then they chased us off the rocks, "Some kid fell last week." So OK, Taxachusetts is also overwhelmed with Nanny-State assholes drunk with the tiniest measure of power looking to turn their job into their personal feifdom.

Yesterday, I went to Hampton Beach with family. That beach is fun, unless there's an undertow in which case some college kid will come over on a JetSki and tell you not to swim out so far.

The world is not soft and padded around the edges. There are rocks and every asshole knows they're treacherous and slippery especially when there's water on them. Some of us know how to ride the undertow out and back. Fuck, we even think it's fun.

I miss freedom.

A Short Vingette

I'm talking to several bikers after the funeral. I introduce myself as Kappy's nephew. I'm still wearing that power tie and $400 shoes. They're not.

Me "I went to middle school with Whitey."

A Biker "How many times did he beat you up?"

Me "He stopped when he found out who my Uncle was."

Another Biker "That sounds like Whitey."

Just Like Grout

Why Yes, yesterday's post was filler. So is today's.

Off to a biker funeral. You know those guys aren't afraid of anything except a man wearing a tie and $400 shoes.

Another New Feature

Today starts a new feature here at Dean Rules! I'll detail an idea I have that will someday make somebody else an assload of money.

Barney uses Freshstep Kitty Litter. It's a fine product but expensive. I've taken to cutting it with cheap generic unscented litter as I have to replace the litter in the machine every two weeks. Barney's a tinkle machine and no litter continues to clump after 17 days of Barney tinkle.

So I have this idea for a commercial. Since all commercial cats and dogs are CGI today, why not play it up. Have a bunch of cats with Dreads and Rasta hats singing... Wait for it...

Here comes's the Fresh Steppah*
He's got a clean littah
He likes it like that

I'm sure the rights to that one hit wonder will come cheap. Fresh Step would be fools to pass this up.

This is more fun then patent squatting waiting for someone to infringe and then sue the bastards. I'll make millions.



* You can find a sample of the song here just select track 3

Goodbye

It's a cliche' to say that every mans life tells a story and that some men serve as a cautionary tale. My uncle John died yesterday. Heatstroke from a drug overdose. He leaves one son, too young to understand what it's like to lose the fight with demons of your own making. It's a surprise but not a shock. John has been heading down this road all his life.

It's hard to explain where the demons came from without having to tell you the whole family history. Suffice it to say that my family is still very close in the Mediterranean sense, My Big Fat Greek Wedding kind of way. He lived downstairs from my father in the house they all grew up in. My dad was not home. He'd gone to Maine for the month to work on his cabin. My aunts live in Maine and New Hampshire. Another uncle lives the next town over. No one was around to pay close attention to uncle John.

The drugs aren't purely to escape and hide, to revel in hedonism. He's got pins down his leg and an artificial hip from a drunk driving accident that put him on disability. (he wasn't driving but he was stupid for being in the car with someone who was) The pain could be unbearable. He hit the needle hard when he got his check on the 1st of the month. My cousin Nicholas stopped by to check up on him and found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. There's no air conditioning in the apartment. It was 110 degrees. Junkie alcoholics can't regulate their body temperature. EMT's tried to revive him, they stabilized him and brought him to the hospital. There, the ER team fought to revive him for longer then they should have. This is the way we all knew he would go if not then, then next week or next year. Hell, he'd used up his nine lives 30 or 40 cat's worth ago.

I know he died getting high, doing exactly what he wanted, consequence be damned. It's hard to justify my more libertine bent when faced with the very real destruction of his life and how it affects my family, particularly my cousin, his son. All I can say is some folks can handle their high. Some folks become a cautionary tale. He was my Godfather. I love him.

Dammit

Why did I have to go and post my magnum opus for the week before I found this?

They're Not Nearly As Scary As The IRS

Comcast OnDemand is running Blown Away in the free movie section this month. As cheesy and full of plot holes as that movie is, I have a soft spot in my heart for it. Once upon a time, in my previous life, I lived on a sailboat in the Charlestown Navy Yard. One day someone towed a rickety old Russian fishing trawler into one of the abandoned dry docks and proceeded to tear down the superstructure straight down to the bare hull. One drunken night early in the retrofitting Marty and I snuck onto it. It was pretty disappointing, there was nothing to see. Eventually there would be something to see. The boat was rebuilt as a hollow balsawood and aluminum shell full of alcohol and dynamite and finally towed across the harbor to where they eventually blew it up.

Boston was abuzz with motion picture magic all summer. It was no secret that eventually that boat would be blown up for the movie. At first rumors were that it would be towed out of the harbor for the final scene. Luckily those rumors were less accurate then a drunk in a bar. One Friday after work, I came home and there were all these helicopters buzzing around the mouth of the Mystic. I knew it was going to be the day and I knew they were waiting for magic hour. I called my girlfriend and we waited at the end of the dock, less then 100 yards from ground zero. A horn went off then silence. Then fire 100 feet high, the water in the harbor flattened out we heard it at the exact moment we felt the heat and shock.

Blown Away, despite it's hokey story and plot holes and location anomalies* works because not too long ago the IRA really did make bombs out of their own urine in an attempt to drive the English out of Ireland. For much of the 70's and 80's the Irish engaged in terrorist activities against an oppressive occupying foreign army. Unlike the Middle East, they were right next door and close enough to bring their terrorist bombs into sleepy English towns like Ulster, Manchester and London. What did those smarmy Brits do about it? Maggie Thatcher tried to use them as an excuse to scare her subjects into submission and when that didn't work she sent double agents into the IRA to step up the terror. (Try Googling for "Stakeknife")

The thing is, those common Brits didn't just bend over and cry like a French woman in a Merchant Ivory film on The Hallmark Channel. They did the only clear and sane thing to do. They ignored it. They went about their lives like a bomb wasn't going to explode and kill dozens or hundreds of them at random. The terror didn't work. Maggie never quite got the rise out of her populace that she craved.

I wish we had the balls that those every day, ordinary Brits did. Maybe then we wouldn't be so easy to push around. Maybe then we'd demand less nanny-state and more Liberty. Or maybe we really do deserve neither Liberty or Safety.


(*Why would the Boston Bomb Squad respond to a call in Cambridge? They are two separate cities with their own police forces.)

Cuba Libre'

So if Castro is dead or dies soon or doesn't, what will happen to that little island 90 miles from Florida? I don't know, maybe his brother will continue his policies and rule the same way, status quo, business as usual. Maybe he wont. Maybe some one will stage a bloodless coup (which dosen't sound nearly as much fun as a bloody coup) and install another government. Maybe not.

The one thing I do know is that the moment the Embargo is lifted Bechtel, BRK, GE, GM, AT&T, KO, MSFT, INTC, BUD and an assload of other multinational corporations will descend onto that extinct volcano with a fresh coat of paint and spackle faster then FEMA is slow.

Next Time Just Use Amphetamines

Big news here in Massachusetts and to the surprise of no one is that there's a burgeoning demand for cheap health care. That comes as no big surprise, even the poor illegal immigrant wants to look prettier even though MassHealth won't cover the cosmetic surgery.

But what's the consumer to do when even legitimate physicians kill more patients then car accidents or handguns? Some say that modern medicine stacks the deck against the paitent in the first place.

OK OK, I know drugs from a legitimate pharmacy prescribed by a knowledgable physician are almost always safe, right? I mean name one person in the family who nearly got killed by their physician this week. Can anyone come up with even just one name?

I can. It turns out that Allopurinol a daily pill to control Gout can in some not so rare cases make the disease worse. Once again, Lisa's grandfather dodged a bullet because we're here taking care of him.

So it's Dean 2 Old Age 0 and we never got a definitive diagnosis on pneumonia or not. It never showed up on any of his Xrays but he's feeling much better. All in all, I'd say it's Dean 2 Physicians 0.

As for home liposuction, it really is too bad that doctors aren't allowed to prescribe Dexedrine for weight loss. Nothing is more effective, you lose your appetite and want to go out and lift heavy things and put them back down again. Unless you have ADD, you lose your appetite and mellow out for a while. It's too bad it's off patent. Then maybe a drug company would fight for a patients right to use it.