office cat, cont'd

there are mouse turds in the microwave.

the idea of Office Cat is still under discussion. now vlad the siberian dotnet dude wants, quote, a little pony.

i want a wildebeest.

Deadline

it's shit or get off the pot today for iran -- will it or won't it comply with the UN security council's demand it cease production of enriched uranium? if ahmadinejad and his mantrain refuse to comply, the planned response is military and/or economic sanctions. smashing. that worked so well before.

meanwhile, guess who's blogging now?! the great Satan-hater himself! ahmadinejad's blog was live for only a couple days before it got hacked by Y! Underground Group which you'd love to believe is a junky, subversive LA crew but is actually an irananian group arguing FOR iran's right to proliferate nucularly.

Nuclear Energy is Our Right claimed the Y. the body of the message continues in farsi. if yours is a little rusty, i've provided the translation below:

jenabe Ahmadi Nejad	Tell me, O muse,
ma ke nemitoonim shomaro molaghat konim	of that ingenious hero
vali az tarafe tamame hacker haye iran	who travelled far and wide
azinke az haghe melate iran dar barabare tamame	after he had sacked the famous town of Troy
keshvar haye jahan defa mikonid tashakor mikonim	meow
azinke ba hemato talashe khod abadi va abadani ra	Many cities did he visit,
baraye mahroom avardin jaye tashakor dare	and many were the nations
omid varim	he beat the crap out of
ta akharin nafas az Energy hasteyi ke hagh	goddam axis of evil
mosalame tamame mardome irane	more salami please
defa konid	meow

really, i think nothing good can come of UN sanctions and our moral blustering. the issue isn't nuclear proliferation -- or else cheney would clamor about india and pakistan -- it's the fact that iran's a hostile regime, and sanctions won't do a thing about that.

office cat

it's come to this:

From: der bossen
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 9:15 PM
To: der dung beetles
Subject: cat idea

All,

Besides for providing J info on the mice whereabouts (J - lobby on the way to D and S's office tonight) for the exterminators, someone threw out the idea of an office cat to deal with them temporarily.

If we can not build 100% consensus, we will not do this. You could object because you don't like cats, don't think it fits in professionally, don't like it because the cat can't be billable, or may be allergic to them, etc. But, it could be nice to have an office pet, and, since it might be quite amusing to see a Tom and Jerry show in here (no, not L and F), then I felt to throw out the idea presented to me.

Please let me know if you object.

der bossen

i, for one, think it's an excellent idea, quite amusing. we'll start by putting tape on its paws and i know lou is with me on this one.

here's some more info on cat abuse.

have prunes, will travel

travel, and the change in lifestyle it usually ushers in, wreaks havoc on a body. you get stressed & excited; you eat differently. these factors, combined with the global change in daily routine, totally fuck up my bowels. in a new place, i can go DAYS without shitting -- though not for lack of trying! -- and whatever i finally produce is guaranteed to severely stress my bunghole and clog the crapper.

i now travel with prunes, and a knife for cutting my shit into flushable chunks. last week i brought neither, believing that a trip to a beachhouse a mere 80miles away didn't qualify as bowel-challenging. mistake. the toilet there was total namby-pamb, one of those jobs where the water swirls gently and meanders down the poop tube with a politely muted gurgle. i had no recourse but to lift some flatware from our favorite diner and spend some quality time in the bowl. if the lord really loved me, he'd give me only industrial strength crappers.

my system's still getting back to normal. this morning my crap and i had a war, me trying to flush it away while it resisted valiantly, poking its playful nose back into the bowl just when i thought i'd delivered it to Holding Tank Heaven. stupid turd made me late for my master's swim, and it's still sitting there waiting for me.

back to reality

little mousie little mousie
you do not make me want to walk like a camel
but your death dismays me
especially since it happened right by my litterbox,
where i keep all my food
because you and your starving masses
eat my stuff and then poop it all over my desk.

my keyboard keys are probably dried-up urine pools.

remember that time you got in my litterbox
and ate my crisps and chocolate and kiwi fruit?
you finished my box of Nutty Flax
but i didn't know
because you left so much poop in the box
that i thought it was cereal until i shook it over my yogurt.
how you must have laffed and laffed!

o funny mouse!
stay away from my house or you'll end up in the warshing machine.

AWOL

to the beach for a week.

catch you peeps when i return. behave yourselves.

and this too shall pass.

just blue.

rudy says come 9/1 maybe i can ease back into running. i had pipe dreams about racing my team's du in sept, and cape henlopen in october, but my du & tri season effectively ended with rudy yesterday. what motivation now? even the road racing season will be tapering off by the time i'm back in shape.

just blue.

drudge report a bucket of bad news this morning: wife pleading for her cameraman husband's relase, hybrid mutant mauling dogs, jonbenet, floyd landis's father-in-law's suicide blah blah hit me with the blue hammer again.

googled "happy news" -- hooray! first result is HappyNews.com: Positive US and international news. take me to Happy News please! -click and.... no dice. Happy News a dead link. fitting.

just.

UPDATE
okay, this made me a laff a little: madonna's cameltoe MySpace.

another race report from corner brook

here's someone else's take on du worlds -- in this case, elizabeth fedofsky, who won the women's race. SHE is a true MF badass. you would never catch me self-psyching in a porta-john. in fact, my last pre-race trip to the pooper was notable because at the top of the dump-pile was a huge mound of pellets the size of my dog's kibble. it looked like a herd of deer had filed in and taken craps. what the hell do you eat the night before to generate that? certainly not a hurricane-sized margarita and vegetable stir-fry.

maybe i would have placed better if i'd spent more time visualising my race strategy instead of staring at a pile of shit. but then i'd be somebody else.

fur-spangled bedsheets

my 3 cats are unfriendly, dumb and completely ineffectual as far as vermin-catching goes. so there are mousetraps, the old-fashioned neck-breakers, scattered throughout the house.

sometime last week, the trap under the kitchen sink nailed a mouse... but by the leg, not the neck. mouse had enough strength to drag its broken body AND mousetrap through a hole around the sink's piping. it dropped down the hole into the basement, into the laundry room, and then burrowed into the pile of dirty clothes atop the dryer. there mouse died and began to decompose. i know this cos i smelled a bad smell but couldn't find its origin.

sunday morning i blithely loaded the washer and ran the cycle; and when it was done i pulled out the bedsheets and tees and shorts. it wasn't 'til i got down to the little stuff, my cute Think Pink panties, that i reached down far enough to emerge with the trap and what was left of the mouse, gray and pink held together by threads of fur and wet.

i dropped everything and ran screaming upstairs. the cats fled; the dog howled. i gibbered and wailed and flapped my arms frenetically to the point of exhaustion; then i washed my hands until the skin was raw while D, bless his heart, collected and disposed of the remains.

-- i wish i knew how to use your camera better, D said. i'd give anything for that video. you were shrieking like a schoolgirl.
-- fuck you, okay? that was horrible.
-- it was a mouse.
-- it was a DECOMPOSED mouse in the WASHING MACHINE.
-- what would you have done if i weren't here?
-- i would have dealt with it. eventually.
-- you better do an extra rinse this time. and use the dryer instead of hanging 'em outside. that'll separate some of the fur out.
-- move. i think i'm gonna hurl.

i'm suing the cats for psychological trauma.

i wish this would happen more often

lou's wife hates squirrels as much as i do, PLUS she's deathly afraid of them. this morning she sent him this email:

Dear Lou,
When I went to the car to go to work this morning there was a dead squirrel in the driveway. I thought at first that maybe you ran over it when you left, but there wasn't any blood except for a little bit on the head. I think he fell out of the tree. I wish this would happen more often. I LOVE YOU.

if she weren't already taken, i'd marry her.

dead bodies everywhere

it's high summer here in delaware. the corn is sweet, the tomatoes ripe, and in the afternoon the chorus of cicadas rises and falls.

and the cicada killers are here. cicada killers are wasps that excavate small, gopher-like holes in dry, sunny soil. in this burrow, the female lays an egg and then goes on the hunt for cicadas. she stings the poor fuckers, flips them on their backs, drags them back to the hole and then seals it up. when the wasp egg hatches, the voracious larvae's got a meal right there.

seriously icky, eh?? well consider a whole yard overrun by these creepy little creatures. mounds of dusty soil everywhere, punctuated by creepy little holes. the garden looks like fucking Desert Storm.

to make matters worse, we've got a cicada killer who rides the short bus. this individual persists in digging holes in the cracks of the stone steps leading to the front door, holes that she later discovers are TOO SMALL to accommodate her victims' bodies, which end up either stuck ineffectually in the entrance to the burrow, or littered across the steps where i tromp on them when go out to hang the laundry. here's our Short Bus Killer at work:


the only solace i can take is that her larva won't survive. thank god for natural selection.

met with sir rudy yesterday, who decreed another 2 weeks off running. his probing Fingers of Steel found 2 superficial tears in my hammie, and one more serious, deep-seated one -- probably the culprit responsible for the original despair and compensatory damage.

again, his ministrations called forth involuntary oaths and sweating. when i sat up, a wet pool in the shape of my body remained.

-- quit sweating on our tables, rudy said. jerk.
-- quit beating the crap out of me, i retorted. sadist.

i am in love with rudy the way you're in love with your therapist, or the tech guy who saves your ass when your hard drive fries.

have a good weekend, all. i'm starting mine early. it's mother-fucking booze time.

workin' for the man

fatmammycat's observations tickled me more than usual today. i don't like working with people either. so, do i like my job? (yes.) why?

let me numberate some ways.

Reasons Why My Job is a Pretty Good Despite the Fact it Depends on People, not Puppydogs (for instance) or Meerkats or Swimming Butterfly

• flex-time. i'm usually the first to arrive and first to leave. *i* make the first pot of ass coffee.
• my co-workers make me laugh.
• they don't mind my tourette's
• or the fact that i'm a human jukebox
• or that i attract mice
• and meow a lot.
• we get free lunches on MWF.
• i can wear cargo shorts and an awitha teetha tour tee.
• i've got administrator rights on my box.
• my bosses appear to respect me.
• when i get in the car to drive home i'm leaving work behind.
• if i worked at home i'd probably just masturbate all day.

so that is that.

i hope you're all celebrating World Breastfeeding Week.

for Cat

for u to wear to work tdy:

free cat

awesome.

(thanks to e, who pointed me to this.)

fucking floyd

i didn't want to believe floyd was doping when he won the tour this year. i couldn't warm to his weasly visage like i did to lance's chiseled stoicism, but i gave him big props for his gutsy, epic breakaway effort on stage 17.

when i heard his first urine sample tested positive for testosterone, i withheld judgement. i didn't think testosterone wreaked an immediate effect; i thought it was something riders used early in the season while setting their base.

the second sample's since confirmed results of the first, and velonews has reported jesús manzano, an ex-pro, testifying to the quick efficacy of testosterone in competition.

"Its effects are felt almost immediately," Manzano wrote. "It gives you a lot of force and produces a sort of euphoria."

Manzano outlined three ways to take testosterone during a competition.

First are patches, called AndroGel, which are applied during a light massage usually during the evening mealtime. Manzano said the patches had to be used less than two hours to not risk going above the T/E ratio threshold and risking a positive doping test. Manzano also said clandestine suppositories are used as well as intravenous injections, called Rastandol, taking about 20 minutes to 1 hour before competition.

considering this, it's not so passing strange now that, following the shattering state 16 in which landis lost 8min, he boasted and blustered to his teammates that night, hinting they should expect big things the next day.

a little androgel before dinner, and some rastandol up the pooper right before the race and you're good to go.

fuck floyd and jan and tyler and basso and beloki, mancebo and sevilla. you guys deserve all the shit you get.

axis of evil brownies

heavens they're tasty. and expeditious.

melt 1 stick of butter in a 13x9 pan.
add the following, in this order:
1 c. graham cracker crumbs
1 c. coconut
1 c. choc chips
1 c. butterscotch chips
1 can condensed milk
1 c. chopped nuts

press down with spoon to make sure nuts stick.
bake at 350 for 30min.

yesterday i made 2 pans of these brownies and ate 3 almost straight out of the oven. i vacuumed the entire downstairs, did 2 loads of laundry, wormed 3 snorgoyles, watered all the plants and re-derived the thomas-fermi equation, all in 45 minutes. then i sugar-crashed and slept the rest of the afternoon.

masturbate-a-thon tomorrow!!

for my next endurance event: Charity wants Britons to come to Masturbate-a-thon.

Hundreds of Britons are being urged to attend what is being branded as Europe's first "Masturbate-a-thon," a leading British reproductive healthcare charity said on Friday. (more.)

here are the rules:

• you must be over 18
• no touching others
• no faking
• you can bring any "aids" you need

i know what i'm bringing.

but since i'm not a Briton, i'll have to play along in spirit, in delaware.

after that i'll make brownies. (with coconut, T.O.)

another morsel

18yo steve duplinsky, from bethesda MD, on his way to taking the junior du world title on sunday (notice the lack of torrential winds and rain).

He's just is so relaxed out there," Landon Coach Addison Hunt said. "It's the same way the best athletes in the world look when they're running, like it comes naturally. It's a beautiful thing to watch...

sigh.
i think i need an intervention.

(more pix from the pro, junior and U23 races here.)

du worlds

ITU du worlds (short course)
10K run – 40K bike – 5K run
sat 29 july 2006
corner brook, newfoundland

it's 1am, and i'm wide awake because bob dropped off our luggage an hour ago and i cannot get back to sleep. bob was a very accommodating, friendly person tasked with cleaning up after Air Canada's fuck-ups – in this case misplaced luggage. i met many bobs during the trips to and from newfoundland. hooray bobs!!

we flew out of philly last tuesday, expecting to arrive in deer lake, NF late tues night, but flights were cancelled and overbooked, and the earliest arrival Air Canada could guarantee was saturday morning. maybe i would set foot in deer lake before my wave took off in corner brook, 2 hours south.

we ended up taking a boat instead – and after a 6-hour ferry ride from nova scotia to NF, we finally arrived in corner brook on thursday with enough time for me to cobble my bike together, take a spin on the bike course and then rush to the opening ceremonies. there i met up with my nemesis K (with whom i duel in local races) and S (who roundly schools us both, but in a very nice, bob-like way). during the Walk of Nations, we filed into the pepsi center country by country to a rolling din that reached a crescendo when the canadian team poured in last. S took pix while K and i checked out the swiss boys.

the next morning S and i rode a lap of the bike course (10K/lap) and ran a lap of the run (2.5K /lap). the course suited me well: both ride and run course were either up or down or windy, posing few opportunities for ADD racers like me to daydream ourselves into a different time and place. plus, hills and wind offer me an advantage over the Tiny People who otherwise blow by me on their teenytiny legses.

run course is good; bike course is good; what more could i ask for?

how about RAIN. drizzly rain, sheeting rain, bucketing rain – many permutations of rain come saturday morning. i have found that rain and general inclemency (like wind, obvy) make the Tiny People nervous. they get blown about. they ride their brakes on the descents and chirp their rear tires on the climbs. as multi-sport people, we typically eschew riding in the rain, electing to run instead, or ride our trainers, or make chocolate chunk espresso cookies; thus we sometimes forget how to ride in baleful weather.

the question the rain brought with it (besides how slippery is that manhole cover) was will my hamstring get cold and seize up faster. i hadn't run since the last hamstring pull and had no idea what to expect from it. all week i'd been slathering that puppy with biofreeze, with arnica, with freakin' emu oil in the hope that it'd hold together for the race. the back of my leg was so constantly tacky i stuck to chairs.

saturday morning i tried a new drug, greasing up with sports balm before K and i trotted out a warmup. she kept edging away from me and i knew she was raring to go. me? -i was kind of sleepy.

my and K's wave comprised women ages 35 to 54, and i took some comfort in the fact that i there was a chance i wouldn't be the last one to pull my bike off the rack as long as i could stay ahead of a 50-year-old or two.

4 laps of the out & back run course meant dropping down a significant hill twice a lap – death to crankly hamstrings! – so i took rudy's advice to heart and chopped my stride down to a near-shuffle every time down that hill. i began a rousing game of Red Light Green Light with a girl from great britain: she'd dart by me on the downhill, and i'd creak by her on the uphill. every time we passed the start/finish line spectators hollered (sometimes in english), pounded the barricade and, if there was a canadian competitor nearby, did the wave.

my mile pace was about 45sec slower than it should have been, and i was 5min down on K by the time i finally reached my bike, 11th out of 16 in my age group and 50th in my wave, with a time of 45:05. OTOH i was pumped about making it through the 10K AND my legs were fresh. i roared onto the bike course and instantly caused some consternation with several older gentlemen from an earlier wave as i made a move to pass on the inside right before the turnaround, the whole mess compounded by the fact that the course organisers had us riding on the left side of the road, passing on the right.

the rain started in earnest, and i rode the brakes on the first descent and chirped my rear tire on the first climb before i finally loosened up and had a blast. despite the rain, spectators still mustered on the course, sitting on their lawns with golf umbrellas and signs recommending "Ride it like you Stole It" and collecting on the windy straights to cheer and play triangles (must be a canadian thing. like badminton).

i made up some time on the bike leg and passed a lot of women, including my great britain friend, but i was certain most of these women would pass me again in the second run. my bike split was 4th fastest in my AG, 7th in my wave.

getting off the bike was entirely a different experience than getting on. when i finally got both feet on the ground, it felt as though all the muscles from my ankles to lower back had been replaced with steel shafts. nothing was bending or giving. i shuffle-skated with my bike back to the rack and pulled on my flats, thinking there was no way on god's green earth that i could eke out a 5K run. but volunteers were gesturing and herding me back on the run course and here i was going down the same old hill and here's that same guy exhorting me: work the hills! you love hills! you're a runner now! –and i felt i should stop to apologise, to explain, to somehow excuse the fact that i've brought 8min miles to worlds.

but i didn't because i was now back in the neighborhood where spectators had hung all the countries' flags, and they were playing fiddle music that transported me back to county clare, and they were cheering for me by name because they're armed with start lists that match race number to name. you cannot pull out of a race when strangers are cheering for you personally.

at the first turnaround, my back and glutes were beginning to loosen up. the hamstring was very obviously Present, however; and i knew that pushing it beyond the edge meant walking, and i could not walk because here, approaching the turnaround, was my Red Light Green Light companion. she.would.not.give.up. so i trundled on, exchanging wry grins with a japanese woman every time we passed on the out & back course.

a canadian woman in my AG passed me halfway through the 2nd run and i didn't counter. i expected more to follow in her wake, including great britain, but none did. i ran that 5K in 25:21 – smokin' eh?? – but i finished.

so, i was the ole mid-pack fodder, locking in at 8th in my AG. K was 2nd. S won her 30-34 AG and was 2nd F overall with a time that would have put her 3rd among the pro women, who raced the next day.

thanks for your well wishes. :) FMC, it is now time to take your advice and give the hammie a rest. also, there are choc chunk cookies calling my name.