My day: Three miscellaneous quotes and one thought.

(1) Mom's Corner: "We're having humidity today and perhaps the temps in the mid 90's...YUCKEROO! I already did a walk with Maggie, hosed off the patio tables, watered potted plants in/out, vacuumed our bedroom/bath and t.v. room, and am now eating breakfast!"

(2) Karate Advertisement on Caesar Chavez: "Belliso Karate School: A Nice Place For a Child to Become Special."

(3) Diff'rent Strokes: (overheard as a compliment between two secretaries) "Your haircut looks nice...like a First Lady."

(4) Sushi: I had lunch with a client today who was all "Hey let's get sushi. By the way I've been kicked out of all-you-can-eat sushi buffets....twice!" He made me eat so much stuff that I spent all afternoon distracted by being stuffed. This is not interesting. What is interesting is that being stuffed by raw fish is way less uncomfortable [FN1] than being stuffed with something like a burrito or pasta.

[FN1]: I see the double negative and I find it appropriate here because it was not positively comfortable.

My sleeping and waking habits.

The last two mornings I've woken up to random songs in my head. Yesterday was Elton John's "Rocket Man." Today was Dire Straits' "Walk of Life." I'm embarrassed these are the tunes playing in my subconscious brain.

I also have boring generic dreams lately, and it's like, hey brain!, when you have no limits can you maybe think of some cool shit to do? None of this "And then my boss closed my office door and sternly told me to stop using the internet so much." I mean at least make the boss not really my boss, you know?

Mom's Corner

"At this age her favorite toy is that ropey thingamajig she happens to be holding in the photo. She uses it as a pull toy or a throw toy or a running toy as it flops against her nose. She has begun to chew and loosen one of the rope knots, so yesterday there were many orange strings in her poop...very weird looking. Today she began her walk with me while carrying this toy too. She takes great pride in holding a toy or a bone or a golf ball while she prances along. About a mile into the walk, she may drop the item and when we return, we'll walk by it and she proceeds to carry it back home again. I've noticed Golden Retrievers doing this, so this activity must be coming from her Daddy's genes. Her dog Daddy would be proud because her human Daddy certainly is!"

Bad Thai Cops to Endure Kitty Shame

(08-06) 04:38 PDT BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) --

Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring "Hello Kitty," the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.

Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late — among other misdemeanors — will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The officers won't wear the armband in public.

The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.

"Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor," said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.

"(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps," Pongpat said.

He said police caught breaking the law will be subject the same fines and penalties as any other members of the public.

"We want to make sure that we do not condone small offenses," Pongpat said, adding that the CSD believed that getting tough on petty misdemeanors would lead to fewer cases of more serious offenses including abuse of power and mistreatment of the public by police officers.

Hello Kitty, invented by Sanrio Co. in 1974, has been popular for years with children and young women. The celebrity cat adorns everything from diamond-studded jewelry, Fender guitars and digital cameras to lunch boxes, T-shirts and stationery.

Who doesn't love pineapple sundaes?

See you at the Crossroads.

I use Hotmail. Guilty as charged. I have a Gmail account like a proper young urbanite but I've been running my life on Hotmail since the 90's and old habits die hard. I may or may not pay for extra storage but let's not go there right now, okay? One embarrassing disclosure at a time.

Sooooo. This is a roundabout way of explaining that when I access Hotmail I encounter MSN and its hard-hitting journalism. Today a big topic was Darfur. And by "Darfur," I mean BONE THUGS ~N~ HARMONY.

Each time I checked my email today there was a little icon that said "Bone Thugs ~N~ Harmony: Catch their concert from Chicago's House of Blues!" The link allows one to (a) see how these long-time rappers are holding it down in 2007; (b) hear about the musical history these Midwest rappers plan to bring onstage; and (c) read about their history, hear track samples, and more! I did none of those things, but I did shut my office door and play the Crossroads video on YouTube for like an hour straight.

Victoria Woodhull

This is the third part in a series I'm calling "Rad Bitches." First came Lucy Stone. Then Hillary (Rodham, Rodham-Clinton) Clinton. Now: Victoria Woodhull. Who the hull is that, you ask? A champion of free love and women's rights, as well as the first female Wall Street broker and Presidential nominee. She was also a looker!

At 15 she married a 28-year-old doctor. She quickly realized he was an alcoholic and a womanizer and she'd need to support him and their 2 kids. This pissed her off for several reasons: (i) at that time women had few options to escape shitty marriages; (ii) divorced ladies were stigmatized and often ostracized and maybe Jazzercized; and (iii) men were allowed to have sex of the pre- and extra-marital varieties.

She and her sister were the first female Wall Street brokers. Their firm opened in 1870 with the assistance of her admirer and wealthy benefactor. Many contemporary men's journals published sexualized images of the pair running their firm, thereby linking the concept of publicly-minded, un-chaperoned women with ideas of "sexuality immorality" and prostitution.

She and her sister also established a paper with opinions on taboo topics. Among other things, the paper advocated women's suffrage, short skirts, spiritualism, free love, vegetarianism, licensed prostitution, and birth control. The paper also included the first English version of the Communist Manifesto.

In 1871, she argued to the House Judiciary Committee that women already had the right to vote - all they had to do was use it - since the 14th and 15th Amendments granted that right to all citizens. (Reminder: Women didn't get the vote until 1920. NINETEEN TWENTY.)

In 1872, she received the Presidential nomination from the Equal Rights Party and Frederick Douglass received the Vice Presidential nomination. While he didn't accept his nomination, her association with him stirred controversy about the mixing of whites n' blacks. The Equal Rights Party hoped the combination would reunite suffragists with civil rights activists, because the exclusion of female suffrage from the 15th Amendment two years earlier apparently had suffragist panties in a bunch.

Two days before the 1872 election, Victoria's paper published an article about a rumored affair between a prominent Protestant Reverend and some woman. The article intended to highlight the sexual double-standard between women and men. It resuled in her arrest that very day for sending obscene materials through the mail. The arrest was arranged by Anthony Comstock, the self-appointed moral defender of the nation at the time, and incited questions about censorship and government persecution. She was acquitted on a technicality six months later, but the arrest prevented Victoria from attempting to vote during the election.

More Hamburger.

Here's more Neil Hamburger for you. This is a clip of him on the Tom Green Show defending Thora Birch's honor:

Neil Hamburger

Neil Hamburger is an anti-comedian in the style of Andy Kaufman's Tony Clifton. His pacing is off (no ba-dum-dum punchlines), he slurs and clears his throat a lot, he says unnnnngh like SNL's Pat, and he holds a bunch of drinks and drops them on audience members.

A few years ago, Hot Karl suggested I watch him at the Hemlock here in San Francisco. I forced Annie, Becky, Hip E, and PETE to go with me. Jokes included such things as "Why does Madonna feed her children Alpo? Because that's what comes out of her breast," and "Why did Michael Jackson turn down $10,000,000 to advertise for McDonalds? Because he doesn't find obese children at all sexually appealing." You get the gist. At the end of the night they were all like "Linda, WTF?" A year later Annie saw him open at the Great American Music Hall. As everybody grumbled and became angry at the shitty comic, Annie told them one time I made her go see him. (PS: You're welcome).

He recently started a show called Poolside Chats on Tom Green's website. Y'all should watch these. To give you a taste: With one angry caller, Hamburger claimed that Bob Dole had the censored the show, to which the caller replied "Yeah, fuck Bob Dole!" Hamburger then suggested the caller "go down to the local wall" and spray paint "Fuck Bob Dole" on it, to which the caller replied "I'll spray paint everything!"

Funny running Poolside Chat jokes include:

• The Pool Guy works during the filming and often smokes joints with the guests. Hamburger has does not appreciate the man "stoning" the guests, and if it continues he will "call 9-1-1".
• Hamburger and Kyle Gass played a duet using a small child's electronic keyboard toy shaped like a hamburger.
• Hamburger claimed that a boy named Nathan had drowned in the pool by which the show is filmed, and was not saved since his parents were filming a porno while the accident happened. He further claimed that this tragic incident had lowered the property values for the house. Tom Green was very evasive when asked about this incident.
• Hamburger revealed that the hair gel he uses, "New Wave Hard Rock Gel," is actually prescribed to him from an Australian pharmacy. It "has" to be imported as it is "banned" in America.
• Hamburger often changes the name of the show mid-show when things are going badly, answering the phone with the new name and confusing callers. Names have included 'Poolside Shit', 'Pizza Hut', 'Hell on Earth', 'Cancelled Show' and 'Girl Talk'.

My eyes are burning.

There are no words.