Kerry Won the Debate

Well, round one of the presidential debates is over, and Kerry didn't let me down. He was concise and strong-willed, and didn't let Bush trip him up. Dubya on the other hand was stammering and incoherent. How did we ever elect this guy?? Oh that's right, we didn't.

PSA

Public Service Announcement time, kids. FLOSS YOUR DAMN TEETH. Seriously. I just had to get a scaling and root planing procedure on my mouth because I wasn't taking care of my gums. It requires local anesthetic, and what seems like a Dremel tool. And my insurance only covers a tiny portion of it, so I had to pay almost $400 to get a sore, swollen mouth. Really, just floss your teeth.

Open letter to Jimmy Swaggart

Dear Jimmy,

I read about your recent remark threatening to kill gay men. Due to it, I have decided to make a donation to the Human Rights Campaign (http://www.hrc.org/)in your honor. HRC is an organization that fights for gay rights.

Thank you,
Husky

Funky Treadmill-Bike hybrid

Can't decide between walking or biking? Imaturation posted a photo of a crazy treadmill/bike hybrid that will let you compromise between the two.

Arguments against gay marriage and why they're wrong

I have been hesitant about posting about gay marriage because so much has been said already. But with states threatening to create constitutional amendments banning it, I should say something.

Arguments Against Gay Marriage, and Why They're Wrong

Argument 1) My church says homosexuality is a sin.

Why it's wrong: We don't live in a theocracy, and our rules aren't based on your beliefs. Laws should be based on keeping people from harming others, not based on what a particular religious book says. No one is harmed by gay marriage. If you want to live in a theocracy, move to Iran.

Besides, we are talking about civil marriage, not religious marriage. Your church can go on banning gay marriage even if gay people could legally marry. If it is the semantics you have problem with, we should end civil marriage, and just give all couples civil unions.

Argument 2) If gays can get married, then pedophiles can marry children and weirdos can marry their pets.

Why it's wrong: The missing piece in this argument is consent. Gay marriage would be between two consenting adults. We already ban children from getting married, just like we ban them from smoking, drinking, and voting. That wouldn't change. And that crazy pet-lover won't be able to get his goat to consent, so that's out, too.

Argument 3) Gay marriage will weaken the institution of marriage.

Why it's wrong: What?? I don't even understand this argument. This isn't property value we're talking about--gay marriage isn't the equivalent of your neighbor putting a junk car on blocks in his yard, devaluing your house. Your marriage will be just fine.

If you can think of more reasons gay marriage is wrong, leave a comment, and I'll tell you why they are ridiculous.

Smokers' intelligence

I'm not saying that all smokers are idiots, but I get the feeling that if you gave intelligence tests to everybody and compared the smokers to non-smokers, on average, the non-smokers would be smarter. I wonder if anyone has ever researched this.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't smoke. Just don't smoke around me. Don't stand outside of public buildings and cloud the air. Only smoke inside your house. Thank you.

Emusic Revamp

Emusic.com just finished their site overhaul. I am excited to see them improving the site, but they are not quite there yet. The new site takes forever to load, and the design could use some tweaking. Most of all, there are a few indie labels they havent scored yet: Subpop (this would be huge), Merge, Drag City, Bloodshot. Oh well, at least we have Matador, 4AD, and Kill Rock Stars.

Best of all...they dont have all those crazy restrictions on the music you buy that the other digital music stores have.

Revamped EMusic Targets Indie Market


Category: music

ROBOTS!

I love the new Flickr.com slideshow feature. Check out the slideshow of robot tags.

Category: Photography

Renegade Craft Fair this Weekend

The Renegade Craft Fair is happening this weekend at Wicker Park, 1425 N. Damen, between 10:30am and 5:30pm, both Saturday and Sunday.

The fair has grown this year, and should have an exciting array of Chicago and national artists and designers. You'll see creativity here that you won't get at many of the other Chicago art fairs.


Categories: chicago, art

Bike to work on September 22nd!

World Carfree Day is coming up.  Get your bike ready.

http://www.worldcarfree.net/wcfd/

 

 

Category:  Biking, Politics

Bush Facts

Daily Mislead
McSweeney's Daily Reason to Dispatch Bush


Category: Politics

Uberhottie in Chicago Magazine

Uberhottie Jewelry got a mention in Chicago Magazine!


Category: Chicago

A word about categories

Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't support categories yet.

So, until they do, I will be adding category listings to the bottom of some of my posts. Hopefully, once Google has crawled my site, you will be able to use the Google search at the top of the page to search for a category name, and those posts will be in the results. We'll see how it works.


Category: General, Google

Overlooked Bands

It kills me that some terrible, terrible musicians make piles of money, but many of my favorite bands can't pay the rent.

To remedy this(yeah, right), I've started a section called "Overlooked Bands" to link to bands that are:
a) brilliant
b) have very little publicity

The first two entries are World/Inferno Friendship Society and Palaxy Tracks.

World/Inferno Friendship Society *might* be called caberet-punk, but there isn't a label that would truly describe them. They are full of energy, emotion, and personality. All their studio album tracks are available as mp3's at their website, but I recommend their live album available at Emusic.com.

Palaxy Tracks have a sound that would be what the The Church would sound like if they were just starting out this millenium.

Go buy their albums!


Category: Food

Heavenly Hearth

I don't make it out to the Chicago suburbs often, but
I just found an excuse to go to Wilmette.

The Heavenly Hearth Bread Company (1101 Central Ave,
Wilmette, IL) serves wonderful bread made fresh daily.
My favorite is Cinnamon Swirl, which is like a sticky
roll in loaf format. Delicious.

Best of all, it is locally owned, so you can keep your
money in the community.


Category: Food

The Gutterbun Weight-Loss Plan

I'm tired of hearing about Atkins, South Beach, and
all the other diets. People shouldn't have to count
points every time they eat. So, I am unveiling for
the first time the Gutterbun Weight-Loss Plan. Lucky
you.

1) Have Realistic Expectations.
You aren't going to look like Paris Hilton
(yikes!) or Brad Pitt, so don't try. Also, don't
expect to lose weight quickly--it is going to take
months.

2) Exercise...
...but not so hard that you just want to give
up. Walk for 30 minutes a day minimum. Walk or bike
to the grocery store or work if possible. Do 10
sit-ups and 10 push-ups every morning. Add 1 sit-up
and 1 push-up per week.

3) Eat Natural Foods.
Avoid pre-processed foods. Watch out for foods
that include the words "hydrogenated" or "corn syrup"
in the ingredients. Bring extra fruit and vegetables
to work for snacks to avoid hitting the vending
machine.
Drink more water and less soda.
When buying bread products, make sure the
ingredients include whole grains.
Eat half the dessert you usually do. One way to
do this is to buy higher quality desserts that have
more flavor, so you don't need as much to be
satisfied.

Now wasn't that easy? And you don't even have to buy
a book.



Category: food