• The pooch is even less of a morning person creature than I am. Usually I’m the one dragging her ass out of bed for the morning constitutional, instead of the other way around.
• Jerry’s of Westport is a great pet store, even if the resident parakeet freaks out Ginger. It’s locally, independently owned and the prices are competitive with the chain stores.
• Penn Valley dog park is doubleplus groovy. The city needs to build a couple more off-leash dog parks.
• Metrodog is a great resource for training and living with a dog in the city and/or apartment.
• Dogster, Friendster for pooches
• Trips to Home Depot have been replaced by trips to Jerry’s and Petco, which doubles as the DMV.
• Just when I think she’s making progress, she eats my library book Dog Training for Dummies.

So last night I am minding own business, driving down Burlington on my way home from the Petco-slash-DMV, when a car passes me blasting the Matrix soundtrack. Unfortunately that caused a flashback to a previous upstairs neighbor blasted that same soundtrack everytime she was doing the nasty with whoever she brought home from the bar. That old apartment had many opportunities for voyeurism, but the quality was always lacking.

KCdrinker.com now has logo merchandise up on CafePress… www.cafepress.com/KCDrinker

I’ve been trying to identify this bug in my basement for several months now. It looks like some kind of mutant grasshopper and jumps around like an ADD kid on meth. But thanks to Hive Logic, I now know it’s probably a camel cricket.

Republicans aren’t wasting any time bending over the rural voters who delivered them to victory two weeks ago. First, they want to repeal the law requiring food to be labeled with it’s country of origin - a law supported by farmers and ranchers but opposed by the large corporations doing the meatpacking and food processing.

Second, a new case of mad cow disease is likely to further hurt ranchers and cattlemen. Thanks again to the meatpacking industry for opposing a system to track livestock and poultry from birth to grocery store, and to the Republicans for being a part of the dirty plant to sell us diseased food.

But based on the results of the election, appareantly farmers don’t seem to care if they go out of business - as long as they can pack heat under their Carharts and the queers in San Francisco aren’t getting married.

My local Half Price Books has a section titled “If you like David Sedaris…” Since I hadn’t read any Sedaris yet, I picked up Naked, a collection of memoirs. It’s always interesting to read about other families’ dysfunctions… This one reminded me a lot of Dave Eggers’ Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

An Indiana Congressman is all offended by the name of I-69 (dude!).

I don’t usually go for redheads, but this dame is the exception. She’s a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, a breed that is used to hunt lions in Africa. Really. Although this ridgeback is ridge-less.

Statue boobs are now free from oppression. Like Diatriber says, don’t let the constitution hit you in the ass on your way out. Where will Ashcroft go now? While the Missourian in me doesn’t want him anywhere near my state again, the American in me thinks maybe we should take one for the team and bring him back home. Besides, his Springfield fatherland is already like a Bizarro Missouri. Maybe him and Doctor Evil will end up playing shuffleboard at a retirement resort just outside of Branson.

I might be the last geek to make the trek to Seattle, but it finally happened this weekend when Michelle and I headed out there to visit Dave and Jen. I was hoping for some R&R in a blue state after last week’s last electoral gasp of the wingnuts, but the mood there was even more depressed than here in KC. And that’s saying a lot for a city that gets about 5 days of sunshine a year.

Actually there was no geekery at all - no pilgramages to Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Just a lot of hanging out, exploring the city, seafood, and drinking. It’s a great city with a couple dozen cool, walkable neighborhoods - all connected by a good bus system. We stayed with Dave and Jen in Ballard, a former Norwegian fishing village that’s now a cool urban neighborhood. We were anticipating the Experience Music Project, but it wasn’t nearly big enough to justify the $20 admission. The adjacent Science Fiction Museum was much cooler and a better deal.

Anyway, here are the pictures.