I just had to say something about this post from Ann Althouse - Althouse: "We believe bottled water has become less about the physical act of hydration and more about being a companion to people."

This just cracked me up due to two of my latest addictions...Perrier with Lemon and MetroMint water. I love both of these waters and binge on them constantly. Unfortunately, they are both pretty expensive, so the husband is not too well disposed of this habit ;)

Metro Min especially bills itself as refreshing to the body and soul, which was what I thought of as soon as I read Althouse's post header. These days, it is not enough for water to simply hydrate you and quench your thirst - it also has to bring you closer to salvation :) Go figure!

Here is a link that should make all mommies laugh ;)

Althouse>

It is a sad day whether you are in Virginia or not - whether you belong to the University or not...

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 16 - The gunshots were so slow and steady that some students thought they came from a nearby construction site, until they saw the police officers with rifles pointed at Norris Hall, the engineering building at Virginia Tech. Bang. Bang. Bang.

I guess from the "tragedy" of the British hostage crisis arises the comedy of it....

A sailor compared to Mr. Bean...the story of the stolen IPODS...It is amazing how awesomely brave and "stiff-upper-lipped" the soldiers had to be. My heart bleeds for them...the horrors! Enough to keep my baby up at night! This comment at the Althouse blog pretty much sums up my feelings ;)

I know it has been ages since I wrote anything about Iraq or the war. Here is an interesting article on the Huffington Post from a lady who was based out of Baghdad for most of 2003 and 2004 speaking ambivalently about the war and her feelings about it. What was really interesting to me were the comments on the post.

There was zero thought on what was said - you can see in her post how scared she was already to be expressing anything but wholesale hatred towards the war on a blog known for "liberal" commenters. Unfortunately, her fears were right. There was the usual cacophony of "you are nuts!", "we know better than you because the folks on the teevee said so!" and the usual, "but, but Bush screwed it up!".

That was one of the reason I had stopped talking about the issue a long time ago. It was doing nothing for me in terms of interest and every post was simply a pissing match between the sides and people with something to prove - people who think they have all the answers - people to whom someone else's conversation is only a time to gather their arguments, not to actually take the time and make the effort to listen.

The post was very interesting to me, so head on over and read it. I wish people were more willing to talk in terms of gray than plain, old black and white and stop reading one anothers' minds.

I know I am a little late to the game, but this is good news!

Iran to Release 15 Britons Seized at Sea in March - New York Times

I think Britain played this good and safe - they could have escalated this to no end, but restraint seemed to have helped towards a quick resolution in a way Iran's moron President could claim victory even while he gave the hostages up.

My only concern is that this might be seen as an actual victory and pay-off for stupid moves and might end up encouraging more of this nonsense from attention-seeking idiots like Ahamadinejad.

Life is full of decisions - questions, comments, concerns - comments that need to be followed-up with questions...things like the one below...stuff you don't want to know more about...

The toddler declared to me this evening, "We don't eat poopies, mommy! We don't eat boogers! We eat food!"

It is amazing how Google simply comes up with these awesome idea....Check out GMail Paper! It is totally free too....

I have loved the Mavericks ever since I began watching basketball - since their first foray into play-offs against the Jazz. I have liked Mark Cuban regardless of other people's perception of the guy. I still think Mavericks are a great team - they are doing awesome so far - 61 wins with 10 more games to go...Dirk reaching the milestone of 15,000 points - nothing to hate about these guys.

Mark Cuban OTOH, has turned out to be something else altogether...the moron seems to financing "Loose Change", a conspiacy theory laden fakumentary that has nuggets of information only the blindest conspiracy theorist can follow or believe.

I could forgive Mark Cuban's antics on the sidelines of the arena - I could forgive his overwhelming need to make the Mavericks all about him - I can even forgive him for "The Benefactor" (OK, I will still laugh at him for that) - I cannot forgive him this. I thought he was more intelligent than this...As far as I am concerned, he stepped way over the line and the franchise and Mark Cuban's pockets will not be getting another dime from me.

Puzzletime, folks! Point out the things wrong in the quote highlighted below....

NOW Demands Access to Program Geared to Fathers - washingtonpost.com

It's called the Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Initiative, and the Bush administration doles out up to $50 million annually to fund its programs to build job skills and help fathers connect better with their children. But the National Organization for Women says the effort is illegal because it's only about men.

Answer: Ms. Gandy, since we are all about equal access, why have an organization that is ostensibly serving only women, as in the National Organization for Women? Why not National Organization for Organisms? NOO?

I think any group that pretends to care about women needs to be jumping up and down with joy when there is an initiative to help men become better fathers. It only benefits the mothers in the lower-income groups who most of the time are burdened with the care of their children as single moms when fathers don't take any responsibility. Of course, if NOW had it's way all those babies would have ended up aborted anyways, so what is the need for fathers...my bad!

Would NOW also oppose this program till the day men are able to give birth? There is a reason why women of my generation would rather not be called "feminists".

I finally did it - I abandoned "My Dog". It was a hard decision, but it was one that had to be made. I was getting frustrated not being able to take care of "Dirk" (yep, that was his name - he was named after Nowitzki) the way I would have liked to - couldn't feed him - couldn't really look after him.

I was warned that after the 85 days I had spent caring for him, he would not be the same if I abandoned him. I still had to harden my heart and let him go.

Alright, by now if you have realized I am being coy about something, you are right. Dirk is my dog in the mobile game, "My Dog". I downloaded the game on to my cell phone and tried the pet sim for 85 days before I gave up in frustration.

I am quite surprised by the many glowingly positive reviews the game seems to have garnered - just Google it. The game was also apparently endorsed by the SPCA for how much "bonding" it promoted between people and their pets.

Honestly, I think "My Dog" was a great concept ruined by stupid execution. The game essentially consists of a home with three areas - garden, kitchen and living room - and three out-of-home places - a grocery store, a dog show tent and "around the block" walk. You feed your dog, you scoop his poop and you take him out for walks around the block. You get rewarded with money and goodies when you keep your doggie happy and healthy - fun and games, right?

Not all the time! The problem with the game is that there is a lot of randomness built into it. My dog needed to be fed at least four times a day - if I didn't, his health deteriorated and he camped in the kitchen begging for food. The problem is that the grocery store didn't always carry enough good - sometimes I didn't have enough money to buy the food - sometimes there wasn't enough food.

The stocking process of the grocery store was so random that sometimes you could go several days in a week with only one edible thing for the dog available per day. I consider that animal cruelty. I was not comfortable with the entire thing - even a game gets you emotionally invested in when it lasts for 85 days and has you spend atleast an hour a day on the total. It was just way too high maintenance for very little payoff and too emotionally grating to be much fun. Just not worth it!

Here is a post at Althouse blog about her exchange with another lady on a bloggingheads.tv segment. The comments grabbed my interest a lot more than the post or the bloggingheads.tv segment. A lot of the comments were saying Ann should be "embarrassed" for raising her voice at the other lady and seemed to be attacking her.

My response? So what? As some other commenters pointed oujt very quickly, would this have been such a big deal if it were two men raising their voices? I bet if one man attacked the other one verbally, the attacked man would have been told to take it like a man and not complain. A really disgusting display of the double standards against women on display.

Men are allowed to be passionate and angry - apparently, it is their God-given right and makes them more likeable. A woman who dares to raise her voice? What an effing embarrassment to the entire universe!

I was driving the now almost-3-years-old little one to his day care this morning when he exclaims, "Mommy, XXXX is black!" about a dark-skinned classmate. I was a little surprised at the tone of that, and recognizing a theme for a lecture, asked him, "so, what color are you?".

He looks down at his shirt for only a moment before he triumphantly answers back, "I am striped!".

Looks like the Iranians got themselves a few British hostages this time (the link has a good roundup of reactions and reports). This is just so brazenly provocative towards England, I just cannot make any sense out of it. What are these people thinking? Especially dangerous is that this might exactly be the provocation the Bush administration is looking for to strike at Iran.

Think about it - if I were the Bush admin, I have a war in Iraq going badly, I have an ally in England trying to drop off from my war, I suspect Iran could be causing a lot of my problems in Iraq - this is the perfect excuse to not only strike back at an enemy, but to also turn British opinion and force against Iran.

Either the Iranians were incredibly stupid with this decision or incredibly foolhardy - something tells me they might have been both when they did something this open. I have a feeling at the end of the whole thing, Ahmadi-whats-his-name would have wished he had just stuck to organizing conferences for Holocaust deniers and weird fashion. He might have grossly miscalculated this decision.

I gues it is that time of the week again, when I am completely captivated by random things - like the search queries that lead to my blog....

Here is one that I bet is going to raise my hit count by a zillion%....(hint, hover over the link to find out what it is - I really don't want people hitting my blog with those keywords...don't want to have too many horny guys getting upset at me ifyouknowwhatImean ;)

This one was something I guess I can be proud of - my blog mom (who has since disappeared into the ether of the blogosphere) really approved of...before she christened me her "potty-mouthed" blog-child...heh!

Whoever was searching for "girl beating up guy", please wait till we capture enough non-gruesome videos of me beating up on the poor husband ;) It will be posted in the "pay-per-view" section of the blog.

Rohan, if you are still googling yourself - I have bad news for you man...my post still comes up...

Also, no! It is not wrong to wear a bindi...unless of course...you are a multicultural nut...then, you are forbidden. Your penance is to go grocery-shopping in your bikini.

Oh, here is an awesome post I found in the referer list - "Forced to depend" - I might post a deconstruction of this ridiculously traumatizing poem (it sucked so bad and was so juvenile, I was traumatized reading it) tomorrow. Is it really worth my time talking about another H4 spouse who doesn't have her shit together enough to not marry an asshole who apparently doesn't treat her well? Let me think about it.