Cutest Engineer Ever

Bumper sticker: "I would rather be playing Frisbee"

Amen - a statement that pushes me to reevaluate my life.

I picked up the paper on my way to work today. It's a beautiful Saturday, and unfortunately I've got a major project kinda due on Monday. But I had to write about this...

Marthat Stewart has been found guilty on four charges filed by the SEC: making false statements (2), conspiracy, and obstruction of justice... The ellipsis is on purpose - it's the gasp that escaped from my mouth when I removed the newspaper from its plastic bag - "Stewart Convicted". Holy Hell in a hand basket!! Newspaper headlines haven't caused me to suck air like that since Arnold became our governor.

The funny thing is that she was never charged with insider trading, because it wasn't clear that an actual insider trading crime was committed. Instead she was charged with secuirites fraud, along with the other previously stated charges. But wait a minute! The crimes with which she was actually charged stemmed from Martha's supposed insider trading. They're kinda like the mold on that block of cheddar cheese hiding in the back of your refridgerator. But if the cheese never existed, then the mold has no place to grow. No cheese - no mold. You dig?

The securities fraud charge is another mind-boggling concoction. The SEC states she declared her innocence of insider trading to booster the shares of her own firm. So what you're telling me is that by declaring her innocence she was commiting another crime - securities fraud? I don't get it. Wouldn't anybody, even the guilty, declare their innocence? This charge didn't stick due to the lack of evidence and that it just doesn't make fucking sense.

All this hubbub was built on the foundation that Martha was involved with insider trading. The SEC's meat and potatoes were taken away, so now they're feeding on the crumbs left behind - false statements, conspiracy, yada, yada. And the sad thing is they have succeeded. I say sad, because any of us can fall victim to this type of bullshit. The general public is laughing at the nerdy straight-A kid for getting caught supposedly cheating on her math test. But we need to look past the main character in this story and start paying attention to the plot. There is no justice served to anyone when the government continues to file charges contingent on crimes for which one has not been convicted or even charged, as in Martha's case. Civil liberties for all are violated. Martha Stewart is going to prison for covering up a crime with which she was never charged. Someone please show me the logic in that! If you can't prove a crime was committed, then how can you prove she covered it up?

Now the SEC is pursuing a civil suit - an insider trading civil suit. They're continuing a civil suit for a crime with which they did not charge her. Ummm, okay... Other civil suits are following: civil suits related to securities fraud - you know, the charge that was thrown out of court, because it was totally bogus. Ummm, I'm getting confused. Civil suits associated with criminal charges where the defendant was found innocent, as in OJ, or never charged, as in Martha Stewart, seem to be analogous to a dog chasing its tail. Don't get me wrong - I think OJ is as guilty as the smile on a car salesman, but how can he be sued over a crime for which he was found innocent? Isn't this similar to being tried twice for the same crime? The difference is that the second time, you don't face imprisonment - you face losing a shit load of money. So in Martha's case, how can she be sued for a crime that was never charged?

I'm not an advocate for Martha. I don't have much interest in projects that require a lot of time for creating just one tree ornament - I'm busy, yo. To be honest, I'm not sure what I would have done in Martha's case. If my stock broker called me up regarding his observing the selling of large amounts of stock by the CEO of a company in which I'm investing, yeah, I would probably say sell - if the CEO and his family are jumping ship, then I better do the same. (I should note here that Martha sold her stock before calling up the CEO, Waksal.) I'm not so sure how that's insider trading - to me, it's being smart and using good judgement. If I see someone indoors with an umbrella, or someone tells me they saw someone with an umbrella, I'm gonna assume its raining and bring my umbrella with me when I go outside. If I'm at the race tracks, and I here that the horse on which I'm about to bet is not feeling so hot, you're damn skippity straight I'm betting on another horse.

I'm not an advocate for corporations screwing over the little people, nor am I an advocate of white collar crime. I'm an advocate of civil liberties. Go ahead hate Martha, because she's a snobby hobnobbing socialite. But if you condone the conviction of Martha, then you condone the violation of your civil rights.

One of the great things about being a girl is the ease at which you can get your swerve on (as my friend Chris likes to say); as long as you can still breathe without the support of a machine and have at least three teeth, it's really not that hard to get laid when you're a girl. But somehow 4 months have slipped away like banana peels on waxed floors, and here I am landing flat on my ass in a desert about as dry as the cracked skin on an athlete's foot. I'm not sure how it happened - I just wasn't paying attention, and now I'm finding myself suffering from mild dehydration.

My God, the other day I was sitting in my office, staring at the computer screen, forgetting what the Hell I was supposed to be concentrating on, when my vision blurred, and I started to fade into my subconscious. My mind dematerialized and beamed up into the fluffy milky way of daydreams sparkling and revolving around office building land. I wafted into thoughts of past lovers and dreamed of perfect situations that would have best suited our union, thereby blocking the emergence of their imperfections that I found so annoying when we dated in the real world - the real world where logic is played like cards in the hands of amateur poker players. How many times do I have to play poker with these yahoos, until I get one challenging enough to give me a run for my money?

Anyway, let's not shatter the daydream here. Where were we? Oh yes, a land of perfection unruled by the logic of expired philosophers who focused too much on presence and being - a land of perfection where there really isn't any focus, just heavenly flavors of ice cream that actually help you lose weight, the phantasmical feelings you get in your stomach when hopping over hills really fast in your car, and the knowledge that there really is a chocolate factory operated by a man named Willy Wonka. I was drifting in breezes blown by the wind God, watching myself stretched out on a deserted beach, my arms criss-crossed underneath my head - I had a rather robust set of boobies and my rotund ass was two sizes smaller than the one I'm currently sitting on. I floated into my daydream body and opened up my eyes to find Aikido Guy standing over me. In my daydream world, Aikido Guy was willing to give up a couple of days out of the week to be with me and forego his typical three hour evening of karate chopping. In this world, I experienced even better orgasms than the one he gave me on our third date. Oh yeah, and Aikido Guy was blessed with Short Jewish Guy's gargantuan, horse-like, make my eyes pop out, brace yourself cock. While my thoughts were busy patrolling the daydream milky way, my real world body was experiencing a yummy, titilating feeling in the house of worship between my legs. The prickling was causing my church to pulsate, rocking to a rythmic earthquake that was sure to cause liquefaction if I didn't slip back into the reality that resides in my cookie-cutter office building...

Just now, I have demonstrated how important it is for employees to have a healthy sex life - less daydreaming at work.

Attention current boss/supervisor or potential employer: Although, I have referenced daydreaming at work, I must note here that I often use poetic license in my entries - i.e., the daydreaming occurs in places unrelated to work or during my lunch hour. I will also take this moment to remind you of the many times I have stayed late, slaving away on a sewer model comprised of data more tangled than a ball of yarn having had the misfortune of falling into the paws of a very neurotic cat. I'm sure there is no need for this disclaimer, but, just in case, I want to quell any potential reservations of my more than stellar status at your company. Please feel free to comment, if the urge tickles your fancy, wool blend covered ass that I'm forced to kiss and deal with everyday.

You know, I was talking to my girlfriends the other day about the fascination men have with their bowel movements. Practically, every guy that has become a close friend will relay some story about his shit, whether it's being on the toilet or in a Mexican restaurant suffering from diarrhea and wearing light colored pants. I've been perusing some weblogs, and I have found multiple entries that begin with the male writer taking a dump. Guys like to talk about their shits - why? Well, my girlfriends weren't really that interested in analyzing the male's enthrallment with defecation; they just agreed that guys are weird about their poo. So I had to mull it over by myself while sitting in the evening traffic. I have a couple of hypotheses:

(1a) It's an instinctive thing; it comes from the whole natural order of things - males being males and females being females. Guys need to spread their "scent" and mark their territory. But since the world became civilized and the use of toilets was declared mandatory, men could no longer share their anal creations alongside trees and bushes. So to compensate, they have to talk about it. I wonder if guys even notice how much they refer to their shits.

(1b) This hypothesis goes along with (1a). Males can't resist the urge to one-up each other in comparing poo stories. The more precarious the situation in which the shit takes place (for instance, in pants during a date or the discovery of dingle berries tangled in ass hair during sex) and the messier the shit is (low in viscosity and possibly containing undigested particles of food) makes for a good shit story to share with the guys. The undigested particles of food reminds me of this line in Full Metal Jacket - Private Joker (Matthew Modine - very cute) tells some wise ass of a guy to eat the peanuts out of his shit. That line left a permanent impression in my young child psyche. It made me think of the corn and grains I would see in horse manure and all the other possible treasures you could find in feces. I still found it disgusting, but at the age of 10, I couldn't help but wonder.

(2) I'm going out on a limb with this one, but here's my other theory: guys can't bear children, so they give birth to terds. How else can you explain the long periods of time they spend sitting in the bathroom, immersed in the stink of their baby terds? They're a proud parent of the floater in the toilet. They want to relish their creation as long as possible before having to press down on the handle, leaving an empty porcelain nest - so long, home stinky home.

You know, when I'm hanging out with a guy and he starts to go into some story of one of his poo escapades, I get rather insulted. I think to myself, "Shit, he must not think very highly of me, if he's telling me of an event that shows him in such a poor light." It's like the time when this very annoying guy was hitting on me at a show, and he just wasn't getting the hint. So I pointed out the wart on my finger that was slowly disintegrating from my daily salicylic acid treatments. It looked like it was overcome with mold and scabby things. I think I even started to pick it in front of him. I can't remember if he took off, or if I had to escape... but the point is that I was purposely trying to give a bad impression. Girls don't really like elaborate poop stories. When in doubt, just don't bring it up.

Well, that's that. As far as women, well, we don't really go into great detail about shit. Jen will let me know that she needs to poop when I'm in the bathroom getting ready for work (she takes morning shits), basically hinting for me to hurry the Hell up. I let her know too, but it's pretty embarrassing when she and Rob are in the shower; guys don't need to know about a girl pooing. Sometimes Jen and I talk about how we have to poop right after a run or when the last time it was that we pooped for fear of constipation or overly-aggressive metabolism. But the distinction is that women don't get into the nastiness of it all. It's a bodily function for us, but for men, it's... well, I have two and a half hypotheses, and that's all I've been able to figure out.

On a side note: If you concentrate too hard while flexing your pecs, in hopes of getting both tassels to twirl in opposite directions, you'll end up tooting if you had beans for lunch. Tee, hee, hee