I worked thirteen and a half hours on Tuesday and twelve and a half on Wednesday. This summer sucks my assballs. Delphi will be shut down next week; so, I'll have plenty o' time for bloggy blogging.

Hero
Fuck Stephen Colbert and his anti-bear rantings, Bruno the German-hating bear was a hero. Herolink! For weeks, this lone bear brought the Krauts to their goose-stepping knees, striking fear into the anti-Semitic, racist heart that beats inside each and every contemptable German. Thank you, Bruno, your sacrifice in the cause of wiping Germany off the map once and for all will not be forgotten. Rest in peace.

We've Got Soccer Highlights
I am so glad the "American" team has been knocked out of the World Cup. Of the thirty-two teams to advance to the final rounds in not-so-de-Nazified-after-all Germany, the so-called Team USA was the only squad to not feature their national flag on their bus. Supposedly, this was for "security" reasons. Bullshit. Those Europhile pussies are ashamed of being Americans. They love soccer more than they love their country; so, they've bought into the notion that there's something wrong with being American as long as W. is the president. Yeah, like I'm going to let the Germans - who never met a Jew or a non-white person they didn't want to either kill or allow to be killed - tell me that my country is a threat to the world.

The USA isn't good enough for "Team USA;" so, they aren't good enough for me. My thanks to Ghana and the Czech Republic for sending those posers home in disgrace. Now, if only there was a way to permanently bar those fucks from reentering this country they loathe so vociferously....

This is a rough week since I'm getting used to working second shift at Delphi while still having a few early morning shifts in burgerworld (I didn't find out my Delphi schedule until last Friday, but which point the burger schedule had already been posted), but I've changed my availability; so, this is that last week this kind of crap will be happening. Industry tonight and then an early morning on Saturday, but I'll get you guys caught up on the past week's festivities this weekend.

The late, great Sam Kinison used to say that he had more than one home only to mock the homeless. This is me mocking the unemployed: eat this, lazybones, I've got two jobs! Seriously, guys, my job at Delphi is great; I get paid ridiculously well for doing a minimum of work, none of it intellectually taxing. It's like I'm being rewarded for my dangerous lack of ambition.

Three cheers for getting something for nothing.

What name did I encounter in yesterday's newspaper? That's right, Sports Night fans, none other than Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

It's hot outside, so hot that the air temperature is only a few degrees cooler than the internal body temperature of the average Homo sapiens sapiens. In other words, it's hot as balls outside. In good news, I've acquired a new steering wheel wrap for the Mousemobile, but as mentioned before it's hot as balls outside; so, I'll replace the old, frayed wrap another, cooler day. In other good news, while filling out my Delphi paperwork I checked the little box that will allow the United Way to claim a small portion of my wages every month; so, now I'm feeling pretty darned proud of myself. Charity: the gift that keeps on giving for those with guilty Catholic consciences. Of course, leading theologians and Holy Mother Church agree that pride is the very deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins....

Crap.

Anyway, it's hot as balls outside, but cool as a cucumber here in the house. Thanks, whomever invented air conditioning!

The one thing I really admire about Europe is the architecture. (I admire a great many things about Great Britain, but then half the point of Britain has always been that it both is and isn't really a part of Europe, hasn't it?) Here is an excellent speciman, one much to be admired: hyperlink. For more information on Mont Saint Michel, see the Wikipedia entry.

No Oracles at Delphi
Ladies and gentlemen, as of this morning I am a prospective member of none other than the UAW, formally the United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America International Union. The Last Angry Man in the UAW. Bog below, what's next? Skeeter at the Republican National Convention? K. Steeze at Brett Ratner's house for drinks? Daddy Dylweed at a pro-Ticketmaster rally? Welcome to the Summer of Industry, gang, it's going to be a hell of a ride.

Tomorrow, I am to attend a day-long orientation at a facility belonging to my new employer, the Delphi Corporation. True, working for Delphi is a bit like climbing aboard the Titanic after she struck the iceberg, but in this instance all involved are in agreement that my employment is to be temporary. My idea of temporary calls for a much shorter tenure than Delphi probably imagines, but as I am to be an "at will" minion, I feel no moral compunction to volunteer that information to them. Ah, finally, though perhaps the trend may well be reversed with my next job, for the nonce I am leaving the shady service sector and entering the venerable manufacturing sector. At last, I'll be joining the Industrial Revolution... a century and a half after the fact. Huzzah!

I enjoyed the hell out of President Bush's surprise visit to Baghdad. There's nothing else quite like a rousing game of presidential "Where's Waldo?" "Yeehaw! I'm in the Green Zone! Heh heh, fooled ya! Wooooo!"

I know that the paramount goal of the post-Second World War division of Germany into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was to once and for all break the Germans of the philosophy of militarism that compelled them to try to conquer the earth every twenty-odd years, and I agree with that laudable goal, but this makes me wonder if perhaps we haven't taken the pacification of Germany too far. I mean, the whole German nation can't overcome one unusually ferocious bear? They need to bring in the Finns to do their dirty work? Sweet sauerkraut, that's ridiculous.

Science!
Science isn't just for us go-go Reaganauts in the West, the power of science can be harnessed for the betterment of all Mankind. Hyperlink! I scoff at the hippies you call themselves "citizens of the world," but the Almighty commands that we are all brothers, and that we should treat each other as brothers; so, we're all in this together. Science saves lives! Science!

The Second Best Hyperlink of All Time
I mean no offense to the Sardine, but I did already declare Steeze's IMDB profile the best hyperlink of all time. Still, second best OF ALL TIME is pretty darned impressive. Congratulations, Sardine!

Science!: Special Eurotrash Edition
Hyperlink! This sounds really cool... if this one can avoid ending up as a skidmark across the Martian landscape like the last European Space Agency lander. Bwa ha ha ha ha! Meanwhile, while the Europeans probots aren't good for much more than cratering the surface of the Red Planet, NASA's Spirit and Opportunity are still merrily roving to and fro two years after their safe landings. Opportunity and Spirit were designed to have an operational life of 90 days, yet here we are with M2K4 having become M2K6.

America. Fuck yeah.

I spent nearly the entire weekend, and this morning, too, helping my brother move his possessions out of his apartment in Ann Arbor. Pretty much everything that could go wrong did, including having two - count 'em two - vehicles break down on us and being thwarted in several attempts to access the mini-storage compartment our parents had rented. As if moving wasn't already hard enough. Two observations: a) great day in the morning, there's nothing else I loathe quite like moving. b) When the Mountain quits Ann Arbor in just a few days it will mark the first time the city has been without either myself or one of my siblings in residence since the fall of 1994.

Moving. Feh.

This was originally intended to be a much larger post, but it just sort of got lost in the shuffle. So, here are some hyperlinks. Enjoy... or else.

The War on Terror
Canada

Britain

Awesome Forces!
The Mountain of Love and I, acting under our Aqua Cadet codenames of Alphaman and Captain Thumbs-Up, respectively, saw The Aquabats!, the last great American band, in concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Monday night. It was wicked cool. The show was beyond awesome and we received a number of compliments on our Aqua Cadet uniforms. I've seen The Aquabats! live a total of five times and Monday's show was Alphaman's third rock show, yet Monday was the first time we were both able to attend in full Cadet regalia: Anti-Negativity Helmets, masks, belts, rashguards, shorts, official Aquabats! socks, and Adidas sneakers (his were regulation Gazelles, mine were Sambas).

The current line-up of The Aquabats!
The MC Bat Commander! - vox, showmanship
Crash McLarson! - bass
Jimmy the Robot! - keyboards, saxophone
Ricky Fitness! - drums
and
Eagle "Bones" Falconhawk! - guitar (newer!)

Yesterday morning, I heard a radio advertisement that stated Terry Gross's guest on Fresh Air would be Hans Blix. All I could think of was the Kim Jong Il marionatte saying, "Hans Brix? Oh, no!"