The institutional mouthpiece of Kjel.org

They’re doing something right down there in Newport. This from Katu:

- NEWPORT, Ore. - Pornography has turned into a booming business on the Oregon Coast. Spice Adult Video is the second adult “superstore” to open along Highway 101 in the past year. A third shop, Wayne’s Adult World, opened in Astoria in January 2005. The latest store has already attracted protests and even a counterprotest by teenagers with signs that said “We love porn.“

I spoke too soon: the Norwalk virus has regrouped and attacked again, felling me and Jr. this morning. Early, early this morning. Thankfully the CFO was unnaffected, or else nothing would have been cleaned yet and the HQ would smell even worse than it does. If this keeps up much longer we may just have to burn down the HQ and start again. I’ll keep you posted.

All of a sudden I’m liking ol’ President Mahmoud more and more:

Iran does not “give a damn” about UN resolution

I mean, if it weren’t for the vile anti-Semitism, the threats to nuke us and everyone else, and the general insanity and all, he and I would be right on the same page.

It was touch and go for a while, but I think Kjel.org has survived. The CEO is not a doctor (well, I am, but not a medical doctor) but my diagnosis is that the Norwalk virus invaded the HQ a few days ago. It was not pleasant, and I think all the members of Kjel.org are today a bit lighter than they were at the start of the week. I plan to make up for it by gorging myself this weekend.

Jr. VP in particular was really quite impressive. I believe he is now officially beyond the stage where everything he does is cute. That point may have come when he deposited a pound and a half of regurgitated milk, bananas, ham and cheese on my neck and down the collar of my shirt Wednesday night. He really needs to learn the phrase Bring me a bucket. I smelled just a tad more sour than usual.

The Jr. VP loves playing outside with the hose, helping mommy to water the plants. He loves it so much that he will scream bloody murder if you try to remove him from the activity, even if he is soaked, starving and shivering. What can I say? The boy loves his hose.

Once the hot weather gets here though is when I think he and I will really have our fun. The HQ has hose bibs on either side of the structure, and the hoses are long enough: I am looking forward to introducing the boy to the simple joy of a nice hose fight. Daddy of course will be the one with the high pressure nozzle on his hose, but if I’m feeling charitable I’ll show Jr. how to do that thing with his thumb to make the spray stronger. Odds of the CEO feeling charitable? Slim.

From the Seattle Times:

A 33-year-old Oregon man on methamphetamine who was suffering from mental-health problems fired 12 nails from a nail gun into his head last year and survived . . . surgeons were able to remove the nails with needle-nosed pliers and a drill because the nail heads did not penetrate the skull.

If I should need surgery at some point in my life I certainly hope the surgical tools required can’t be purchased at A-Boy.

I can’t be the only person last night who really wanted Audrey to shoot that guy.

C’mon, you know you want to do it. It makes some tactical sense, and the guy did just off your daddy. Maybe just one in the knee? Or the meaty part of his thigh? The “thwack” of the bullet hitting him would be sooo satisfying, and the gun is right there . . .

There is a reason perhaps that I’m not often called in to mediate conflicts.

The Vietnamese place mentioned in this Oregonian account of a downtown shooting sounds nice. And authentic too:

Gunfire erupted along the downtown Portland bus mall at the start of rush hour Wednesday afternoon, leaving a 26-year-old man injured and witnesses questioning the city’s safety. . . Reports of multiple shots fired about 4 p.m. sent officers to the southwest corner of Oak Street and Fifth Avenue, in front of a Riverview Community Bank branch. . . Martin Cervantes, 26, was making salad rolls at the Traditional Vietnamese Food stand down the block when he heard three shots fired.

I wish it had continued “Further down Oak street, Tran Ngyuyen, 24, was making tacos at the Comidas Tradicionales stand and heard but did not witness the shooting.”

The CEO has successsfully navigated the perils of I-5, I- 405, and the dreaded Factoria interchange to make it back to the ancestral manse in Bellevue. It’s odd, like I was just here or something . . .

I am not anticipating the level of schmoozing to which I have become accustomed at functions like this, but we’ll see. I strongly doubt that the Google Girls will be here either, but still, one can hope. I’ll report back tomorrow night, if willing and able.

Point:

Police survey finds Salem residents feel safe in their city
SALEM, Ore. - A new survey by Salem police indicates that most Salem residents feel safe in the city, but the survey also found that people want more police patrols and better drug enforcement. The police survey found that only one in five Salem residents felt that crime is widespread.

Counterpoint:

Resident Fights Off Home Invasion Suspects
SALEM, Ore. - Salem police are looking for two suspects involved in a home invasion robbery attempt that reportedly included an exchange of gunfire between the intended victim and four suspects. Police say when they arrived at the Salem home, two of the suspects were being held by an off-duty police officer who works for the city of Turner. Police did not say if the suspects were being held at gunpoint. Investigators say three men and one woman tried to force their way into a home on South Waln Creek Court in Salem Monday night around 8:30 p.m.

Kjel.org made a visit over the weekend to the CFO’s parents house in Seattle. Allow me to state for the record that the CEO is never again driving to Seattle on a Friday afternoon. It’s just not worth the headache.

We were up there for Easter of course. The whole weekend was nice, but Jr. and I had a particularly lovely time Saturday evening while the other folk were at church. We performed our own dark ceremonies in the basement (sorry about that pentagram burnt into the carpet) and surely undid anything beneficial happening over at the good-person church. To hedge my bets though I did ask the CFO to say a prayer for me, but she refused to request of Jesus on my behalf that He Maketh the CEO to See his Enemies Driven Before him. It’s my usual prayer request, and her usual answer.

The CFO’s brother has a dog, a good sized hound/doberman mix. Jr. was afraid of him for about an hour, but then suddenly the dog became the absolute funniest thing in the world. Many new games were invented, the best of which would be summed up by Jr. as “see how far up the dog’s nostril I can stick my finger.” There were a few times where I got the lad a paper bag to breathe into because I thought he was going to hyperventilate from laughing. Apparently being licked in the face by a hound dog is the most hysterical thing ever. Jr. doesn’t laugh nearly as much when I do it to him. Also, it turns out that toys for toddlers and toys for dogs are remarkably similar. To his mommy’s chagrin, Jr. played with a few of the doggie toys. By played with I mean chewed on. We are pretty certain now that the lad is in no way allergic to dogs. He’d be dead otherwise I think.

We made it home safe and sound last night, but I am driving back to Bellevue Tuesday night for a conference. It’s a huge international event, with people from several dozen countries attending. It’s the sort of thing that could be held in London, or New York, or Berlin. Nope, it’s in Bellevue, Washington. I’m staying at my parents house. At least the mini-bar there is free.

Huge Ass Rats have invaded Seattle.

Picture a rat crossed with a beaver, then slap on a name that sounds like a health-food cereal and you’ve got Seattle’s newest invader. It’s nutria, a bucktoothed rodent so pervasive in the nation’s Southeast that folks swap recipes for the voracious foreign pests, which have destroyed thousands of acres of wetlands.
. . .
The semi-aquatic, chocolate-colored rodents have snuck up on local wildlife managers and residents, likely mistaken for beavers, muskrat or otters in the past. Also called coypu, or swamp rats, the South American natives can eat one-quarter of their weight a day, powering down crops and plants of all varieties. They can weigh more than 20 pounds and burrow through marshes and levies. Females are able to produce more than a dozen offspring a year.
. . .
In the 1930s and ’40s, the rodents were raised in Washington and elsewhere for their fur pelts. While some animals escaped or were released, it’s believed that they died out of the Puget Sound region over the years. Native to warmer climes, nutria are vulnerable to cold snaps and flooding. Nationally, they’re found in at least 15 states, including Louisiana, Texas, the Carolinas, Florida, Maryland and Oregon.

What the article doesn’t say, but what those readers who’ve spent any time in a certain park in Salem will know, is that HAR are aggressive, mean little bastards too. The CEO has a two pronged approach planned for any future dealings with Mr. or Ms. Nutria, involving hollowpoints and a hockey stick. And then I might make a hat out of the little dear. Take that, vermin!

In case you missed it last night, Comedy Central is replaying parts one and two of “Cartoon Wars” tonight at 9:30 and 10:00. It’s genius; too bad Comedy Central felt required to censor part of it last night. From Stephen Spruiell:

I’m not sure if it’s been reported yet, but for what it’s worth, I just got off the phone with a Comedy Central spokesman. I asked him about last night’s episode of South Park in which, at a moment right before the prophet Mohammed was supposed to make a cameo, the words, “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network” appeared on the screen. I asked him whether this truly was Comedy Central’s decision or whether this was just another gag (with South Park, you never know). He said: “They reflected it accurately. That was a Comedy Central decision.” Just in case there was any confusion, that settles it. Comedy Central censored the image.

Someday, my robot will work. And when it does . . .

For God’s sake fold! There’s no possible way for the CEO to win with that hand! Someone will have six aces, I’m certain of it!

That’s about where I was by the end of the night. Normally I’d be going out to lunch now, but for some reason I have no lunch money today. Maybe I can write an IOU to the corner deli. I should have stolen some taquitos when I left on Saturday.

How in the hell am I supposed to understand this story if KOIN doesn’t provide pictures?

A troop of mischievous monkeys at London Zoo have had to be re-trained after showing too much interest in mobile phones. The ring tones and bright lights proved just too attractive to the squirrel monkeys in their new no-barrier enclosure. Visitors who held out their phones to video or take photographs attracted attention from the monkeys who attempted to take the object. . .Malcolm Fitzpatrick, curator of mammals at the Zoological Society of London, said: “The new barrier free enclosure means the monkeys are in closer proximity to visitors.

Barrier free enclosure? This does not sound like a good idea to me.

Why does Jr. look so concerned? Is it because the other man in the picture is finally returning to civilization after having spent some months in the wilds of Bangladesh? Is he carrying any horrible diseases? Will he be able to re-adjust to air conditioning and clean water? Did he go native and freak out, a la Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now? Jr. will just have to wait and see.

That’s right, the Chief Brother in Law himself will be making an appearance in Portland later this week to regale us all with tales of certain death narrowly avoided at the hands of deadly traffic, exotic viruses, standard issue terrorists, and horrible, horrible curry.

NEW YORK — Shall we dance? In New York it depends on where we hear the music. A state judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit that sought to force the city to allow private, social dancing in restaurants, clubs and bars. State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman found that the city’s license requirements for cabarets — places that have food and drink and allow personal recreational dancing — are constitutional.

I think somebody is just itching for a visit from Kevin Bacon.

The Jr. VP has recently decided that playing outside is the best thing in the universe. Specifically he enjoys the acquisition of a nice stick, and then the hitting of things (cars, garbage cans, daddies . . .) with said stick. Luckily for the boy the HQ is blessed with an abundance of sticks, in all sizes. I in fact spend all winter picking them out of what passes for our lawn; I’ve got a nice pile of them next to our driveway for Jr. to play with. The CFO gets annoyed when I refer to our bundle of sticks using the proper term (Honey, I’m going to go throw some branches on that giant faggot in the driveway) but it’s not my problem that she is stuck with a middle-school mindset and can’t appreciate the correct use of a word.

I’m trying to channel the boy’s fascination with whomping stuff with sticks toward baseball. I hung up a wiffle ball on a string in our garage, and showed him how to hit it with a plastic bat. He’d rather hit me (lucky in our baseball league cups are required), but he does seem to get the idea that the bat is used to hit the ball, too. It’s a start.

Ah, Springtime is in the air: baseball, sun, playing outside. And one other thing: Jr. saw some squirrells acting crazy the other day, and it looked like maybe they were going to fight. Jr. was concerned. I took a look. Son, those squirrels aren’t fighting. Let’s go inside now and give them some privacy, shall we?

The CEO would like to take this opportunity to thank God, Al Gore, DARPA, the Swiss, the Roswell aliens or whoever it was that invented the internet, thereby allowing me to watch the Mariners on opening day while I pretend to work. I appreciate it greatly.

The Jr. VP and I checked up on the Chief Educator’s pad the other day. Vandals must have been there: there was a giant hole in the front room where anyone interested could literally look at the dirt underneath his house. Otherwise things looked OK and intact.

There is an outside chance though that looters (possibly Mongolian, I’m not sure) found the Chief’s house after I left. I hope and pray that no tasty adult beverages belonging to the Chief Educator have gone missing, but if any have, I pledge this to you: Jr. and I will start looking for the real stealers immediately, with all the effort we can muster.

We’ll start searching on a golf course in Florida, I think.

If I had to choose one day of the year to be forced to watch an all day Deal or No Deal marathon it would be today. Why? Tonight we all spring forward for Daylights Savings Time. That extra hour just might make the difference between irreversible insanity and something that could be treated.

Were I in charge things would work a little differently: we’d all spring forward and fall back once a week, every week of the year, at different times each week. So many things we could do, beyond just removing an hour from a random Tuesday and adding it to a Saturday. We could add an hour to New Years Eve so the party can go on longer. Add an hour onto the evening of the 4th of July so we can do more fireworks. More trick-or-treating? Check. More pregame on Superbowl Sunday? Check. The posibilities are limited only by our imaginations. And the fact that the CEO is not in charge of things. Yet. As far as you know.

Got something against a certain day of the year? Hours can be subtracted too. Stupid Arbor Day . . .