Publius & Co.

More searches!

Well, search, anyway. Yahoo! is chump change; Google, OTOH, is Big Time. My first Google search hit was: mentos video joke.

Publius & Co. was number four! Sadly, my link for the Mentos satire commercial is now dead. If anyone has found a working one, could I trouble you to leave it in the comments. Thanks very much.

I think this is how Susie feels.

I'm putting this in the "Other people's misery" category, though it would be more correct to say, "My misery." I just don't feel like creating another category (I will if I keep being miserable, tho--and thru TypePad, I can change or add a posted post to a different/another category. Neat, eh?).

Basically, for all practical purposes, I just got home. Bedtime was about twenty minutes ago.

See, the other hardware guy is on vacation, so I'm doing a double workload. Not that big a deal, really, but it gets draining after. . .uhhh. . .three days. Left a little late, get home, the gf was home late, no one feels like cooking. . .so it's off to FedEx to pick up the package they didn't deliver, then to dinner with the gf's mom (and I ate waaay too much, just as I got within three pounds of my target weight-loss goal)(I'm still down over forty pounds from 30 months ago, tho, but the beach is coming up next week), then my parent's house, then the pet store (they were out of Cell Sorb), then come home, talk to Rat Witter, scritch some other rats, balance the checkbook. . .and get to read a blog or two, and I realize I'm farking dead.

Susie has a twelve-hour day today, dealing with the public, so I really shouldn't complain. But I did anyway.

My first search search engine hit!

I had my first search engine hit! Publius & Co. was the second hit when someone did a Yahoo! search on "wedding + Outside + Indianappolis." Welcome, stranger, and I hope you found what you were looking for--though I suspect it wasn't here.

Destiny

Last week, British PM Tony Blair spoke before the Congress of the United States. It's something that doesn't happen often, and that's a shame, because there are frequently some memorable words spoken. Winston Churchill, December 26, 1941:

I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father's house to believe in democracy. Trust the people - that was his message....I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have go here on my own....I owe my advancement entirely to the House of Commons, whose servant I am. In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the State and would be ashamed to be its masters.

I was reading the newspaper on the Metro about ten days ago, on the way to work, reading a report of PM Blair's speech, and this quote hit me, hit me in a way indescribable:

And I know it's hard on America, and in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I've never been to but always wanted to go, I know out there there's a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, 'Why me? And why us? And why America?'

And the only answer is, 'Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.'

Destiny, eh?, I'm sure some said to themselves. Ri-ight.

Yes, it's destiny. I've heard those words before, though they were never spoken. One bullet stopped them from being spoken, and the world is a poorer place for it. But the words still exist; they've been printed and quoted, though not often. And if you read them, think about them, say them yourself, you'll hear John F. Kennedy say the words he didn't get to say on November 22, 1963:

We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.

That would be the sound bite, had he said them. I suspect, had he said them, every child in the United States would have heard them in an American history class, along with, "Ask not what your country can do for you. . ." and "Ich bin ein Berliner!". But there are other words, too, that explain why those words were written:

. . .America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.

That strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions--it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations--it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.

We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

Call it the Kennedy Doctrine. Forty years ago, one man knew America's Destiny. He never got the chance to tell us, and we're so much more poorer for it.

Holy $#|+!

BREAKING NEWS: Unregistered WMD's have been discoverd in India--US envoy returns to Washington.

Driving--kind of.

Ya know, most kids wait until they have their learner's permits before they start wrecking dad's car. Then there's this kid, who does it not once, but twice.

Also in Germany, some guy admitted he had had a few before getting behind the wheel.

GF Report

My gf reads a lot. I used to, but I don't read too much these days--having too much fun killing pixelated Nazis. Here's a post on what she's read lately. She left out Harry Potter, though.

Me? I'm saving Harry Potter for the beach, which I should be at this time next week. Heh.

I had a point to this post, but I'm damned if I can remember what it was. I think dogs go thru most of life doing that, too--forgetting their points.

Special post for Jennifer!

I just wanted to let Jennifer of Jennifer's History and Stuff know that I *did* receive her request, and I'm in the midst of writing it now. I should be done sometime this century, but that's not guaranteed. After all, everyone has a topic inside of them that, once they start talking about it, would make even Bill Whittle say, "Geez, that was long!"

My first request!

NOTE: I started this post quite awhile ago; believe me, it's been edited down somewhat. I could talk about my rats for forever and a day; I've decided I should stop right about here and just post what I've got. If it seems to end suddenly, now you know why.

Also, change the beginning from, "A few days ago," to "A long time ago, in a galaxy far away. . ."

***

A few days ago, I noticed this comment: Since I'm new here, maybe you could explain more about your rats. Thanks. :-). It was left by Jennifer of the excellent Jennifer's History and Stuff, which is one of my daily reads. I'd answer her question anyway, because she's just so nice (she even thanked me in advance!) and it's about rats. Throw in that she will be my go-to when I have a history question (I haven't had any, yet, but you never know)(I confess I'll ask James Civil War questions, tho) . . .how can I turn her down? Anyway, rats.

That's my intact boy, Witter. He's a very sweet rat, somewhere between 1 and 1 1/2 years old. He was adopted a few months ago when my gf and I received a phone call from our vet. His previous owners told Dr. G to put him to sleep because they didn't want to pay to treat him--for mites!

(Mites are dead easy to treat for: either you take him to the vet once a week for three or four weeks, where he would get an ivermectin injection, or you give him a bath in medicated shampoo twice (about fourteen days apart), and give him two squirts of Front Line once a week for four weeks. It's no big deal, except for the baths, and it's easier to give a rat a bath than it is to give a cat a bath. I was really angry at those people.

(Anyway, at the time my gf and I were treating our nine other rats for lice--the treatment is exactly the same. We thought about it for about a half-second before saying, "Yes!" and I'm glad we did. He's "my" rat, which really means I clean his cage and pay his vet bills (and Dr. G gives me a break on those since we saved him from having a house rat--he would NOT have put him to sleep if he couldn't have found him a home). )

(Man, that was a lot of parenthesis!)

Witter was named for Brenden Witt of the Washington Capitals. Unlike Brenden Witt, Witter is a very sweet, very licky rat. He's become my personal favorite of all my rats.

My other boys. From left to right they are Kono, Calle, Olie, and Metro. They're named for other members of the Caps (sadly, Calle Johannson is no longer with the team and Glen Metropolit is in their minor league system). They were adopted in October of 2002, from a lady we met online (thru a rat discussion group, people!) who had several litters. Kono and Metro are my Patriot Day boys, having been born on September 11, 2002, and Calle and Olie are a little younger, having been born a little more than two weeks later.

One thing you can't see in that picture is how fat they are--there's probably over three kilo's of rat in that hammock. They're neutered, and neutered bucks (the technical term for male rats. Yep, females are does) tend to get really fat. They were neutered because at about four months, they hit puberty, and as sometimes happens, they started fighting--especially Olie and Metro. After they got emasculated, it was Calle and Kono's turn. . .

Of course, we had clues they would be huge. Here's our first picture of Calle, when he was about three weeks old:

See? He's eating. (Sorry about the pixelation; he was a teeny-tiny little rat and in the process of cropping/resizing/enhancing this pic. . .things got a little screwy.)

Anybody got a couch I can crash on?

ANNAPOLIS, MD—Citing mounting debt and a decline in tourism dollars, the state of Maryland will shut down for good on August 31, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. told reporters Monday.

I'm not at all pleased to read this--you'd think we could've had more notice. Thanks, Ehrlich. That's the last time I vote for you.

So, does anyone have room for one old guy, 2 guinea pigs, and five rats on their couch? And my girlfriend (and her five rats and one beagle) could also use a place to stay. Thanks very much.