Where the hell have I been?

Yeah, you see this is what happens when you start a new job. So I've been out of KUOW for a month now and working on Weekend America. I've been down to LA five times in the past six weeks, burning through one season of The Wire on DVD and almost two seasons of 24. I've hosted that show (Weekend America, not 24) three times. Meanwhile I've been trying to learn a new sound editing program and on top of that finding a new workspace (I am the Seattle bureau of the show), renting it, furnishing it, getting internet and phone hooked up, and trying to remember to occasionally shower and shave. So updates have been sparse on this blog. Sorry. Fans of Charlie and Kate will hear them on this weekend's show on a story I've been doing about how to teach your kids about heavy metal. I interviewed Kevin DuBrow of Quiet Riot and Sebastian Bach from Skid Row. And Charlie and Kate. Also had an interesting chat with Charlie about the ethnicity of Santa and Jesus which I'll post later.

Oh! And I'm officially going to be on a Starbucks cup. 5 million of them, actually, where my quotation will be covered by a cardboard sleeve and then the cup tossed without a thought. Coming in the fall just in time for the paperback. Have I mentioned I wrote a book?

Holy God do I miss college sometimes

A Conversation with Charlie (Age 6) About Artistic Intent

HIM: Dad, when they sing "You Got Another Thing Comin'", I think I know what they're talking about.
ME: Who? Judas Priest?
HIM: Yeah. It's Star Wars.
ME: How do you figure?
HIM: What?
ME: What do you mean?
HIM: I think it's about Luke. He blew up the Death Star but he's got more bad guys coming. He's got more empire stuff and the emperor.
ME: Out there is a fortune waiting to be had. Maybe that fortune is peace across the galaxy.
HIM: Yeeeeeah.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears (by Charlie, Age 6, part three of a three-part series)

Author's note: for older kids over the age when Goldilocks runs away from the three bears. In this one they eat her.

Once there was a little girl named Goldilocks.
Her house was horrible!
The roof wasn't on right and it let all the air blow in.
It didn't have anything, just walls and a window.

One day after school Goldilocks went outside to play.

After she got out of school, she saw some construction workers making her house better than before. Thye put furniture in and everything.

She walked and walked in the forest until she came to a cabin. It was so cool. She walked inside.

She found three balls of deer meat and there was cups of deer blood. And a decoration of deer horns. Suddenly the three bears stormed in.

They quickly divided her into six pieces and ate her all up.

"For Christmas, I wished for a bunch more Goldilocks," the bears said.

The End!
Burp!

If only presidential elections were this meta

So I'm in this tournament of blogs, right? Innocent fun. It turns out Not Martha, my opponent, posted something on her blog about wanting people to vote in the competition and especially urging them to vote for me. Obviously, people started voting in droves...for her.

I'm past the point of keeping up with this contest in terms of intent or even understanding what victory would mean.

Kate (Age 4) Employs the Schizophrenia Defense

ME: Kate, I found an empty box of Christmas chocolates and wrappers all over your bedroom floor. Did you eat them?
HER:...uh...well...daddy...the care bears wanted me to eat them...
ME: The Care Bears?
HER:...it was...um...Lock Bear and Sunshine Bear's birthday...and they had a party...and Lock Bear turned...twenty six...and Sunshine Bear...is... twenty eleven...
ME: So why did they want you to eat candy?
HER: ...they can't eat and they want me to be happy...

Badness Continues

After years of opposing "Martha", I finally get a new challenger.

Barack Obama might talk a good game but can he build a flying saucer?

Been doing some research today on candidates that are further down the list. This guy is a real actual declared candidate for President, filed the papers and everything, Democrat:

I am President Warren Roderick Ashe. I was born in Whitakers, North Carolina on January 20th, 1957. I am married with 5 children, Alexander, Maurice, Apollo, Vermond, and Nikki. Alex and Maurice are now in college. My wife Corether and I live in Newsome Park community in Newport News.
I am the United States President Auxiliary since 1981. I am also the Founder, Owner, President of my company Jyperonix Astrophysics. Which is a Fortune 500 company at the top of the list. I am involved with time travel communications that are real. And capable of time travel contact throughout history itself.
The transmissions involves White House, Congress, Air Force, department of FCC, and the DOD-SBIR/STTR program for submission proposals. I also build flying saucers that are capable of going to another solar system at high warp speed.
I started this program of time travel communications in the Ronald Reagan administration in 1981. The time travel transmissions have communicated at least and no less than 500 years into the future. I have used my saucers built by hand at Edgecombe Community College in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. That has already since 1983 taken sperm and DNA into the future. Into the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th centuries. The methods I used are through flux capacitation and wormhole technology.

Can You Feel the Badness?

Then it must be Blarch! (apparently there is voting going on)