Jen and I braved the wilds of East San Jose today to get some fabric for her wedding dress. We were joined by Jen's mom and Jane (who used to live in the room I'm typing this in and is making the dress). The man at the counter undercharged us. It wasn't until we were headed back home that one of the area's notorious elderly christian women attempted to do us in. She tried to run us off the road, which no doubt was a prelude to some sort of further assault. We'll never know. Her nefarious plan failed. This attempt on our lives left me both frustrated and glad. I was frustrated that the horn doesn't work, and glad that the kids weren't in the van to hear the wildly inappropriate language I used. Another disturbing thing about these thuggish individuals is their complete lack of remorse. At the next stoplight I tried to make eye-contact with her. What did she do? She coldly looked away, as if we were beneath her notice. Such evil must be stopped!

The second near miss came much later on, and involved a possum. The little fellow must have been concentrating really hard. I could tell by the way his tail was curled up. They only do that when wrapping their brains around extremely vexing problems. My slamming on the brakes and swerving didn't even break his concentration. He just kept on toddling across the street without even acknowledging me.

On a different subject - A co-worker mentioned that he had been pulled over because his car was throwing up sparks. He didn't have to tell me why. I remember my car doing that once. If you don't change your tires often enough, they get bald. If you continue to ignore them, the metal tread sticks out and, when it comes into contact with the asphalt, causes sparks. If a person were that bald, there would be bits of skull showing through.

On a more serious note: In a few more hours it will have been exactly a year since I was awakened by Jen knocking on my window to tell me that the World Trade center was burning. A lot of people died that day. These people were doing their jobs. Unfortunately, other people, who aren't doing their jobs very well, used this tragedy as an excuse to kill even more people. Now they are arguing that even more people need to be killed. I guess the term "cycle of violence" doesn't mean much to those in charge.
I've got more to say but I'll stop there for now. Just remember that the life of an Afghani civilian is no less precious than that of a U.S. civilian. ...or anyone else, for that matter. Why do so many people seem to think otherwise, and what the hell is wrong with them?
I was amused to learn today that they've put Cheney back into hiding, but they're letting the Bush stay visible. Oh, and the Florida Bush's daughter was caught with crack. If I were her, I'd probably be smoking crack too.

On a less serious note: Somebody made Bubba Ho-Tep into a movie! It played at the Toronto film festival! I heard all about it on the radio. They announced the plot summary thusly: Elvis fighting a mummy in a nursing home in Texas. Bubba Ho-Tep! The movie! Joe R. Lansdale is a great man.

cds I listened to while avoiding possums: Buffy Sainte-Marie "Little Wheel Spin and Spin", Diamond Head "Singles", Plasmatics "Coup de Grace", and Flag of Democracy "Hate Rock"

now: Jorunn Vidar "Unglingurinn I Skoginum"