One Red Bug

One little red bug said,

"I need a hug.

I'm very lonely and very needing love."

 Two little yellow bugs in the yard

pulling a string out of a plug.

Little red bug said,

"I need a hug."

Little yellow bugs said,

"Go away.

Come again some other day.

We're too busy unplugging the yard today."

Three little pink bugs sitting in a tree.

Little red bug said,

"I need a hug."

Little pink bug said,

"Go away.

I'm too busy today."

Four little blue bugs sat upon a chair,

Crawling under the cushion,

 And having fun to fair.

Red bug said,

"I need a hug."

The blue bugs said,

"We can't play very long.  Please go away.

We might give you a hug some other day."

Five little purple bugs went to a circus.

Red bug said,

"I need a hug."

"We're too much having fun.

Please come and have fun with us another day."

Six orange bugs eating on a leaf.

Red bug said,

"I need a hug."

Orange bugs say,

"We're eating today.

We can't hug you right now."

So red bug went and stayed on the tree, crying,

"I need a hug.

I need a friend, please."

One red bug came and said,

"I'm lonely too and I need a hug.

I'll only give you a hug if you give me a hug."

So the other red bug said,

"I'll give you a hug."

And so he did.

And then he had a friend.

And the other red bug had a friend too.

The end.

 By Kyrie (1996? I just found it in a box we unpacked)

'Tis the Season

It's started. We're barely out of Halloween, but already the "War on Christmas" has begun.

I refer, of course, to the mass hysteria that we have had to endure every year lately, when large groups of people, spurred by a tiny group of right-wing pundits, get totally freaked out whenever someone wishes them "Happy Holidays."

Everyone, please, chill the fuck out. No one has declared war on Christmas. No one.

There's a very long article on the subject here, but that's the gist of it.

Don't believe me? Here's your assignment for the day.

Greet twelve people with the phrase "Merry Christmas." Count how many are offended.

Then greet twelve people with "Happy Holidays." Compare results (and be ready to duck).

Did anyone make a wish today?

Does it nullify the wish if you tell me about it?

The corruption of pure capitalism

Business is, by its very nature, corrupt

The purpose of business is to make a profit. Personal gain. And businessmen will do anything, moral or not, for personal gain.

That is not the purpose of government. The purpose of our government is pretty well spelled out in the preamble to the constitution. To form a more perfect union. To establish justice. To ensure domestic tranquility. To provide for the common defense. To promote the general welfare. To secure the blessings of liberty.

Nothing in there about profit.

Men become corrupt when considerations of personal gain take precedence over considerations of right and wrong.

Capitalism does not include any precept of right and wrong. Its stated goal is profit. Personal gain.

Government becomes corrupt when the people running it put personal gain over the stated goals of the government.

Now, who has the means to provide personal gain to Congress? The Supreme Court? The President?

I'll tell you. It is the wealthy and powerful.

It is not the poor, the teachers, the police, the firefighters. It is not the unions, the truck drivers, the office peons. None of these people have anything with which to tempt anyone in a position of government power.

It is leaders of business who corrupt the leaders of government.

Think about that the next time you kneel at your Ayn Rand shrine and kiss the cover of Atlas Shrugged.

Shameless family promotion

My son has entered a contest sponsored by Neil Gaiman. The grand prize is a part in the full-cast reading of American Gods, being released later this year for the novel's 10th anniversary.

On the off-chance that anyone reading my paltry words has not yet heard of this, please consider heading over and giving him your vote. The guy's really good.

Review: Pitch coal-fire Pizzeria (Dundee)

(One star)

 I don't think we would ever have tried this place without a Groupon.You can tell it's a "trendy" place when you walk in the door. But, once in a while, a trendy place has decent food, and we'd already paid an entry fee, so we decided to stay. I wish we hadn't.

We ordered a variety of things to taste and share among the four of us. Altogether, we ordered two large pizzas of different flavors, a pasta dish, a burger, and a basket of truffle fries for our appetizer. The fries were lightly covered in truffle oil and fresh basil. None of us were particularly impressed, though none of us hated them. That was, unfortunately, the best part of our meal.

When the pizzas arrived, two different flavors, both with shockingly thin crust and very little on top - so little sauce that it had dried in the baking - we noticed that the shrooms pizza looked burnt on the bottom. The Margarita pizza was normal in appearance, browned appropriately. And, while the Margarita suffered from lack of toppings and iffy flavor, at least it wasn't black on the underside. Knowing that sometimes things can look darker than they taste, two of us tried the shrooms. We both agreed that we didn't enjoy it, in part because it was lacking flavor, but mainly because it tasted of burnt crust.

It's my opinion that you shouldn't ask how someone likes their burger cooked unless you can actually approximate the customer's wishes. This was probably one of the better meals, though it wasn't cooked the way it was ordered. We had also ordered butternut squash ravioli. There were five ravioli swimming in oil and two crusts of bread to sop up the "sauce" for a price of ten dollars. We tend not to like trendy places because they overcharge for poor food, and our observation wasn't changed by this location.

Realizing that none of us wanted to eat the burned crust pizza, I reported it to our waiter, along with a request for another drink for one of our party - the waiter hadn't shown up since our food was delivered and had to be flagged down this time. I said that we needed that pizza either removed from our bill or replaced. The waiter wanted to argue with me, claiming it wasn't burned, that it was dark from the coal fire process of the ovens. I pointed out that the other pizza was of normal color for crusts, and reiterated that it -tasted-burnt. I was shortly to feel that I was involved in a Monty Python skit, paying for the privilege of arguing that my parrot was dead. Even when he finally agreed to replace the pizza, he wanted to insist that our taste buds were at fault, not the pizza crust.

We are usually good tippers. It's not infrequent that we leave 25%, often 20%, and ALWAYS 15% if we even get slightly poor service. We do not stiff a waiter unless we are angry, and we were very angry by the time we left. We went at a slow time for the restaurant to beat the Valentine's Day rush, and our experience was considerably less than romantic or enjoyable.

The second attempt at the shrooms was not burned and had considerably more toppings. Had that been our first introduction to this pizzeria, we might have walked away with our taste buds happy, if not our wallet. Also, for what it's worth, if I wanted to buy my soft drinks by the bottle, I'd bring a six-pack with me to the restaurant. No ice in the water? Come on. Some trends should die.