Next time I see that Bleeker kid I'm going to punch him in the wiener.

Randal took the time to drop Esmerelda, climb down from his belltower and slap me with a meme.

The idea is to list the top 25 tracks on your mp3 player at this moment.

I'm going to place this fair. I put my music on my phone and I just got a new phone for my birthday and haven't had a chance to upload a ton of stuff. As of right now I currently have the following full albums-

1) Soundtrack to Juno (This is absolutely awesome.)

2) Bob Marley - Legend

3) Best of Frank Sinatra

4) Otis Redding - 1968 - In Person at the Whisky A Go Go

5) Pink Floyd Echoes - The Best of Pink Floyd

6) Rolling Stones - Touring Party Vol. 1

7) Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup

Out of those I'd pick--

Anyone Else But You (Juno)

Tire Swing (Juno)

Kick Out of You (Sinatra)

So Nice So Smart (Juno)

No Woman, No Cry (Marley)

Could You Be Loved (Marley)

Redemption Song (Marley)

Waiting in Vain (Marley)

I've Been Loving You Too Long (Redding)

Try a Little Tenderness (Redding)

Fly Me To The Moon (Sinatra)

Luck Be A Lady (Sinatra)

Hide Your Love (Stones)

Angie (Stones)

Hey You (Floyd)

Learning to Fly (Floyd)

Wish You Were Here (Floyd)

Money (Floyd)

Marooned (Floyd)

Satisfaction (Stones) (I know it's f-ed out but I still love it.)

Start Me Up (Stones)

The Last Time (Stones)

Shattered (Stones)

Brown Sugar (Stones)

Paint It Black (Stones)

Also- Liberality sucker punched me with a meme last week-

1) Where were you ten years ago? Ever seen the "Deadliest Catch" on the Discovery channel? The show where the guys go out under incredibly dangerous conditions in arctic waters to catch crab? I was watching that.

2) What is on your to do list today? Return some books to the library. Talk to H.R. about a problem employee. Listen to the tunes on my phone. Make fun of the Elvis impersanator that sets up across from my place of work.

3) What would I do if I was a billionaire? I'm not one of those guys that would trade up to a new trophy wife and family but I would buy them all plastic surgery so it looked like I traded up.

4) Five places I've visited. Hawaii, Cuernevaca Mexico, Baja California, Washington D.C. and Gresham Oregon.

5) Bad habits - It takes me forever to answer tags.

Finally - special thanks to Joon for the Arte y Pico award. You rock!

I tag Swiney, donsnabalus, overdroid (because he hates being tagged,) westcoast walker and freida with whichever meme they want.

I thought you said your dog does not bite.

People seem to think today's story dog dials 911 when his owner has a seizure is a happy one.
This leaves me to wonder if it's really such a great idea to teach your dog to dial emergency services. Your canine buddy is going to make that call...

...when you're late filling his dinner bowl.

...when the neighbor's cat is in your yard.

...when the female lab up the road is in heat.

...when a bird whistles within a hundred feet of your house.

...when you're trying to give him a bath.

See what I mean? Seems like a recipe for disaster.

Oh, I love surprises. It's funny that you never suspect them!

Happy Friday!

Dang. That Palin interview was just embarrassing. Especially this part...

GIBSON: What do you think of the Bush Doctrine?

PALIN: Forgive me if I'm wrong Charlie but I believe George Bush was a Governor not a doctor before he became President.

GIBSON: "Doctrine." As in "tenet" or "philosophy."

PALIN: I'm pretty sure George Tenet was our spy guy before. You aren't going to get me with that trick question.

GIBSON: Here's a hint; it's something President Bush put in place following the September the 11th attacks.

PALIN: His mountain bike? His wife? He puts her in her place all the time.

(Gibson can be heard sighing.)

GIBSON: As I understand it the Bush Doctrine means the United States reserves the right to use preemptive force against countries we suspect of aiding terrorists.

PALIN: Umm. What do you think of it?

GIBSON: Well, I... wait a minute. You're the one that's supposed to answer the question.

PALIN: I think that the Bush Doctrine is good. In fact it's the best doctrine ever. All Americans would be happier if they followed President Bush's doctrine.

You won't make me cry. You'll never make me cry!

I was woken this morning to the dulcet tones of the Highland pipes as played as the ringtone my the new phone Mrs. Wormer got me for my birthday and snuck under my pillow.

This still beats the birthday morning revenge had by my oldest daughter who woke me with a Hendrix rendition a couple of years ago. Anybody that's been to college probably has stories of horrible ways to be awoken from cold water to felt pens.

The electric guitar played dirty beats those all in spades. It's not so much the guitar but the slow gliding into conciousness with the sound of an amp powering up right next to your ear. The first thought going through your head is "this is going to be bad."

Anyhoo- I was checking out Rachel Maddow's website for her show and got a kick out of the juxtapositon of the viagra ad in the lower corner with the picture of McCain/ Palin. I know Maddow probably didn't do that on purpose but it still cracks me up for some reason.

This is not a psychotic breakdown; it's a cleansing moment of clarity.

On the Olbermann/ MSNBC thing...

There are a number of theories be batted about as to why Tweety and Keith were dropped from political anchor duties by MSNBC. Personally I find the idea that took a lot of heat and was ultimately canned over apologizing for McCain's over the top 9-11 propaganda video to be offensive in the extreme.

During their convention the Republicans aired a film showing multiple images of the 9-11 attacks including images of people jumping to their deaths out of burning buildings in order to to gin up support for a political candidate. Any American, any human being that wasn't offended by that is simply a sociopath, as are so many conservative Republicans these days.

When they cut back from that video to Keith a visibly stunned Keith chided the Republicans for that garbage, rightly observed that anyone else using those images to sell a product would be cut to ribbons by the rest of the media and quickly went to commercial.

Here's the video with Keith's reaction if you missed it. The images of the people jumping from windows have been edited out but there are plenty more of offensive images contained therein. You may just want to skip to the end.



I'm sick of the media bowing to the whiny tantrums of the children that make up the conservative base of the Republican party. Some times it feels as if the ignoramuses in this country hold the rest of us hostage. This is one of those times.

Who's the wild man now?!

Mrs. Wormer suggested I post this since I may have mistakenly given you guys the idea I'm Father of the Year material.

Pretty much my favorite thing in the world to do is to go to a college football game. Especially if that game involves my beloved Ducks, of which I'm an alumni.

On Friday night Mrs. Wormer and I were out at the local Octoberfest when I got a call from a buddy telling me his "date" to the Ducks vs. Utah State game had canceled at the last minute and asking me if I wanted to go.

This was a tough call because as tempting as that was, Dean Jr. (12) plays football and his first game was Saturday morning. There was no way I could miss it. So I politely turned down the offer and begged my buddy to keep me in mind in the future.

Dean Jr. played a great game. He got a couple of sacks, stopped a running back cold with a pop that I'm sure they could hear a couple of counties over and all in all did me proud.

After the game we were sitting around unwinding and I told him about being invited to the Ducks game but choosing to go see him play instead. His reaction verbatim: "are you fucking stupid?"

All I could hear was his mother in the other room laughing her ass off.

What do you mean "they" cut the power? They're animals.

I worked late last night and turned on the radio on the way home. Big mistake. That old guy droning on about stuff with his nasally voice almost put me to sleep behind the wheel. That guy is the John Tesh of politicians.

So here's the final series of pics from Animal Blogging Week featuring photos we've taken of critters. Today it's animals we've either seen or eaten. Actually those aren't exclusive.

Deer that wandered into our campsite a couple of weeks ago.

Had a cool moment at about five in the morning. We camped close to town because I couldn't get out of work and one morning I'd just gotten back from the shower and dressed for work and was sitting by the campsite drinking coffee when this same deer walked right up to me and checked me out. I just kept thinking "I'm going to be in a shiny, high tech office in a couple of hours and right now I'm hanging with a deer."

Took this picture at the zoo obviously. I loved how Doctor Zaius, ahem, this Orangutan came right up to us to chat. I think he was thinking "someday you're going to be on the other side of this glass and I'm going to watch YOU throw your poop at your friends."

Shark from the Oregon Aquarium. We needed a bigger boat.

Giant Dungeoness crab. I've crabbed for fun for most of my life and most of the time we get crabs that are barely keepers according to regulations. Wouldn't you know the first time I take the kids out on a boat we catch this giant. It's pretty rare to see a crab this size in the bay as the commercial fishermen get them first. He was delicious.

D'oh. He was also delicious. (jk)

A seal watching us crab. No crabz 4 U.

Zoo again. I think it's fair to say this zebra rarely misses a meal. He's not exactly in sleek, jungle form.

For some reason I hate elephants after the last week.

Hungry like Duran Duran.

Just a cute little bundle... of trouble.

Animal Blogging (Mini) Week Day 2. Since there's nothing else of any importance going on this week here are some of the animals we've lived with. Mostly dogs for you friends of the canine.

This is my wife's dog Spike. I say it's my wife's dog because, even though I love dogs, I'm not a fan of little yappy dogs. Of course he's pretty attached to me. If you waterboarded me I just might admit I like the little monster.

This is the same dog as a puppy. Runt of the litter. Best way to go.

This is Willie. We adopted him but have to give him away to some dog-loving friends. Willie had an unfortunate habit of catching and violently killing small animals. We have a lot of wild rabbits on the property and you can just imagine the psychological damage that was doing to our kids. Now he lives at a spot where there aren't as many targets of opportunity.

This is Spike and Mathilda. Mathilda's Norwegian Elk Hound/ Australian Shepherd. We were lucky to get her as the list at the Humane Society had about twenty people who wanted to adopt her besides us. She's just about the best dog I've ever owned. Even tempered and sweet.


Little Joe the Supergoat. He's the Rasputin of goats. He's survived wasp attacks, dog attacks, deadly viruses and toddlers.


Awww. Of course the next moment he's humping her leg.


This is Sheba. We're watching her for a friend. Going on about three years now. Every evening I throw my variation of the Dread Pirate Roberts from the Princess Bride at her when I tell her "so long, I'll most likely get rid of you in the morning." Even if I wanted to do that #1Animefan is quite attached to her so it ain't gonna happen.


This is why little dogs hate the world so much.

Sorry, it looks like you're involved.

Since nothing was really going on this week in the news other than the hurricane which seems to have passed without too much damage I had planned on declaring this week Animal Blogging Week and posting nothing but pictures of critters that I've run across or own.

The week sort of got away from me but nevertheless I'm going to spend today and the next couple of days doing just that. We'll start with the weird varieties of creatures we saw this last weekend at the Kumoricon.

(In order to get the flavor of this thing you should start the video below. You don't have to watch it, just play the music. This song was played non-stop from boom boxes everywhere you went at this convention.)

We had a really long wait in line. REALLY long. I checked their attendance numbers afterwords and in the five years they've been doing this it's grown from roughly 1,000 people to around 3,500 attendees last year. There were over 10,000 people at this thing. The hotel freaked out.


All the people in line had a mini-scare after about three hours in line when organizers announced the hotel wouldn't let anyone else in. There was talk of a riot. You haven't lived until you've watched a woman in a pink Princess Peach gown throw down a string of obscenities that would make Dick Cheney blush. I think she was the one that ultimately got them to change their minds.

It's hard to see but Batman's Harley Quinn was watching us from that balcony. Creepy.

Not sure what Davey Jones has to do with Anime but this costume was impressive.

Swag. Lots of it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out artist Phil Foglio was there. Anybody that read the Dragon magazine when they were kids knows who he is. I thanked him for all the "chuckles" as a boy.

Found him!

I'd like to know how they eat out of those costumes.

Harley again.

Clone trooper robs Red Bull mini cooper. Mmmm Red Bull.

Yoshi and some other guy.

"Red Rover, Red Rover send Pikachu right over!"

Dancing the Carmelldansen.

Look at Mr. Addams. He's always developing outside interests.

We have three kids. Our middle child (13) is just about the sweetest girl you could ever meet.

At the end of the school year last year we had one of the teachers at her middle school call us up and tell us she was worried about her. Our daughter seemed a little withdrawn, shy and didn't seem to have a lot of friends. This teacher was concerned that there may be a an issue that would cause our daughter to get "lost" as she advanced into high school.

We had always known our daughter was a little behind socially but she's also very smart (an encyclopedic knowledge of Pokemon and anime for instance) and a voracious reader, if a bit disorganized in her studies. Her grades haven't been stellar but her standardized testing has been pretty good. We took her as a bit of an egghead who was sometimes unfocused.

But this teacher's concern forced us to reflect on our daughter and any little clues that there might be something else going on . Long story short- after a series of tests and psychological profiles she was diagnosed with mild Asperger's.

(As an aside let me just say that my wife owe and enormous debt to this public school teacher. She didn't have our daughter in class at the time and met huge resistance from the powers that be and fellow teachers in pushing that our daughter be tested. Because our daughter would sit quietly in the classroom and not cause trouble she wasn't considered someone with a social disorder by a few of the her teachers.)

Reading through the paperwork compiled by the district doctor and the counselors in their diagnosis was both enlightening and heartbreaking. At one point during an interview our daughter asked the doctor "if they could teach her to make friends." That's a gut-punch for a parent.

Going into this school year our daughter is meeting with specialists and learning how to socially interact with her peers. The district has been great in accommodating for this after the initial diagnosis. We are all looking forward to this year

Which brings me to yesterday. For months our daughter has been planning on attending Kumoricon, the local Anime convention in Portland. My wife had to work so I got tapped to escort the little mynx to the festival.

I'm going to be perfectly honest here. I love my daughter but yesterday I really didn't want to go to this thing. I had a hellish week at work and personally am not a huge fan of that particular style of animation. But I sucked it up like a good dad and off we went.


I'll do a little report with some more pics sometime later but let me just say that the convention was absolutely wonderful. There were costumes galore from Star Wars to Disney to Sailor Moon. The whole thing had a circus atmosphere that was infectious. I have never been around a more joyous group of people in my life. Everywhere you went people were breaking into song or dance. The convention-goers took over the park across from the hotel and it turned into one big anime party. These guys are just happy to be alive.

But what really made the day worth it, what really touched my heart was how my daughter (Now "#1Animefan" by her convention badge) took the whole day in. She was walking on air from the minute we parked the car. She danced (danced!) the Carmelldansen, chatted with other friendly people that shared her interest in anime, played Red Rover with a group of Pikachus and pretty much went crazy with fun.

For the first time in a long time (maybe her life?) she wasn't the odd man out. She had met 10,000 other "#1Animefans." She was in her element. She was happy. She was with friends.

She's not alone and that means the world to her and to her parents. Everythings going to be fine.