Cool Animal of the Day

Though Pharyngula, this blog isn't, I ran across this critter while doing some research today.




It is called the geoffrey's cat. Its a small wildcat, about the size of a housecat, living in South America. What makes them really interesting is that they swim; and have even been observed catching fish. Here is more at the very awesome animal diversity website.

The Christmas Trip. Pt 2.

After spending Christmas Eve in Kenosha, WI with my folks, and crossing the border into northern Illinois for Christmas Day with Erin's family in Woodstock, we began to make our way home on Saturday around noon. What was a 28 hour trip from Tucson, turned into a 32 hour exhausto-fest on the way back. All this because of a snow-storm which would haunt us all the way into Texas.

The storm was in full force in Illinois, and we crawled along country rouds from Woodstock all the way to I-39. Things didn't get much better on the hiway. As a matter on what was perhaps a 200 yard stretch of road south of Bloomington we counted 21 cars in the ditch. All a single accident no doubt.

Things picked up southwest of Springfield, IL when the snow became lighter and wetter. By the time we reached St. Louis the snow stopped and the roads were pretty clean. It was also night, which is a shame, because the drive down I-44 through Missouri looks to be really pretty (we think- both times we drove through at night). By about 10 PM we reached Oklahoma and things began to get ugly.

It looks like Oklahoma got hit hard with a snowstorm either earlier that day, or a day prior. While places like Illinois are ready for that sort of thing, it looked like Oklahoma was not. Its ok, I get it, Oklahoma is a poor state and Jim Drives-With-Plow-On-Pickup of the Creek Nation might have been sleeping off a Christmas turkey and the 16 pints of Yukon Jack he binged, but whole stretches of road were unplowed, and those which were plowed had mounds of ice built up in patches running parallel to the white lines in the middle. Hey ODOT, you need to depress the plow ALL the way down to the road for it to work.

So we slowed to a crawl again. The frustration, combined with exhaustion made us miss a turn near Tulsa, and we ended up on some creapy Tulsa bipass road which was even more ice covered. This cost us even more time. Sleeping/driving in 2 hour shifts worked on the way up to Wisconsin, but it wasn't really cutting it now. I don't know about Erin, but I couldn't sleep much because

a) the dog kept crawling all over me
b) each time I began to drift off, we hit another ice patch and I thought we would crash and die

But eventually we made our way into the cultural abyss of Texas, and the sun began to rise. I was driving along through Carson county when suddenly I saw police lights behind me. A stocky fellow in a cowboy hat pulled me over for going 74 in a 70MPH zone because apparently "In Texas, 70 means 70, son". He was kind enough to let me off with a written warning, so more power to him.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, but it seemed to go on for ever. New Mexico especially takes a long time to get through. And is it just me, or does that state look like a third world nation at times? And do hardware stores in Albuquerque carry any exterior paint other than brown?

We finally dragged our exhausted selves into Tucson around 7:30PM. With the hour time difference, the trip took 32 hours, including rest stops. I guess it was better than being stuck at an airport waiting for the snow to pass, and for some terrorist asshole's asshole to be disarmed, but dammit I'm never doing this again.

Stay tuned for a review of "The Sepulchre" the audiobook we listend to during the trip. I'm still not sure if I hated it or not.

The Christmas trip. Part I

Erin and I just drove up a rental car from Tucson, AZ to Kenosha WI. for the holiday.

A few bulleted points/thoughts

1. A 28 hour, non-stop drive is beastly long, even if you drive/sleep in shifts
2. Officer Johnson of the New Mexico Highway Patrol can eat our collective ass!
3. The stretch of road in NM between Deming and Hatch is a speed trap. (see above)
4. While driving in Texas, we passed a pick-em-truck with a bumper sticker that said "Extremely Right Wing". I think thats Texan for white-power.

If the US was a school, Texas would be the special ed class

"Don't meth wuth Tek-nath"

5. Oklahoma is boring
5a. Tulsa has a surprisingly large and interesting looking downtown
5b. The Quiznos in Elk City is run by Jesus Freaks


6. Driving through winter thunderstorms in Missouri, while jacked up on coffee, but with no real sleep is devilishly frightening

7. Illinois is almost as dull as Oklahoma

8. Next Christmas is in Tucson

Tucson whats wrong with you? A Restaurant Review

I'll cut right to the chase. Rosa's Mexican Food isn't very good. It isn't horrible, but it is nowhere near good enough to merit the 4 star reviews and the "You've GOT to try Rosa's" comments that I get from everybody whenever I mention wanting to try a new Mexican restaurant.

I've been there twice. The first time I had a carne-secca burrito whcih was nasty (it was stuffed with seasoned dry meat and nothing else, and the second, I got a chicken chimichanga, which was ok, but not 4 star, and almost $10 good. The chicken was all white meat, which was a plus, but the outside was coated with a dull melted cheese, and the chicken was marinated in far too much garlic. Finally, the tortilla was not fried to enough of a crisp and in fact had a soggy bottom. In my opinion a good burrito, enchilada or chimichange should be stuffed with all kinds of ingredients - like a good sandwich Erin got the vegetarian tacos, and these were essentially guacamole nachos in the shape of a taco. Perhaps I've just been missing the item they're best known for?

The atmosphere inside was nice, but once again not spectacular. The place is painted up in your usual Mexican American style, with stucco walls with murals of Mexican figures, pastoral scenes and other flim-flam. Cute tiles are on the table tops, and marriachi music was playing over the speakers, you know, the usual. The place was packed both times that I went. Both times it was during the lunch rush, but again I wonder, why is that place so popular?

I wonder if it has something to do with Willy Nelson? I saw a few photos of him on the walls inside, so I'm assuming that either A) Rosa is a die-hard fan, or more likely B) he ate there at some point. Now just as George Washington sleeping at a hotel doesn't automatically make it the Ritz Carleton, Willy Nelson eating at a mediocre Mexican Restaurant doesn't make it the ....whatever the food version of the Ritz would be...Thai Kitchen in Milwaukee perhaps.

I mean, think about it, should Willy Nelson be the arbiter of good taste? This is the man who has worn two nasty braids since he let his hair down during the Late Precambrian, when he played drums for the Vendian Biota. He looks like the kind of guy who would exchange blow-jobs for cigarettes at a Greyhound station. Do we want to trust this man's food habits. Contrary to what 10,000 college kids who hate country except for Johnny Cash and Willy Nelson, will tell you; Willy Nelson is only mediocre. And so is Rosa's

Hey buddy, you look like you need a smoke

bwahahahahahahahahaahaha!

The latest news from the front

Iraqi detainees being guarded by a unit of winners from Wisconsin National Guard have learned enough English to taunt the soldiers about Brett Favre.

I know these guys are supposed to be our enemy and all, but I can't help but applaud them for their giant balls. There is nothing more dangerous than getting an armed Wisconsin idiot redneck upset about his gods from the Packer pantheon.

Jan Brewer- Filthy Ho Beast!

One of the first things I noticed when moving to Tucson in May was the overabundance of cash-stores. Little pay-day-loan operations dot the landscape, and perhaps not surprisingly, are particularly dense in the poor parts of town. For those of you not familiar with pay-day loans, here is how they work. You need cash immediatley for some emergency (meth lab burned down) or an impulse buy (diamond encrusted grill with your baby's name etched in gold across the incisors), but you have no savings (meth lab burned down last month too!), and pay day isn't until next week dog!

I need cash NOW!

So you pick out one of your favorite payday loan stores and you ask for $100. No questions asked, no credit report needed. You write them a post-dated check for $115 to cover the loan and service fee, and when payday comes, they cash the check and all is well. All is well provided you have a big enough pay-check to cover the loan, but if you were so hard up for $100 last week, chances are that after paying your bills and buying food, you're broke again.

No worries, the kind folks at the Payday loan store will let your loan roll-over. Its refinanced just like at a fancy big-people's bank! yay!

But

But what?!

But your loan has an average 400% interest rate. Keep rolling over your loan, and after a few weeks you're paying about $60 interest on your $100 loan. You may need to take out another loan! Do you see where this is going?

Many states, Arizona included are trying to pass legislation to limit the interest-rates that these stores charge. This is good. Some organizations are trying to ban these stores alltogether. This is even better. So whats the problem? More specifically, whats the problem in Arizona? The Problem

In 2000, a piece of legislation was passed which granted the payday industry a short-term rush of cash by making them exempt from the 36% intrest cap which the state imposes on all lenders. This is why they're able to charge a 391% yearly usuray rate. A proviso in the 2000 legislation placed a "sunset" on payday loans. This essentially stated that after July 1, 2010 the industry would shut its doors and get the hell out. Fast forward a few years to when something called Proposition 200 was drafted with the support of the payday loan industry. Prop 200 proposed to eliminate the sunset date and promised instead state government oversight of short-term loans. In an uncharacteristic moment of clarity, Arizona voters rejected prop 200 by a landslide. So goodbye loan stores, rigth?

Perhaps. But now it appears that currently acting governor, and 2010 Republican gubernatorial hopeful Jan Brewer, who was instrumental in drafting the language of prop 200 is in cahoots with the PDL industry. In cahoots is perhaps an understatement, they're rather more like two rats fucking in a wool sock. Steamy! Some of Brewer's top campaign advisors, and her campaign co-director are all high ranking PDL lobbyists and insiders. When questioned by reporters she was quoted as saying "I don't see any conflict". Say what?!?!

"I'm not going to make any comment on any legislation that might eventually end up on my desk, and, and.... GYYAYRTRRGGGGHHHH!!!! I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"*

This shoudln't be shocking to anybody who has ever seen a politician open his or her mouth. It is so rediculously shortsighted though (and yes, I know politicians only think as far ahead as the next election cycle). Ridding our state of these predatory lenders can help the poor (their target audience) hold on to what little money they do have. Teaching financial literacy to the consumer public is one thing, but sometimes we need to admit to ourselves that people are inherently dumb, especially when it comes to money, and that suckers need to be looked out for and helped along. We help the poor become just a little bit more financially stable, and all of us benefit from it. The argument comes in many forms, and I'm not about to reiterate all of it here. Needless to say though, the state of Arizona, is in a financial nose-dive, and these are the kinds of things We The People should be doing to pull out. Not just cutting up the budget until there is nothing left.

*quotation may be out of context; our research staff is looking into it