Rambling Rhodes

Double Standard

So, apparently, a few years ago, many news outlets deemed certain Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed so potentially offensive, they refused to republish them.

But now it's okay to publish an image of a mortally wounded soldier against the family's wishes.

Gotcha.

Stimul'own'd!

Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed the "stimulus" had achieved success beyond expectations.

Today, the unemployment rate sits at 9.7 percent.

Somebody should tell Joe Biden to STFU.

Gross to the Third Degree

There's an ongoing slogan bandied about between my wife and me regarding the impending arrival of our first child. The slogan has several different variants to better reflect each unique circumstance we encounter, but at its heart, it goes: "our lives are about to get 50 percent more gross."

Whether she's cleaning the toilet, or I'm cleaning the litter box, or we're taking turns cleaning up the latest hot pile of cat sick, we know, as gross as these tasks may be, our lives are inevitably going to be 50 percent more gross once the baby arrives.

I've tried to mentally prepare for the reality of changing diapers, to say nothing of the horrific (I'm sorry, "wonderful") world of the childbirth process itself, but as creative as my mind normally can be, it just repeatedly falls short of adequately envisioning the disgusting (yet "life affirming") adventure on which we're about to embark.

Oh, sure, the baby marketing powers that be do their best to try and make babies sound fun, even magical. However, I don't care how magical a "Diaper Genie" may be; deep down I know it's a trash can for dirty diapers. Also, they may have scored a coup when they labelled what are essentially spit-up rags "receiving blankets," but I'm onto the scam. Yeah, they're receiving SOMETHING all right.

Thankfully, our two righteously disgusting cats are doing their part to prepare us for the impending increased grossness that will no doubt be delivered by the new human fecal-production machine that's about to bless our lives.

Last week, for example, both cats were sleeping on the bed with me, since my wife is now so incredibly pregnant she has her own gravitational field and requires her own bed entirely to herself.

One of the cats, showing feline affection as only cats can, extended its paw and pressed it against my lips, an act which woke me up briefly, but I quickly fell back asleep. When I awoke again a few minutes later, I bit down and immediately realized I was crunching on granules of kitty litter, which had apparently lodged in the cat's paw and had been transferred into my mouth.

The cats both seemed genuinely nonplussed by my reaction to a mouthful of kitty litter, which included gargling violently with water, swearing considerably and spitting on the floor. The cats were just trying to help, after all, doing their part to prepare me for the grossness of fatherhood.

Despite their "help," what I really wanted at that exact moment was a "Cat Genie," which unfortunately hasn't been invented yet.

Hamming it up

Bug Puns

Ryan: That's the only thing that keeps me from doing it. I'm scared of what the company might do to me. Even though all I would do would be to exploit a temporary bug in their program.

Caroline: bug exploitation doesn't carry a prison sentence

Ryan: In some states it might. Depending how badly you exploited the bug. Bug exploitation could lead to a house RAID.

Caroline: ooooo

Ryan: No telling if a lawyer could get you OFF!

Caroline: You'd have to keep notes of all the minor DEETS.

Ryan: You might want to Tweet the DEETS. Although, if I did write about it, things might work out like they did for Dooce. I could end up being the Citronella of the Ball.

Caroline: oh my sweet word

Ryan: LOL!

Covered in "Duh"

As Dow nears 10,000 again, does it matter?
Experts say it could be sign of healthy economy, or overheated market

Soooo, it may be a good thing, unless it's a bad thing? Duly noted.

Your Monday Dose of Geode

Caroline: What up boyeeeeeeeeeee?

Ryan: Zappening, my geological doppleganger?

Caroline: I'm just geodin'.

Ryan: Keeping it crystal?

Caroline: This could get really nerdy, really fast.

Ryan: You mean it didn't already?

Caroline: We toed the line.

Ryan: So long as we didn't toad the wet sprocket.

Caroline: I was always curious how they decided on that name.

Ryan: Weed was involved. And no doubt coke.

Caroline: Don't they cancel each other out when taken together?

Ryan: It makes you super imaginative, with the ambition to do something about it.