I was walking through Rite Aid (grr... I hate that place) when I just so happened to glance over and see these bad boys. I did a double take, then I cracked up and took out my camera. It wasn't easy to get a good picture with out getting busted in there, but here ya go. The entire Nads family.

I always wondered how dudes shaved their balls.

I watched that movie, Children of Men, last night.  I fully expected to see a bunch of pregnant men walking around trying to squirt a baby outta their pee holes.  You can imagine my disappointment.  But then I realized there was something else wrong with the movie.  Twenty years from now the world has disintegrated into chaos, terrorism, and non-stop destruction.  WTF? 

Where’s that “My Future’s so Bright’ dude?   I think we could use a dose of optimism

Another strange story is in the news today.  A man brandishing a replica samurai-style sword, and a toy gun walked into the Dreyer’s Ice Cream plant Wednesday morning and started threatening people with it.  Of course they did what any one would do – they laughed at him.  He didn’t care for that.  When another employee asked him ‘what was up’ replied, “I'll show you what's up” and smashed a Plexiglas display case. Ooooo scary. Next he grabbed a woman and put the sword to her throat, and she was all ‘Dude, I think you cut me’ then she walked off to find a band aid.  (Oh my gawd, too funny.)  It gets better.

Another employee traps the guy in a small storage room and begin begins to spray him with water from a hose.  (hahahahaha)  While he’s being hosed down, the guy continues “jabbing his sword through the seam between the double doors.”  (hahahahahah!)  Then, the dude drops his toy gun and it shatters on the ground.  (hahahahahaha.) Sounds like a scene from a Mel Brooks movie. 

Want to know the funniest part of the news article?  One of the men that helped subdue Mr. Coocoo was quoted as saying, “This is Bakersfield, This kind of stuff happens somewhere else.”

Actually dude, this is exactly the kind of stuff that happens here.

I was catching up on some blog reading this morning when I came across this post about anti Bush slogans. (I like #24.) One of them reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw recently. I tried to get a picture of it, but they got away before I could. The sticker read, “If you can read this, Thank a Teacher. If you’re reading it in English, Thank a Solider.” Okay, that’s nice and all and I understand the sentiment, but come on… the sticker is written in English. It’d be kind of hard to read it in German.

The jury returned with the death sentence for Vincent Brothers, so off to death row he goes.  It’s not too surprising, I mean, the dude did kill his whole family.  But it’s a little frustrating because we all know he will most likely die of old age before they ever execute him.  So what’s the point?  It costs more to house an inmate on death row.  Why not just give him 5 consecutive life sentences and let him rot? 

Personally, I don’t believe in the death penalty no matter what.  It doesn’t make sense to me say it’s against the law to kill someone, and then turn around and kill someone.  I understand the desire some people feel for revenge.  I’m sure I’d want to choke the life out of anyone who hurt my son.  And I can sort of see giving the death penalty to really heinous serial killers. But considering how expensive it is to execute someone and house them on death row, it makes more sense to me to just lock them up and throw away the key.  Sounds a lot more like a punishment than a quick and painless death.  (Although I hear the jury is still out on how painless the lethal injection really is.)

Of course if people around here had their way they’d just drag the ol boy out in the street and hang ‘em.  Or at least that’s how some people over on the Bakersfield.com blogs were talking. 

It’s frightening really how bloodthirsty some people can be.

You know it’s time to worry about the people in your community when the paper publishes an article telling them they “need to cross roads only at street corners and marked crosswalks, and drivers, if they do hit someone, need to stop.”  Gee, ya think? 

I don’t think it’s all that surprising we’ve had an increase in hit and runs given the population explosion in Bakersfield over the past few years.  More drivers equals more drivers who shouldn’t be driving.  Period.  If you have to be told to stop after you run someone down in the road, you just shouldn’t be driving.

The same goes for the idiots wandering around in the streets.  I saw a woman jaywalking on 34^th Street the other day with her two teenaged children in tow.  When a car slowed down lest run them over, she actually glared at the driver and deliberately slowed her pace. I felt like hitting her myself.  Not with the car of course.  More of a slap upside the head. 

Nice way to teach your children how to cross the street.

So I was talking about the song with Paul yesterday asking him, as an only child, why he thought the boy was so lonely. I sang the song to him since he wasn’t familiar with it and about half way through Paul said, “There’s your answer.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He’s lonely because his parents taught him to fight, so now he’s alienated and doesn’t have any friends” he responded logically.

I love my kid.

There’s a man that I work with who does something strange every day.  Or at least I think it’s strange.  He’s a nice man and I like him.  Every morning when I walk into work he is sitting in the same spot and I say, “Good morning Jake” and he says, “Good morning Bake!” and that’s it.  That is the extent of our relationship, and I like it that way.  But I have to admit I am dying to ask him about the strange thing he does.

The strange thing he does is word searches.  Everyday he sits there with his Big Book O’ Word Searches and circles letters.  Every few days he has a new book.  Obviously there are stranger things out there, but just don’t get the point of word searches.  Crossword puzzles – okay, I get that.  But word searches??  There is absolutely no value to them, and this dude is hooked on them.  Granted there are worse habits.  Crack.  Hookers.  Peanut butter. Whatever.  Those habits I can understand.  But word searches?

The only thing word searches are good for is straining the eyes

The big news in town today is that the majority of the people who live here don’t hate it! Wow! In fact, according to the survey conducted by the Kern Council of Governments, 65.8 percent of the people surveyed would rate the “overall quality of life” as an A or a B! In your face Bako haters.

The paper printed a few quotes from the pollsters on what they thought could be done to improve things around here. One not so bright fellow said, “Send the illegals back because they are taking over the place. It’s like Tijuana.” I hope he’s happy they didn’t publish his name along side this asinine comment. Another not so bright person said the thing that will make Bakersfield a better place is “adding more shops.”

Screw the air quality – give us more franchise merchandise!

*****

The media has been all up in Tom Sizemore’s grill ever since he was arrested here earlier this month. There’s a picture of him on the front page of the paper surrounded by a bunch of news hounds sticking mics in his face. He has a look on his face like he’d love to shove those mics straight up their collective asses.

Sizemore was all smiles at his arraignment yesterday but the judge quickly wiped that smirk of his face. First he warned Sizemore to stop talking to his friend, then he had him removed. The he chewed out Sizemore’s attorney for being late saying, “Here in Kern County we expect you to be on time.” Whatever. From my experience they want everybody there at 8:00 a.m. so they can hurry up and wait all damn day. I don’t know why they get so pissed when people are late knowing that there’s a freakin’ train track between the parking lot and the courthouse.

It’s kind of hard to dodge a train.

Photographic proof that Bakersfield is behind the times when it comes to recycling. This is a recycling container on the corner in Ventura.

I wonder how many years it’ll be before see something like this here.

The lawyer who was drunk, hopped up on drugs, carrying a sawed off shot gun, and killed a sheriff’s deputy has filed a claim against the county of Kern.  Daniel Willsey claims the county owes him for “numerous broken bones and internal injuries, loss of his vehicle and damage to his career and reputation.”  He also claims the accident was not his fault.  He believes it was the sober sheriff’s deputy who is to blame. 

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Daniel’s brother Steven Willsey, has also filed a claim against the county.  Another attorney, Burke Willsey filed the claims on behalf of the two men.  (Willsey...that name sounds familiar…)  According to the paper, when a reporter called the attorney to question him about the claim he said, “The claims speak for themselves” then he hung up on him.

Clearly these Willsey’s have not been paying attention to the news from Bakersfield.  The last people you want to piss off in this town are law enforcement and the media.  He

A local family is suing the Bakersfield City School district after they were told their son and his helper dog are not welcome at school.  (Sounds very Mary Had a Little Lamb doesn’t it?)  The funny thing is the boy went to Thorner Elementary and the dogs name is Thor!  I don’t see why they couldn’t just make the dog their mascot and call it day.

The boy uses the dog to help with his autism.  His parents say the difference the dog has been remarkable.  Unfortunately too many people still associate service animals only with the blind.  According to the Delta Society,  these animals can be trained to help people with spinal cord/head trauma (injury, stroke),  visual or hearing deficits, arthritis,  ataxia/poor balance, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy,  spina bifida, seizure disorders, cardio/pulmonary disease, Arteriovascular disease (primary or secondary to diabetes, etc.),  and psychiatric disabilities just to name a few. 

Maybe it’s time for the Bakersfield City School District to start educating themselves.

I had the pleasure of dining with JR of Illpressed fame last Friday. We keep on trying to have sushi but our efforts continue to be thwarted one way or another, so we finally just went to Mama Roomba’s. Not that Mama Roomba is a place to be settled for. I love it and I was thrilled to learn it was Jesse’s first time. We sat outside because it was a beautiful day and immediately ordered mojitos.

Jesse didn’t care for it as much as I did because he said he was worried about getting green mint leaves caught in his teeth. He’s very priggish like that.

They had a special that night of seared scallops, so of course we ordered it. It was excellent.

Despite the fact that Jesse was cheating on his diet and I was starving, we still didn’t manage to eat it all. Perhaps that was because were too busy talking.

Thanks Jesse! I had fun!!

Remember those crazy stickers that used to come in MAD Magazine? Here's a few more.

Thanks to my friend in San Diego, I just learned about the Bead for Life organization.    I just ordered two necklaces.  I’d love to see this idea spread.   Now you men out there can’t say you don’t know what to get your wife. 

What woman isn’t going to love the idea of helping other women across the world?

I about had a heart attack when I saw the front of the paper today. Right smack in the middle is a picture of a couple of teenagers in front of a giant truck.  According to the article, the truck was purchased for the boy at a price of $60,000.  It uses $1,000 worth of gas every month.

If you don’t see something wrong with this I don’t want to talk to you.

A couple thousand freshmen in Bakersfield are sweating like crazy right about now.  Last night district trustees voted unanimously to hold kids back who don’t complete their 9^th grade requirements.   Before now, there were no requirements to move from one grade to the next.  Does that sound crazy to anybody else besides me?

I’ve been wondering for a long time how a kid can get all the way to high school and not be able to read or do basic math.  How the hell did they get out of grade school?  There’s a lot of talk about our kids graduating from high school without some very basic skills, but that doesn’t make sense to me.  Shouldn’t they have those basic skills BEFORE they get to high school?  How are the teachers supposed to teach the higher level classes if the kids can’t read?

I guess there is some stigma to holding children back.  I personally don’t get it because I was held back in the third grade.  If fact, I was famous for being the girl who got held back.  It didn’t bother me.  Of course, I didn’t get held back because I didn’t pass.  My parents chose to have me repeat the third grade because I was very young and very small.  Very, very small.  The other kids carried me around like a doll.  The school and the district didn’t want to let me repeat the third grade and my parents had to fight them to make it happen, but I’m glad they did.  If they hadn’t held me back I think I would have done as well in school as I did.   Largely because I met my best friend Flo and she was smart (Still is.  Dr. Flo)

I just can’t believe the first district to start doing something about children failing is the high school district.  When are the elementary schools going to step up and stop this nonsense?

According to the paper the last time the city plan was edited was back in 2002. The people involved with the plan were, “a sparse collection of environmentalists, developers, and ‘smart growth’ leaders.” Local politicians approved the plan creating urban sprawl, traffic congestion, and decreased air quality. Nice works guys.

Let’s hope the next plan will be a better one.