Lookit

Please tell me he’s in it for the hoohah, because I ain’t hearing nothing else about it.

Been up since freakin’ 6 ayem this morning to cover an informational picket out in Porter County, so I kinda got nothin’ tonight. But his gives me a chance to post more pictures from the gig, these being of the newlywedded Mr. and Mrs. Opie, aka the cutest couple in the universe (and remember, you heard it hear hear heer HERE first) (See? I’m so tired I can’t even spell.):

Another title having nothing to do with my entry, other than the people who need to know what I’m talking about do. It’s funner that way sometimes.

Except for the Martin funeral, however, there really isn’t much to dish about—that is, unless you count the complete wang Gary Mayor Rudy Clay left in my mouth after his ugly show of ego at Martin’s wake Sunday. MerFer rolls up in his Mayoral Hummer, assistant and bodyguard/driver in tow, and waltzes up to the front of the line and bypasses the hour and a half wait the rest of us had. Yeah, I know this guy thinks he’s a marked man since someone’s tried to shoot him up once already; whatever. No one’s going to convince me that he and Gary Martin were THAT good of friends that he should’ve been given rights reserved to the family, close friends or even the sheriff. I mean, Hobart Mayor Linda Buzinec stood in line maybe 15, 20 people ahead of me—you didn’t see HER taking advantage of her position. Neither did any of the law enforcement officers who attended, at least none that I saw. Tool.

I do get to write a Political Notebook item out of it, though, and that’s always fun because you get to be as snarky as you wanna.

Here’s me and my pal Di at my favorite coverband, Bite the Lime’s (BtL), inaugural performance at Northwoods in Schererville. And I don’t even look particularly huge, amazingly enough.

And I don’t like it one bit.

That is all.

I forgot aaaaalllll about it after all was said and done.

that I ganked from the lovely Bumptious and have been dying to use, but did y’all hear about the 24 morons that got busted in NWI for wanting to have sex with kids?

Without endorsing sex with underage children whatsoever (because I absolutely DO NOT), why would anyone try to solicit underage sex on the Internet? It’s bad enough having to wonder if the person you’re talking to online is actually who they say they are, so why would you compound the anxiety by doing something you’re likely going to get busted for sooner or later!?? Is there some sexual turn-on of which I’m unawares?

My girls’ story after the jump:

Here’s my day: Former Lake County Police Chief Gary Martin and ISP Trooper Lt. Gary Dudley were killed in a vehicle accident while biking for their annual charity ride that raises money for the fallen officers’ families across Indiana. Haven’t gotten all the details, but preliminary reports say that someone crashed into the cyclists’ supply truck, causing the truck to smash into the cyclists. Three other cyclists were injured in the accident, as was the driver that caused the crash.

I was just with these guys Sunday covering their stop in Merrillville. They were healthy, happy, exhausted but no worse for the wear. I joked with Martin about his goatee and earring (his “teaching persona,” he called it, as he was about to step back into the classroom to teach fledgling cops), and how he left his wife after their daughter’s wedding Saturday to rejoin the ride. I kidded Dudley about being “the brains of the operation.” And I said “Hello” and shook the hand of the guy who drives the supply truck—can you even imagine how HE feels right now!?? Good God. It wasn’t even his fault. All I can say is, I sure hope the person who hit them wasn’t drunk, because woe unto him if he was.

The Baby had him as a teacher when she was in undergrad, and she loved him. She was pretty distraught when I talked to her last. I’m just kind of stunned by it; I mean, I just saw these guys, and now they’re gone. I HATE when that happens.

Anyway, if any of y’all are so inclined to donate to their mission, you can either call (219) 755-3400 or go to the C.O.P.S Web site: Lookit.

Yesterday was a day for emotional drainage, I’ll tell you what. The fun stuff: Poppy had a 3-D ultrsound and invited me to come along with her, the hub and fam. My (childless) verdict: I highly recommend them to all the preggos out there, if for nothing else than to see your child 1) not do what the tech wants, such as stop hiding her face behind her hands and knees, and 2) flip everyone off in a very subtle way for even suggesting she listen. Seriously, though, we were all awed by the moving and the cuteness and stuff. I’m glad she let me come along for the ride. I still say, however, that what the tech called “lost data” on the sprog’s cranial region is actually a head full of dark hair that has been causing Pop hellacious heartburn, and that baby’s going to come out with a Fraggle poof. Betcha a dollar.

So after all that excitement, I watched Flight 93 all the way through for the first time. My first reaction: The only reason this is up for six Emmys or whatever is because of the subject matter, not because it’s fantastically acted or put together or anything. That, though, didn’t make it any less difficult to watch, and I found myself completely wrung out and fired up at the same time—wrung out because it brought back my day that day (a meaningful day in my life for various and sundry reasons), and fired up because I found myself wanting to fuck with some terrorists. Seriously. All I could sit there and think was, “The actions the passengers took that day—regardless of how many lives they ended up saving by diverting the plane from its target or whether the plane was already going down because the terrorist pilot was a dumbass or whatever—really put a wrench in the terrorists’ plan, and I SO would want to be responsible for that should I ever be on a plane overrun with the pigfuckers.” Saving hundreds of other people? Yeah, ok, whatever. That’s great. I want to make sure these fuckers die failures.

So all you terrorists out there, take note: Y’all ought to be real glad I don’t travel by air often, because should we ever get stuck on a plane together? You’re going to have to kill me first, because I’m going to make your mission a living hell to execute.

Our good buddy mac posted a little something about some broad who got busted for smuggling heroin by—get this—soaking her unnywears in it. Managed to get, like, three pounds into 15 pair of assorted panties and long johns and shit, right? So here’s my question: How the hell do you get the heroin back OUT of the unnywears*? Seriously.

Waiting for Mother while she had her semi-annual doctor check-up, I was totally rockin’ out with the ol’ iPod, and have you ever had that thing where you think you know the lyrics to a song that you’ve heard a zillion times on the radio, only to find out that you really didn’t and wow! that’s a really good song? I had that moment today with “Brian Wilson” by the Barenaked Ladies. And it’s not like I haven’t heard the song a zillion times; I do have their excellent first album, Gordon. But I guess having ear pods crammed in your ears and blasting the music straight into your brain puts a whole new perspective on things, because that’s a really good song. It did occur to me, however, that BNL does sing a lot about mental health. As proof, I give you the lyrics to “Brian Wilson,” because I’m sure you didn’t actually listen to them and commit them to memory long before I did:

Since I’m on my college newspaper nerdfest these days, here’s a story about the time I had a cartoon drawn about me. No, no, don’t get all excited; it’s not a happy story. See, there was this guy who was on the paper with us knuckleheads, a rather talented bloke who served as our design chief. He and I were a year apart and went to the same high school, and he was fun-loving and wonderful and an all-around great guy. In fact, the two of us to see Van Halengar together and had a fantastic time, even after his car broke down on the road and we had to hitch a ride in the back of a pickup to get to the show. It was all good.

Well, the college newspaper being what it was, and all us knuckleheads being in our early 20s with maybe the sense God gave a goat, drama of only the most vicious kind nerds can dream up ensued, and through the fallout this guy made the rest of us sworn enemies—so much so that he transferred to the other commuter campus we have in the good ol’ County of Lake and became a cartoonist for them. And in one of his cartoons, he fashioned a character that not only looked like me, but hit a little too close to home with the insider information, if you catch my drift. Didn’t mention my name, though. Now, I’d heard about the cartoon at some point after it ran in the other campus paper, but I didn’t actually see it until several years after it and all the ensuing drama were semi-distant memories.

Perhaps it was a delayed reaction, but I remember being fairly outraged by the whole thing. I mean, here was a cartoon character that absolutely looked like me and was sharing not-so-thinly veiled information about me to all of Lake County (or at least the people who went to this other campus and actually read their rag)—of COURSE everyone was going to know it was me from looking at that cartoon, even though my name wasn’t attached to it. DUH, right!??


(Whatever, man. Rock on with that sense of self-importance.)

Anyway, I’m bringing y’all this story because for the first time since I rented my space here on the Innerbunny, my peeps have been kind of wiggin’ about it and what I may or may not be writing about people. And I understand that if you can recognize yourself in something, there’s a chance that other people will, too, and people as a rule want to control the message that’s put out about them. I work with it every single day of my life, so believe me, I get it.

But.

The reason I started blogging—aside from the fact that I write so devoid of character in my everyday life, I wanted to see what my voice sounds like now that most of the creativity has been pounded out of my brain; and that I, like 99.99999999 percent of all other bloggers out there, am vain and more-than-slightly exhibitionist—is because I like having a place where I can share my life and the goings-on in it as I see them. And if I talk about the people in my life as they relate to me and my goings-on, I’m allowed to do that, at least to the point that I’m not putting them in danger or sharing things they want kept secret. Really, it’s no different than me talking to any one of my closest friends, except for the fact that here, I keep real names out unless I either have people’s permission to use real names (like Tara and Kaffy) or they have a documented, public reputation. The other thing with which I take great pains is that anyone who interacts with me is likely not going to be surprised by anything I have to say here, because it’s pretty much the same thing that I’ve said to everyone else a million times already.

All of this to say, as much as we think we’re that important, the Innerbunny really is a vast wasteland where nobody really knows anyone, so it’s likely that no one’s going to know who you are.

Amalah (The Queen of Everything) has a really good discussion on depression going on over at her crib today: Lookit. Especially good is that no trolls have come by to piss up the rope, though now that I’ve said something, betcha someone will be a dumbass. At any rate, it’s worth a look.

For the last seven, eight years, all the fashion mags have proclaimed OPI’s ”I’m Not Really a Waitress“ nail color as the gold standard of reds. And it’s a fine red, not too blue, not too orange. I have a bottle of it or two myself.

Anyway, I would’ve wholeheartedly continued the endorsement, but there’s a better choice out there. Behold: 

of what it says that, aside from the abundant fecal references, I really didn’t hate Joe Dirt?