Who Wants Ice Cream?

[A nice picture of Santiago de Chile and the Andes -- thanks to Marce for sending me the link. Some more images of the city here. Not related to the rest of this post, but I just wanted to pass it along anyway.]

I was going to rant about Ted Kulongoski today, but I'm not in a sufficiently sour mood to really pull it off. I mean, by all accounts he's a very nice man. Kind to animals, a friend to all, always has the very best of intentions, and all that. When he goes to Iraq with other state governors, he makes sure they all have ice cream cones. So he's definitely every kid's ideal grandpa. That much is clear. But governor? I've never figured out why he wanted the governor's chair. Maybe just to collect the whole set, I dunno. All I know is that whenever I see the guy on TV, bumbling around cluelessly in yet another goofy publicity stunt, I end up shouting out "Who wants ice cream?". Which I realize isn't very good of me, considering what an impeccably nice person he is.

Also, he's a much better bowler than I am. I have to give him that.

In the end, he'll probably get reelected regardless, following a somewhat close shave in the May primary. The R's will undoubtedly nominate yet another cross-burnin' Jesustani knuckle-dragger, maybe even Mannix again (but only because Sizemore isn't running), and Teddy will slink back into office as the lesser of two evils, with much emphasis on lesser. Which is the usual way D's eke out victories here. But hey, we're a minor-league state. We don't have a deep talent pool to draw from.

So anyway, like I said, I'm not going to go off on a rant about Mr. Nice Guy today, not at all. Instead, here are a few random fun tidbits, some of which I found on ORblogs, others not.

• Some examples of a photographic technique known as tilt shift, which lets you take a real photo and make it look like a fake model. Freeeaky...
  
• Speaking of, uh, fake models, here's a tidbit about Jessica Simpson's snub of GWB. By doing this, she's taking a far stronger stand than oh, say, Ted, for example. But no ranting, sorry. I mean it.
  
• The American Cheese Society is having their convention in Portland in late July. Who wants cheese? I want cheese. Mmm.... Cheeeeese......
  
• As if we needed more evidence why hockey is the One True Sport, the local minor-league team in Las Vegas will be handing out Cheney-spoofing "hunting vests" that read "Don't Shoot, I'm Human".
  
• A fun new reason to move to the Netherlands.
  
• The latest NASA research on the cosmic microwave background, because it's been days since I've tried to antagonize creationists, and it never stops being fun.
  
• A post singing the praises of Portland's Tanner Springs Park. I couldn't disagree more. As far as I can tell, the main reason the park's supposed to be so wonderful is because of all the endless committee meetings it's made possible. The aging boomers of the Pearl would never admit to this, but I really think the park is a sign of their collective slide into cranky geezerdom, a chance for people without lawns to say "Get off my lawn, you !$%& kids!".
  
• The latest news about lovelorn rhesus monkeys in China. Because everybody loves monkeys, right? I bet ol' Teddy takes a principled stand in favor of monkeys, at least the ones the focus groups like. This is easy for Ted because we don't have any monkeys here, and therefore we have no rich anti-monkey lobbyists to appease. Oh, wait. No ranting, I forgot. Sorry. I mean it.
  

big mass-o-tags: kulongoski oregon mannix sizemore santiago chile cheese jessica simpson bush iraq cheney hockey monkey china