Spent the day in court, but in the end the major accomplishment was setting a new date to continue the matter until October. Tomorrow I go downtown for my semi-regular lecture on flossing.

I hate going to the gym when I’m on call because I don’t want to be one of those people I hate who think they need to carry their cellphone in a gym (or library or theater or many other places for that matter). On the other hand, being respectful of others just adds to the annoyance I feel toward the cube when I’m on call. It also pisses me off that I can’t go swimming after hours this week since I’m afraid I’ll either miss a call or trash another office pager.

But in just four short days a long weekend will be upon us. Super-secret plans are made; sun will be felt upon the body and pictures will be taken. I will be free of the tether. These weeks on call really make me appreciate Pongo that much more, because leashes really suck. Everyone should have a yard in which to run around nekkid, or at least a psychological equivalent (especially if you’re prone to sunburn).

Also, with $3.00 per gallon gas now all but inevitable here in SoCal, these refuges must be local. It takes $40 dollars now to fill the tank on the cubemobile and I’m too cheap to even let Nissantruck out of the garage.

In one last note as the mood pendulum swings back to happy, I’m assuming friends in New Orleans are alive, well and far away from their home since they were getting set to evacuate Saturday. But someone should drop a note. Hasta pronto.

Enjoyed watching the MSNABCNNFoxetal fear mongers on the screens above the elliptical trainers that the gym this afternoon.

I view it kind of like watching bullfighting, which I do. These little people with perfect hair are trying to stand up to an incredible natural force. Sure, they’ve slanted the odds and will probably survive, but there’s always hope. Someday the odds will play out and we’ll see some fearmonger (weather-specialist fearmonger to be specific) killed by a flying tree or swept out to sea by a rogue wave. LIVE and EXCLUSIVE only on the MSNABCNNFoxetal! There’s always got to be hope, or there’s just no reason to keep watching.

On a related note, was anyone else surprised to see Shrub announcing the evacuation. Not the fact there is an evacuation – I think everyone in electoral politics is jumping on that bandwagon today – but the fact that he was announcing a destination. Has he ever disclosed a destination before? Did Homeland Security clear this release?

Scorching hot on a weekend I’m both on call and buring with moonlighting work. The apartment’s been a sauna the last two days, but I’ve been hiding in the air-conditioned cube and little Pongo’s just suffered through. Since I’m working at home today though, I broke down and turned on the little window A/C. It only cools one-third of my apartment, merely turning it on triggers a direct tap from SDGE to my checking account, and the wiring in this apartment is so old there’s a 20% chance I’ll trip a circuit breaker by trying to use both it and the computer at the same time, but I’m a wimp. Sure briefing cases in the boxers sounds like a decent lifestyle choice, and is one I’ve embraced at times, but the uncovered flesh still sticks to the chair and the sweat dripping on the keyboard is probably just as bad for it as all the other fluids spilled on it over the years. So as Quicken shovels cash like an ancient locomotive’s engineer shoveled coal and I turn off all the electrics I can on the west side of casa, I’ve got a cool breeze for a while.

But once I make decent progress on the work, I’ll find another way to stay cool. Whatever it takes, it doesn’t matter if I look pretty anymore – everything’s about the personal comfort.

Three weeks reprieve, but its back. My one-week-out-of-four electronic tether to the cube farm has been reattached to my hip. Expect moodiness accompanied by minor depression through next Friday.

Put ‘em on display. Take away their privacy and make them stay just out of reach of those tasty tourists. It’s about time someone had a fair and balanced exhibit on mammals, even if this one’s concept of ‘natural habitat’ seems a bit off.

If you are human and tried to post a comment here in the last twenty four hours, please keep in mind I’ve had to go through more than seventy spam comments in the moderation cue since I woke up this morning and may have gotten a little overzealous. If a real comment has somehow become collateral damage, you have our apologies.

Always amazed at how much a good swim can change the mood around.

Interesting reading the news that the California Supreme Court had confirmed the existence of both the rights and duties of parents in (or formerly in) same-sex relationships. All three cases involved lesbian couples, but one in particular stood out to me: Elisa B. Elisa and Emily were in a relationship and had three children through artificial insemination, including twins carried by Emiy, one of whom was born with Down’s Syndrome and other medical problems. The couple eventually separated, and Elisa supported Emily and the twins for a while, but eventually stopped. She claimed she could no longer support them financially, though at the time of trial she was earning $95,000 per year. Emily, burdened with caring for the twins, eventually went on welfare.

Here’s where the case gets interesting to me. The District Attorney of El Dorado County, a rural area home to 179,000 people on the Nevada border sues Emily on behalf of the county to recover their child support costs. Not a metropolitan politician looking for special interest points. Not some civil rights organization trying to make new law. A rural government that needs to recover costs and is willing to put aside what must have been some blistering religious-based opposition to do so.

This is the slippery slope the right has warned us about. Good, common folk in middle America accepting that homosexual relationships exist and placing them on equal legal footing with unmarried heterosexual couples. Or at the very least not willing to pay more taxes to maintain inequality. God forbid that good Americans in a county that gave 61% of its votes to Bush in 2004 be so open-minded and accepting – society is just skidding down that hillside out of control and it’ll be hell in a handbasket before we know what happened.

Just don’t have much to say. Why don’t you go read some great writers here or here? Don’t read much into the choices – they’re just what I happened to be reading this evening.

5 Men in a Limo. [via Nala]