I can’t believe it’s been over a week already since I’ve blogged, though honestly, I’d take it a lot more seriously to have 50 people a day coming here if 30 of them weren’t looking for ‘pee pictures’ and what not, or if anybody actually stayed longer than 30 seconds. (If you’re a real live regular who comes here to see what I’ve got to say, please do sign the guestbook or vote for baths vs. showers or something.)

It’s almost midnight here, so just in case I don’t get time to write about some of the things that are on my mind, I’m going to start with a long list of Linky-Doodles&#153:

• Dennis Miller used to be so cool – what happened?
• Spot the Fake Smiles – I got 17 out of 20, and I’m a schlemiel, a schlimazel, I’m tryin’ to say I’m a real schmuck – oh, wait, that’s right, I don’t know yiddish… I’m just a patsy. (Via The Presurfer)
• Einstein’s Theory in Words of Four Letters or Less (Via Reality Carnival)
• Did Edison really Invent the Lightbulb?
• Does this parrot really talk? (On a related note, the rumors that Churchill’s 104 year old pet parrot was still suggesting we ‘f**k the Nazis’ has since been discredited).
• Confessions of a Car Salesman.
• I’ve got a bunch of personnel stuff I’m behind on at work, and I think I really need to reread this article on How to Manage Smart People.
• One of my heroes from a long ways back is a man named Win Wenger who wrote a book on increasing your intelligence that I read back in 1980 when I was a college freshman at Iowa State. Here’s some music he’s improvised directly to tape as a creativity exercise, and I haven’t decided yet if there’s any point to it.
• Here’s an inventor who’s Imagination Engines create new inventions for him.
• Turns out there was this guy, Raymond Loewy (1929-1986) who was an incredibly influential industrial designer – cars, logos, furniture, appliances, Lucky Strikes cigarette package, Airforce One’s paint job, etc. Here’s his sketch for the Exxon logo.

OK, I promised myself that I wouldn’t blog about Janet Jackson’s half-time indiscretion, because frankly, I’m waiting for her to go full-time, but these two parodies that are going around are pretty hard to pass up – Face on Mars… Coincidence? and Amateur Gourmet’s Cupcakes.

Here’s the actual transcript of Dubya’s Meet the Press interview that everyone’s reading. It took me about 15 or 20 minutes to read it, because Bush is basically, well, I was going to say ‘incoherent,’ but I’m going to pull out all the stops and call him ‘inchoate,’ which is a word I’d hoped I’d never have to use to describe a president, so let me explain, no wait, there’s not enough time, let me sum up:

Russert: So, you’re blowing smoke about inviting a special investigation into the lack of legitimate intelligence going into the war with Iraq?

Dubya: That’s right. It turns out there was no threat, and there were no weapons, and I had no support from the international community or the UN, but let’s back up for a second – it was still the right thing to do.

Russert: Senator Kerry is promoting the idea that you weren’t a very good National Guardsman, not showing up for duty, going AWOL, etc.

Dubya: Well, I’ve destroyed or hidden all the records, so “Bring it on!”

Russert: We can’t help but notice that the economy is in the toilet and you’ve singlehandedly turned a tidy $281 billion surplus into a $521 billion deficit. The debt has gone from 5.7 trillion, to $7 trillion – up 23 percent.

Dubya: Hey, you can’t pin that on me – I was only in office 3, maybe 4 months when all that stuff started to happen, so it’s Bill’s fault. And that deficit is how us patriots fight evil the American way, so suck it up.

Russert: So no more tax cuts until we balance the budget?

Dubya: What? Are you crazy? Read my lips.