My New Favorite Place...Flooded and is Ruined

We recently had the honor of a once-in-a-lifetime (unless you live in a flood plain) flood in Oshkosh and our basement was blessed with some sump pump overflow. It was, to say the least, really awesome. Here are a few pictures of the water party...























































There is a silver lining, though, to all this. It has gotten me one step closer to a house without any carpeting. I haven't lived any place with carpeting for a while and now I remember why I hate it so much. Also, we paid the $110 a year fee for the sump pump overflow insurance, so instead of being stranded we have enough to take care of pretty much everything that we lost... That, in this first year of marriage, is the sole occasion I can recall where my judgment won out over Corrine's (she suggested we didn't need it). I will revel in this meaningless and stupid victory...and then start cleaning the basement floor with acrid chemicals.

Oh, Come On...

If another president is elected in America via fear-mongering (what else can explain the support of this kind of shit?), I will be very, very tempted to relinquish what's left of my faith in the American people...and I really don't want that to happen. I care very much about this increasingly ridiculous country. I know there are huge swaths of people who haven't lost their critical faculties, so why does anyone buy into the notion that federal agencies can ever override the judicial system entirely? For all those people who, like completely illiterate fools, keep insisting the judicial branch is re-writing the Constitution, look at the executive one. The whole system is losing its efficacy because the President thinks he's a monarch, not because courts have made certain rulings people don't like. If you can't tell, I'm nearing the end of my rope on subjects like these.... (Here's to hoping the article was monstrously inaccurate in terms of McCain's real thoughts on the subject...)