Now this puts a whole new twist to the old phrase: “Have a Coke and a smile.”

I’m off to go pick up the Venomous Daughter and Kelley at the airport. Don’t expect to hear much out of me until Sunday. We’ll be too busy having fun.

Look out Romeo and Juliet, you’ve been upstaged. Here in the 21st century, your long-held title to the “most romantic fictional couple” has been usurped by… Marge and Homer Simpson. (What do you expect? That “forsooth” stuff is nothing compared to Homer’s language of love.) Doh!

Tired of diets that don’t work? I know I am. That’s why I’m giving serious thought to going on “the Preschooler Diet".

It works like this:

For breakfast, you have a small Barney-bowl full of Cheerios with 2 percent milk, four banana slices on the side and a sippy cup of orange juice. Using a spoon with a blue rubber handle, eat half the cereal and dribble the rest of it down your chin and onto your shirt. Take two big sips of juice, try to gargle with it and then laugh convulsively, causing the juice to shoot out your nose. Mash the banana slices into the table with your fingers.

Lunch is a Bob-The-Builder bowl of Spaghetti-Os (fortified with calcium), eight green beans and a cup-with-lid-and-straw full of milk. Eschewing the spoon with the red rubber handle, you eat the calcium fortified Spaghetti-Os with your hands. Wipe excess sauce from your hands onto your pants and make bubbles in your milk. Eat two and a half green beans and then try to force the rest into the straw. Blow with all your might into the green-bean-stuffed straw.

Your midafternoon snack can be any two of the following: Goldfish crackers, raisins, grapes (cut into eighths to avoid choking) or string cheese. You may have one sippy cup of half apple juice, half water. Eat crackers, raisins, grapes or cheese by tossing handfuls of them into the air and seeing how many you can catch with your mouth. Grind whatever you don’t catch into the carpet with your shoe.

Dinner consists of macaroni and cheese, peas and apple sauce. Refuse to eat your macaroni and cheese with only one utensil; instead use both a fork and a spoon. Alternate bites, first using the fork in your right hand and then using the spoon in your left. Eat the apple sauce only with the fork, dripping most of it through the fork prongs and onto your lap. Insert peas into nose.

From watching the Big-Eyed Boy’s eating habits, the description’s not that far off. They just left out the exercise part which involves climbing all over the furniture, tipping over the trashcan, jumping on the newly-made bed, tossing the folded laundry around the living room, painting the bathroom wall with urine, then running like hell to escape from Mom when she realizes what he’s accomplished while she showered.

We’ve all read “stupid criminal” stories. But what about “stupid victims"?

A hungry Argentine thief forced his way into a home on Friday to steal clothes and appliances – before sitting at the dinner table to demand the captive family cook him a proper meal.

“He ordered a steak and fried eggs. Afterward, he pulled the telephone out and tied the family up,” said the porter from the building in a posh neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

The thief then escaped.

Did you catch that? Bad enough they cooked the criminal food - and didn’t poison it (!) - but they had a damn phone and didn’t call the police!

Which just goes to prove what I’ve said before: sometimes crime is Darwinian selection in disguise.

Yet another “honor killing” gone awry.

Kelley is winding - and audblogging - her way across the nation with my daughter in tow, with an ETA in Honolulu around 11:30 p.m. (Hawai’i time) tonight. So far, she’s had no problem catching her first flight in Atlanta which took her through Chicago en route to Kansas City to pick up the Venomous Daughter. They made their connection to Denver, leaving only a stop in San Francisco before they head here. (Just checked: they’ll arrive in SF early, which means we might get another audblog entry after Kelley grabs a cigarette outside the airport.)

Yes, it’s a circuitous route. I have a feeling that tonight Kelley will retract her claim about loving to fly. Either way, I’m guessing that next time I book her a flight she’ll bring me more than three Tab sodas to ensure she gets a more direct route, don’t you?

Meanwhile, since Kelley and my little girl will be flying most of the evening (biologically late night for them, what with the time change), I figure we’ll have just enough time for dinner (and maybe one Venom & Blight) before they fall asleep. That’s probably a good thing since neither Kelley nor I want to be hungover when Wind Rider gets here tomorrow evening.

(FYI: Hotwire has some awesome last-minute deals if you want to get in on the Blogger Beach Bash!)

UPDATE (4:55 p.m. Hawai’i time): They’re in San Francisco. Just a few more hours until my two favorite females on the planet are here. Wheeeeee!

News flash: bored teens try more illegal substances in the summer.

Yeah, I wasn’t surprised much either.

Well, after last night’s entry concerning my Tab soda addiction - and withdrawals - I finally found a supplier that isn’t charging me an arm and a leg to ship it to the islands. Home Town Treats is sending me four 6-packs which should be here in time for my birthday on Tuesday. Yippee! Meanwhile, I’m giving serious thought to ordering three or four New Orleans mufallata sandwiches from them. They taste great with a Tab chase.

I’m so happy.

The latest perversion of the race card - found via Wizbang - involves a father who killed his 2-year-old child due to what his defense attorneys call “slave syndrome.”

Coined by Joy DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor in the Portland State University Graduate School of Social Work, the “slave syndrome” claims that because black slaves were never psychologically treated for traumas associated with slavery 150+ years ago, their descendants are now suffering post-traumatic stress disorder which prevents them from appreciating the horror of violence.

Needless to say, the syndrome hasn’t received much credibility among mental health professionals and, therefore, it’s not considered an acceptable defense in U.S. courts. But that may all change, and the judge in this abusive father’s case has left the door open for a “slave syndrome” defense if the defendant’s attorneys can show that not only is the syndrome valid, but that the defendant had it at the time of his child’s death.

The sick thing is that so much hooplah is surrounding this alleged syndrome, little attention is being paid to the real horror here.

The father is charged with murder by abuse in the June 30 death of his son, Ryshawn Lamar Bynum. An autopsy found the boy died of a brain injury and had a broken neck, broken ribs and as many as 70 whip marks on his legs, buttocks, back and chest that were of various ages.

“Slave syndrome” or a bastard who cruelly tortured and harmed an innocent child? You be the judge.

My name is Kate, and I’m a Tab addict.

It started out simply enough: a can here and there. Nothing big. When I was living in the Midwest, there was always plenty of Tab around. I’d share one with my friends, and once I even gave some to my oldest kid.

That was then.

Now where I live there’s no Tab soda. None. Nada. Zip.

I crave it, man. I dream of Tab. Sometimes, when the sunrise reflects on the ocean in a heavenly pink amid the white caps of the breaking waves, it reminds me of a can of Tab. Man, I miss that stuff. I always beg people who come to visit me to bring some Tab with them. “Hey,” I’ll tell them, “I’ll pay you back. I just need you to get me some. C’mon. Pleeeeeease?”

Some folks get it. My sister-in-law, for example, showed up with 4 12-packs in a spare suitcase. I was a happy camper, until I ran out.

Tomorrow Kelley gets here for a week. I needed an adult to accompany my daughter on her flight from Missouri and, since I have to buy a second ticket anyway, I figured I’d rather fly a friend out. After all, my birthday’s on Tuesday: what a way to treat myself, right? Kelley tells me she’s only bringing 3 cans of Tab. Three. Three!? Her carry-on is too small to fit more in. Man, talk about bummed out.

But there’s always Beverages Direct, right? Wrong. They only ship to the contiguous 48. I did manage to find one place that ships here, but for $35 in Tab the shipping was an additional $189.

So, I guess I’m going to have to resign myself to going through withdrawals. I doubt Betty Ford has a program for this, which means I’ll have to go it alone.

Poor Kelley. I get cranky when I jones.

(AP Photo)

Leave your caption in the comments. Winners announced Wednesday.

Damn it. Thanks to Mog I’ll never get this likeness of John Kerry out of my head!

Xrql has a quick but brilliant lesson in logic for those claiming that Saddam wasn’t involved in terrorism.

This one stands little chance of making it onto American televisions, and more’s the pity. Called The Sex Inspectors, the show is the brainchild of Mark Thompson, who is leaving England’s Channel 4 to work for the BBC. The show’s main attraction? Footage of couples who’ve been filmed having sex and whose performances are subsequently critiqued.

Couples featured in The Sex Inspectors will be guided by relationship guru and body language expert Tracey Cox, from BBC2’s Would Like to Meet, and the American sex columnist and broadcaster Michael Alvear. The finer points of what viewers will see are still to be finalised.

Daisy Goodwin, the editorial director at Talkback, said: “Everybody thinks other people are having better sex than they do - it’s one of the world’s great myths.

“This is partly to reassure them that they’re not and also to show them some things that might make things a little better. There will be footage that the inspectors analyse, but there will be pixellation. This isn’t a porn show by another name.”

Yeah. Sure.

But will it make BBC America?

Oh, Canada!

About 40 Marijuana Party candidates are running in Quebec. Another 25 are expected to run in Ontario, with seven other candidates campaigning in Manitoba.

St-Maurice says the only issue for his party is the legalization of marijuana.

The party is raising money for its election campaign by selling marijuana seeds.

Their slogan? Let’s Roll!

Really!

Good ol’ Cracker Jacks have returned to Yankee Stadium.

The snack mentioned in the lyrics to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” returned after it was briefly replaced this season by the competing caramel popcorn, Crunch ‘n Munch.

Yankees officials replaced Cracker Jack after Frito-Lay started packaging the 7-ounce size in bags, rather than boxes. Officials said the bags broke open and weren’t as popular.

They changed their minds after the decision drew the ire of baseball purists.

“The fans have spoken,” said the Yankees’ chief operating officer, Lonn Trost.

Roar!

As of May 25, North Koreans are prohibited by law from using cellular phones.

Experts believe North Korea had introduced the mobile technology to make communications convenient but later realised the device caused floods of foreign culture into the reclusive country, Yonhap (news agency) said.

No word on whether the law resulted in the sweeping cellphone turn-ins the government expected, but I’m guessing there’s one hell of a hot black market for prepaid calling plans there.

In a move that ought to appease those who say beauty pagents are denigrating toward women, China has decided to institute equal treatment by holding one for men as well.

The perfect male would be someone with the body of Sylvestor Stallone, the intelligence of Stephen Hawking and the money of Bill Gates, the (Beijing Weekend) paper said.

But in order not to narrow the field too much, the bar has been lowered and anyone who is at least 175 centimetres tall and willing to pay 100 yuan is accepted for the competition, it said.

Obviously, it’s not just single women who have to lower their standards about what constitutes the perfect man.

I always suspected it and now I have proof: one out of four of you reading Electric Venom are nuts.

All of my best stories start off with “first I had all these martinis….". I wonder if Jason Lewis’s best stories don’t start that way, too.

Jason Lewis is not a boy-toy - he just plays one on TV.

Lewis, best known for his role on “Sex & the City” as Kim Cattrall’s much younger love interest, filed suit Thursday against Absolut Spirits Co. for, among other things, exploiting his pretty face.

In an episode of “Sex & the City,” his character, Jerry Jerrod - who, like Lewis, is a successful model-turned-actor - posed for an Absolut Vodka ad that featured him naked on a bed with a bottle between his legs.

The 32-year-old stud agreed to do it on the condition that its use be strictly limited to the series. But he claims the distiller used the image on the Internet to promote its Absolut Hunk cocktail.

Lewis is particularly annoyed because he has studiously avoided modeling for tobacco and alcohol companies, at great financial sacrifice.

Well color me shaken. But not stirred.

At least the Swedes won’t have to go without when they forget their condoms.

Hoping to increase the awareness of contraception and stem the spread of sexually transmitted disease, the Swedish Organization for Sexual Education, or RFSU, said Thursday it plans to deliver condoms by car in a hurry.

Using the name Cho-San Express, the organization will have four cars loaded with condoms patrolling the streets of the capital, Stockholm, along with a pair of vehicles each in Goteborg and Malmoe, Sweden’s second and third-biggest cities.

For people in the mood but without any contraception, they can call the express and have a 10-pack of condoms delivered for about $6.66.

6.66?! Someone warn Jerry Falwell. It’s time to make his head explode.

(No pun intended, of course.)

Ever wanted to read the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci? Now you can, one page at a time, via an RSS feed found through Research Buzz.

Would the owner of a missing hand please get in touch with the NYPD?

New York police are searching for the owner of a severed human hand that dropped from the sky on to the deck of a boat.

The incident happened near the Lawrence Village Marina, on Long Island, where parties were taking place on a number of craft.

Police said the human hand mysteriously dropped out of the sky and hit the deck of one of the boats, says the New York Post.

Nassau Detective Sgt. John Azzata, said: “One owner was in the cabin when he heard a noise, goes out to check and finds the hand on the rear deck of the boat.

“At this point, we don’t have a clue where it came from. It’s a mystery.”

Great. Now even bars refuse to discriminate between male and female patrons.

Damn you feminazis.

Dear Stephen,

Here are those three little words I just know you’ll be thrilled to read: Green Point Mortgage.

Cheers,
Kate

Since I haven’t participated in a meme in a while - and since it’s too hot to think up something witty to write about (not to mention that 99.9% of the media and blogosphere have pissed me off today so I’m not interested in writing much at all) - so I figured I’d participate in this one.

1. Which political party do you typically agree with?
Typically, the Republican party although I often find myself jumping ship in favor of the lower-l libertarians.

2. Which political party do you typically vote for?
I vote based on the candidate’s platform, record and vision, which means I cross party lines at will.

3. List the last five presidents that you voted for.
(I’ve only been old enough to vote in 4 presidential elections.) Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush… which proves my point about crossing party lines.

4. Which party do you think is smarter about the economy?
Isn’t that oxymoronic? Economic intelligence requires making difficult decisions based on economic interests. Politicians make decisions based on political interests. Therefore, in general terms, politicians are incapable of exercising economic intelligence.

5. Which party do you think is smarter about domestic affairs?
For the most part, I’d say the Republican party. They at least seem to recognize that the nation’s taxes shouldn’t be used to redistribute wealth.

6. Do you think we should keep our troops in Iraq or pull them out?
Let’s see, it’s Wednesday, right? That’s the day I think our troops should stay until the country is secure and some form of government is in place. Ask me again tomorrow when my answer may change.

7. Who, or what country, do you think is most responsible for 9/11?
Who? I think it’s a shared fault between Islamic extremists for wanting it and making it happen, and the U.S. intelligence community for not preventing it.

8. Do you think we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
We found sarin. We’ve found nuclear-related materials. We’ll find the rest but looking for it is like, well, looking for a VW Beetle buried in the desert.

9. Yes or no, should the U.S. legalize marijuana?
Yes.

10. Do you think the Republicans stole the last presidental election?
Hell no. Get over it.

11. Do you think Bill Clinton should have been impeached because of what he did with Monica Lewinski?
Screwing interns or finding creative uses for a cigar are not impeachable offenses. Lying and perjury are.

12. Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good president?
No, but I think she’d make an excellent speedbump.

13. Name a current Democrat who would make a great president.
I can’t think of one. Then again, it seems that every time a Democratic politician becomes excellent, they switch to being a Republican.

14. Name a current Republican who would make a great president.
Condi Rice.

15. Do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion?
Yes, for the same reasons that I think marijuana and prostitution should be legal.

16. What religion are you?
My own flavor of Christian.

17. Have you read the Bible all the way through?
Several times.

18. What’s your favorite book?
Of the Bible? Or a book in general? Assuming the latter, the answer is The Poisonwood Bible, which one of my readers - Jerry - sent me last fall as a gift. (Hey, I kind of answered both questions, didn’t I?)

19. Who is your favorite band?
I listen to too many different styles of music to have a favorite band.

20. Who do you think you’ll vote for president in the next election?
President Bush.

21. What website did you see this on first?
Snooze Button Dreams.

School is over and summer vacations are starting. I’m not the only one who notices a correlation between these events and a dramatic reduction in hits.

Maybe I ought to go have sex with a senator or something. Whaddya think?

Honestly, this is the last thing I’ll ever say on the topic:

Ladies, get over yourselves!

That is all.

After six months of waiting, we’re finally learning just how many soldiers will be affected by the Army’s stop loss program. Back in December, when the measures were first announced, the DoD and Army refused to give specifics, leaving many of us to hope the measures were limited to a handful of vital MOS’s. Today it’s clear that’s not the case.

The announcement Wednesday, an expansion of a program called “stop-loss,” affects units that are 90 days or less from deploying, said Lt. Gen. Frank L. “Buster” Hagenbeck, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel.

It’s obvious from any day’s headlines that we’re undermanned in Iraq, and equally obvious that the shortage is due to the SecDef’s decision to ignore military experts’ advice concerning ground-troop deployment at the onset of the war in Iraq. Now those same ground troops - cut short in the beginning - must pay the price. It is, as former Army Captain Andrew Exum wrote in the New York Times, a shameful way to treat our troops.

These soldiers are falling victim to the military’s “stop-loss” policy — and as a former officer who led some of them in battle, I find their treatment shameful. Announced shortly after the 9/11 attacks and authorized by President Bush, the stop-loss policy allows commanders to hold soldiers past the date they are due to leave the service if their unit is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Military officials rightly point out that stop-loss prevents a mass exodus of combat soldiers just before a combat tour.

But nonetheless, the stop-loss policy is wrong; it runs contrary to the concept of the volunteer military set up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Many if not most of the soldiers in this latest Iraq-bound wave are already veterans of several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have honorably completed their active duty obligations. But like draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the additional needs in Iraq.[…]

These soldiers have already been asked to sacrifice much and have done so proudly. Yet the military continues to keep them overseas — because it knows that through stop-loss it can do so legally, and that it will not receive nearly as much negative publicity as it would by reinstating the draft.

Meanwhile, up to 6500 soldiers who have already retired may be involuntarily called back to duty as part of the Individual Ready Reserve pool.

Shameful.

At least there’s some indication that the DoD is considering the implementation of an idea I proposed back in August, albeit in different fashion.

The Army is also considering a plan to close its premier training center at Fort Irwin in California so the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the much-vaunted Opposition Force against which the Army’s tank divisions hone their combat skills, would be available for combat duty in Iraq.

No decision has been made on that plan.

Do it, Rumsfeld. But first, apologize and admit your mistake. There’s no shame in admitting you were wrong. The shame lies in making ill use of those who gladly volunteered to serve.

To: Britney Spears
CC: Christinia Aguilera, Pink, Beyoncee
From: The World

Your days of convincing our daughters to dress like tramps are numbered. Suggest you learn new fashion choices or you’ll find that the hand which ties the apron strings controls the purse strings, too.

Just two more days until Kelley is here! As if that wasn’t cool enough, guess who else is coming for drinks on the Venomous Lanai? You’ll never guess so I’ll give you a hint: Wind Rider. Ok, that wasn’t a very subtle hint but then again, I’m not known for my subtlety. I am known for my Venom & Blights, though. I wonder if they go with flan?