I was just so stoked when I spotted a link to this site on Powerline. This is the kind of sustained, withering assault I'd deliver if I had the time and a subscription to the San Antonio Express-News. Good entertainment!

I just didn't like MSN Spaces. Good thing nobody reads the blog or I would have lost readers.

If you want to catch December, it's over at http://spaces.msn.com/members/beingrupe/

So that's all well and good. Not much there! Lots of Christmas shopping, for food. Didn't do anything for New Year's as the usual New Year's crew is in Iraq. No, they're not military.

I'm going to Vegas at the end of January! No, I'm not one of those weirdos (I'm sorry, Mr. Reynolds and Ms K and Mr J) that will drop a line from San Antonio International along the lines of "I'm having to pay for this! And it's slow! Not wireless!" And then another one from whatever the airport is in Las Vegas that says "I've arrived in Las Vegas. There are slot machines in the terminal!" Rest assured, periodic notes throughout that weekend would be along the lines of:

• It's the Knife and Gun Show Weekend! I had the most fabulous boilermaker made from Whatever's Cheapest brand beer-and-whiskey!
• I'm so drunk right now.
  
• Blew my bankroll on craps. I had a system that was based entirely not on statistics so losing was impossible!
• Strippers! Strippers, strippers, strippers!
• I'm so drunk right now.

My mom (it's a rather large family thing, as Uncle Knifesmith is going to be at the Knife and Gun Show at the Excalibur, and the rest of the family glommed onto that as an excuse to go. I'm not staying in the Excalibur out of solidarity, though--NYNY!) called to tell me an aunt was going to get tickets for one of the Cirque du Whatnot "night" shows. Yes, I want to see bare boobies with my mom and dad and several aunts and uncles. Not to worry, my mom said, your father's going, and his mom's going to be there. Yes I want to see bare boobies with the aforementioned family people and my effing grandmother.

Jesucristo.

I don't understand the allure of the "night" shows at the hotel casinos, when there are real live strip clubs but a taxi ride away.

From Drudge.

All those little British kids from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" are looking forward to their royalties. Interesting reading--I always just assumed Roger Waters or whoever walked into a music school in London and said "Hiyo, chap! I need, hmm, let's call it 2 dozen singing children at my studio for a grand total of maybe 3 minutes, give or take? Right then. A good day to you!"

Which they could do these days. Yeah, hard to imagine there was a time when Pink Floyd was subversive.

And yeah, not having a firm mental picture of Roger Waters, it's mostly John Cleese ringing through my head. "Have you met the poor?"

Freakin' amazing. No indictment for Ron Segovia on that ridiculous apple-tossing thing a few months ago. BUT the internal affairs investigation is ongoing. What is up with that? I said at the time that this started ridiculous, and may have implied that it would get more ridiculous. It just got more ridiculous, and will be more ridiculous still when the BS report for this mockery is done with.

San Antonio politicians, I've found, have no capacity for shame.

So apparently my sister hadn't had a birthday party since she was 8. Just like my brother and I. So she had a pretty nice little soiree at my parents' house. A Big Production. If I remember my high school days correctly, it was nearly ridiculous to have a birthday party without plenty of beer around. But they seemed to pull it off.

Unfortunately, in all the whirl of activity, somebody ran over her dog. My sister's dating the vet's son, so it wasn't hard to get him into his office. But when a dog's bleeding from every available orifice and swelled up like a grapefruit (it's a little dog), there's only so much you can do. My brother and sister were both pretty upset. Probably still are.