Because Mother Nature has basically flipped the bird so far this year at all the “doom and gloomers,” I submit to you my list of 2007 Hurricane Names. These should strike the requisite amount of fear and terror into the hearts and minds of the public:

Anthrax
Bundy
Chernobyl
Dahmer
Enron
Famine
Gacy
Hiroshima
Ivan
Jonestown
Krakatoa
Lusitania
Manson
Nagasaki
Oswald
Plague
Resendez
Saddam
Titanic
Uday
Vlad
Waco
Zodiac

Snagged from the Bishometer,

– Post a list of 10 books/movies/TV shows that you’ve had a fannish love of at some time in your life.
– Have your friends guess your favorite character from each one.
– You can cross out the show/movie/book and put the character when someone guesses.

1) Ren & Stimpy Muddy Mudskipper [Yeah B-Dogg!]
2) Corner Gas Oscar [Score 2 for B-Dogg ... jackass! :P ]
3) The IT Crowd
4) Star Trek: The Original Series It’s a tie between Spock and McCoy [1/2 point each for Darque B and the Phantom Phlapjack]
5) Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Crow [1 point for Phantom Phlapjack]
6) Mr. Show with Bob & David
7) X-Files
8) NCIS
9) CSI Grissom [1 point for Darque B]
10) Alias

I’ve tried to keep these more recent (or famous) so it would be easier to guess.

First off, I’d like to give a warm round of applause to the B-Dogg blog for having a consistently interesting site. It’s a little hard to follow sometimes, but I’m sure that’s only because I’m skipping around, and reading things out of order.

And because I’m so fond of it, I’m borrowing stealing ripping off “reprinting without permission” a list of questions that her fellow blogmates have come with for her. I have made adjustments when necessary, because, well, for example, I’m not married to DH.

So, without further delay:

What are your favorite baby names?
Once upon a time I wanted Madelyn and Dave. But then I thought Hayes and Addison would be good too. But now I don’t think we’ll ever have more than one, so I’m all for Addison. Or Fishmonger. (I’m tired of all the “occupational names,” like Hunter and Fisher and Tanner. So I thought, hey, the lady who sells fish: a Fishmonger, would be a great one. And definitely original.) ScotStaci want to have a child named “Carthy,” So that the kid will be Carthy Danger McCormick, the opposite of “Cormac McCarthy,” who is a famous writer. That, of course, and, like Austin Powers, Danger will be his middle name. Ugh. Whatever the name of our kid will be, it will NOT end in an “AID-EN” sound. There are enough of those on Jinny’s side already.

If you could have a threesome with any two cast members from Alias, whom would you choose?
Well, I think Sydney and Nadia would be pretty hot. (Would that be a Bristow sandwich?) But then I thought maybe Lauren Reed and Rachel Gibson would be pretty interesting too. And then there is always the exciting cat-fight action of Sydney and Anna… And would the good and bad Francie count as two people?

What’s the most embarassing book you’ve read?
Jinny just brought home “Color Me Beautful” from a garage sale. I read enough of it to remember that I’m a Winter, then put it down, quickly, before anyone noticed… that I had already read the book years ago when my mother had a copy.

What is your middle name?
Ryan. No particular reason, so far as I know.

What was the name of your first pet?
The first pet I ever had was a miniature schnauzer named “Tammy” that was stolen some time in the 4th grade. Very upsetting.

What is your favorite season?
In Texas, I’d go with Winter. Anywhere else, Spring.

Where did you grow up (what part of the country)?
I’m a native Michigander, born and raised… until I was 8. Then my father sold his snowblower, and we moved to Houston. It only took me 11 years to leave, and then come back, and leave again, and then come back– Houston is like Gilligan’s Island… it doesn’t matter how much you try to leave, there’s always some damn reason you wind up back here. Oh, that and it’s full of Professors, Mary-Anns, Gingers, and of course, plenty of Skippers.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An adult. And, hey, look, I got my wish! Now of course, I want to be a kid again.

What are your hobbies?
Reading, traveling, blogging, downloading TV (so I don’t have to watch commercials), and of course, sitting on the toilet until my legs fall asleep. (no, not really.)

What’s your favorite place to shop for shoes?
At a shoe store, of course, silly!

What’s your favorite activity to do with [your spouse] that isn’t sex?
We are best friends, really, so we do best friend stuff. Talking. Drinking Coffee. Going out to eat. Making fun of things. Talking about thinking about having a little Fishmonger.

Who’s your favorite iconic figure and why?
I think the :P smiley has to be my favorite iconic figure.

You know, I’m really Libertarian. Which means, of course, that I only eat library books.

Piff has been diagnosed with a disorder called A1-AtD. Well, that’s short for something, of course, but wasn’t A1-AtD the prototype droid unit in Star Wars? Or, wait; maybe that was OICU-812…

What happened to old school names for diseases? Like “Ronstadt’s Disorder/Disease/Syndrome” or, even better, the colloquial old-timer names, like “the clap” or “consumption.” Let’s get rid of these long, freaky, unpronounceable names, while we are at it. And Chlamydia? Is there some vulva-based joke there that we weren’t supposed to get? And then there’s Herpes Simplex B. What happens if you live in Herpes Duplex C?

While we are on the subject, how about: no more acronyms. AIDS and HIV are okay—I figure everyone knows those now, but—whoa! AKA? I thought that meant “also known as.” Well, apparently, AKA is a.k.a. “Above Knee Amputation” in the medical community. And, if you’re “BI,” it doesn’t mean “AC/DC”; it means your brain is injured. Which some people may are argue is the same thing, but that’s a discussion for another time.

But back to what I was talking about…

A1-AtD sounds like the runner up for a steak sauce. Still, it’s better than what my mother had, “thrombic thrombocytopenic purpura.” The initials, TTP, sound like an engine additive, and the full version of the name sounds like some odd, still-living part of a cow that you are about to turn into steak tartar. Maybe you put A1-AtD on it!

All you Doctor’s out there– can you PLEASE come up with decent names for these things which ail us?

“Shiver me creamer, coffee-mateys!”

Vulgar Mind Meld – An act wherein a nasty or disturbing thought multiplies through contact with others:

Her: “I want to buried in a mausoleum. That way I could get out if I needed to.” (initial unpleasant thought)
Him: “You’d be dead. You wouldn’t be getting out.”
Her: “But what if I’m buried alive?” (continuing to get more unpleasant)
Him: “You won’t be buried alive, the undertaker takes care of that. Besides, if you can get out, that just makes it easier for some sicko to have sex with your dead body.”
Her: “You are sick! Only you would think of something like that…”
Him: “Hey, that’s an idea! ‘Dead Body’ Shots! If only there was a bar at the morgue!”

It never fails to fascinate me how human beings can be so logical about somethings, and so damn illogical about other things. Take for instance: Life Insurance. The people that create, support, sell and even purchase life insurance all agree on several fundamental things.

1) Everybody dies.
2) Human life is worth something.
3) Time is money, hence:
4) The longer the insuree lives, the more money that the insurer gets.
5) Every insuree gets a payout after they are declared legally dead.

So, what this means is that everyone has a price. No one is “priceless,” really. Irreplacable for sure, but not so expensive as to not have a price associated with him or her.

I myself am insured enough so that my wife can live comfortably for at least 10 years after I die.
My wife, on the other hand, is only insured enough to get her a good funeral and, maybe, a new Ferrari for me.

Now this does not mean I do not value my wife. It merely means that she does not make enough money for it to be a great financial drain if she leaves this earth (barring of course, how she leaves the earth. If she spends all my Ferrari money on hospice care, well, then, no sports car for me) In this case, value is based on earning potential, which seems a fair enough assessment, for this exercise, anyway.

The next logical step comes from supply and demand. The more things there are, the less they cost, generally. This why computer and DVD players are so much cheaper than they used to be. Now comparing a human being to a DVD player is a little tricky, because human beings are capable of far more than DVD player, and so the “demand” can be expressed in a variety of ways. People can “want” other people, as in “we want a child” (demand = desire to procreate), people can “want” other people that can perform a service for them, as in “we need more policemen” (demand = jobs), and people can “want” other people for companionship. as in “I want a boyfriend” (demand = relationship).

Of these, the only one of the demands that can perform the supply function all by itself is the desire to procreate. It is this desire than then allows for other demands to be met. It is also this desire, and the increasing number of people that it provides, that cause all upward trends in the economy.

For example: everyone can agree, that, at least in principle, there is a finite amount of room on the Earth. If all 6 billion of us carve a little piece out of the Earth for our very own, (i.e., homeownership) , then what happens when person number 6,000,000,001 comes along? Land, being finite, is necessarily scarce. And good land, or good real estate, is even more scarce. So as the number of people on the Earth increases, the average price of dwellings must necessarily increase.

Now of course this is a philosophical exercise and not a very realistic one. The truth is, apartment buildings can be built taller, homes smaller, and lots can go from an acre down to a postage stamp. But the underlying truth is that if a good chunk of people suddenly perished (lets say, oh, bird flu or something), it would destroy the housing market. Too many homes, not enough people to buy them. And mortgage companies may go belly up too, since so many loans would go into default from death.

Other economic indicators would crumble too, if there was no net increase, (or even a decrease) in human beings. Inflation might quickly soar, (too many dollars chasing too few goods? Or maybe too many dollars chasing too many goods!) but most assuredly the stock market, the bond market, energy prices, and of course the futures market would be devastated. All of these indicators and products require more humans to be created to enjoy products, services, loans, gasoline, etc., in order to slowly become more valuable.

But that makes humans sound very valuable. Without more and more of them, things would fall apart. The problem with this logic is that demand for new supply comes only from the new supply. And the new supply is taught that humans are sacred, which means there is no way to get rid of junk product. By comparison, cows are sacred in India. As any Indian will tell you, the cattle there mostly just gets in the way.

As a thought experiment, think of toasters. All toasters eventually die. Most toasters work very well for a long time, and then something happens. Perhaps they cease to toast relibly, and we put it in a drawer, in case we have some need for an extra toaster. Or maybe they cease to heat the bread, or the spring breaks? In which case, we try to fix the toaster. If all goes well, the toaster works again, and we continue to use it. If not, the toaster winds up in a landfill. But ALL toasters eventually die.

If you had a really expensive toaster that occasionally set fire to a home, would you keep it? What if shot out flaming pop-tarts that hurt small children? If you reliably fix it, you might, right? But if you couldn’t, surely you would throw it out, so no one else ever used it again.

With this in mind, could someone please tell me why Andrea Yates and Charlie Manson are not in a landfill? Bad toasters should be thrown away, right? There’s really no way to fix the really crazy people, sorry. And even if there was, would you trust them with your kids? If there is 6 billion people on the earth, who would miss these two? Besides, someone else just gave birth to quintuplets the other day, so it’s not like the population isn’t still growing…