Wait a minute... I know this one...

The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement saying that "House Democrats have failed to deliver on their campaign promises to change Washington" since taking majority control of Congress in January. The statement accompanied a video highlighting what was supposedly the poor record of Democrats since taking over.

Well, let's see here. The Democrats don't actually have a majority in the Senate - it's 49-49 and there are two independents, who happen to caucus with the Democrats (usually; Lieberman can be up for grabs sometimes). 51-49 is still the slimmest majority you can have, and it isn't enough to override a presidential veto. And guess what Bush likes doing to aggressive Democratic legislation?

The House is 232-201, but since acts of Congress have to pass both houses, it's kind of irrelevant (and 232 out of 435 is only 53% anyway, hardly overwhelming). In either event, Republicans have about as much to do with not getting things passed as Democrats do, if not more.

Here's a logic exercise. Let's say you are someone who wanted the Democrats to gain power and pass the laws they promised to. If those laws don't pass because when the Democrats try to get them through Congress, they're voted down due to Republican opposition, do you think the solution is to elect more Republicans?

In other words, if you agree with the NRCC's video that the Democrats haven't been able to live up to their promises, the choice next election is clear: vote for even more Democrats! (Particularly for president, thus taking that pesky veto out of the equation.)

Alternate headline: "N.Z. couple are total idiots"

The article doesn't mention how old the couple is, but I'm guessing 19.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby "4real" shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.

When my sister was eight, she got a hamster from the pet store. Because he scratched at the box he was in on the car ride home, she decided to name him "Scratchy." Even my literal-minded eight-year-old sister would have told you "4real" was a stupid name for a baby.

But when the parents filed the name with New Zealand's Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, they were told names beginning with a number were against the rules.

Especially names beginning with the combined IQ of the parents, which is considered private information in New Zealand.

"For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and ... there's no direct link between the meaning and the name," Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. "With this name, everyone knows what it means."

Yeah. For the rest of this kid's life, everyone will know what his name means: that he is, actually, a person! Thank God you came to your senses before naming the kid "Android McFakeBaby."

There's only one thing people are going to know about this kid based on his name: that he had parents who were stupid fuckheads. A good rule of thumb for baby names: if it sounds like something your six-year-old cousin might name his new pet turtle, don't fucking name your kid that. These people have to be 19, because much older and I hope they'd realize that babies eventually turn into adult humans, and once they do, it kind of sucks for them to have a name that looks like it was pulled at random from the text message inbox on their mom's cell phone.

Not the greatest day

Thank God for Alma, because if not for all the time I spent with her, today would have been a pretty bad one. First I went to a mini golf course in Libertyville and it was not fun - you know how most park district courses are either boring or ridiculously difficult for their pars? This was the latter. That stuff will be up later. Stuff that's up now: a recap of the Cubs' awful weekend, and a review of the shockingly bad Fletch. Those two links will pretty much tell you what I had to suffer through today. (Obviously if this is the worst thing that happens to me on most days I don't have anything to complain about, but in my life as it stands, this is what passes for "bad days," certainly on weekends.) But Alma elevates everything.

Pizzeria Zero

On Wednesday night, Alma and I went to this new-ish pizza place on Lincoln, between two of our more standard haunts (Matsu Shita for sushi, Boba Bee for bubble tea). The name of the place was Pizzeria Calzone. It turned out to be possibly the most uncomfortable restaurant experience of my life.

I went in thinking, you know, I might want a calzone tonight. But of all the things on the menu, calzones? Not one of them. That's right: calzone was in the name of the restaurant, yet it was not something you could order there. Maybe this should have been a warning sign, but at the time it was just amusing.

We were the only people in the place, which seems less odd in retrospect. The waitress was a girl who couldn't have been older than about 14 and did the job as if running through a script in her head. Perhaps the regular waitress called in sick and the owners' daughter was pressed into service, I don't know - but if this girl had ever waited a table before in her life, it didn't show. Also, when we asked for water, she brought over two bottles (for which of course we would be charged). That one, I don't know if it was inexperience as much as "thing she had been told to do."

Still, at this point, it was just kind of "eh." And then some guy walked in off the street and started trying to sell the owner some jewelry.

What?

That's right. This guy just walks in and is trying to sell them on this gold something or other. He keeps saying, "It's real gold" and trying to sell it for 50, then 30, then 20 bucks; at some point I heard the owner offer five, at which the guy scoffed. What could possibly be more awkward than listening to some hustler haggle with the owner of the restaurant you're in, not ten feet away?

How about the next part, when I see out of the corner of my eye the waitress nod in our direction and say to the guy, "Ask them?"

Yes, this actually happened. Now you know for a fact that this family had never owned a restaurant in America before. Or at least, if they did, no one like this ever walked into it. Because I can't imagine any restaurant with the reputation of pawning shady jewelry sellers off onto its customers would stay in business any longer than about a week after the first time it happened.

Of course the guy was over shortly thereafter, greeting us with that calling card of guys you don't want to have anything to deal with, "My friends!" Needless to say, we quickly waved him off. But Jesus Christ. The word "unprofessional" seems so imprecise here, since this was clearly a small family business, but how about "completely retarded?" As Alma put it to me a couple minutes later, "We're still in Chicago, right?" (We were.)

I started looking for quick ways out not long after that. The whole place was kind of giving me a weird vibe from minute one, and having to fend off the advances of a total con artist wasn't too appetizing. I ate half the pizza I'd ordered - enough, I figured, where I could then ask for a box and not look like I was trying to flee the premises - and we hit the road.

Ironically, my pizza (fresh from the oven) was actually pretty darn good; I was a particular fan of the crust. Barely seemed worth it, though. I suppose I could order delivery if I ever wanted it again, but then I don't feel compelled to support that kind of operation. Once felt sufficient.

Link updates

A change to the sidebar: the BlogRoll is now divided into two 12-link groups. The first 12 are friends' blogs, sorted top to bottom in order of how much I visit them. (I've tried to avoid sorting them like that in the past, but I mean, is this really going to hurt anyone's feelings? The people who I visit less often either know it or, more likely, don't notice and don't care much either. The people lower on the list tend to update less frequently anyway. I also was forced to drop Nemo and Pearl - I didn't really want to, but I would have had to find two more blogs to balance them out, and they both haven't updated for almost a year. If you guys ever get back online, give me a holler.)

The second 12 are blogs that I either write or read regularly. Try to guess which is which; I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

As always, if you have a blog that I'm not linking to, let me know - I think I've covered most of this site's regular visitors who actually have blogs, but you never know.

ETA: One other note: while BlogRolling is still useful enough for organizational purposes, it's been terrible about showing updates, which apparently has to do with a lot of ping spam it's been getting. So the links on the side may well be updated and you just won't see the arrow like you used to. I would suggest regularly checking any you might actually want to read.

(As long as I'm here, I got a promotion at work. More money, but also more responsibility. It's going fine so far, and the summer tends to be pretty slow, so things are good at the moment. But ask me in November.)