Humblety humblety hummmmm...

Fosco and Oz generally don't go for that whole "outdoors" thing. Nature may be pretty (sometimes), but it rarely offers the excitement of Gears of War 2 nor the comfort of the sofa. But recently, Oz has caught on to Fosco's appreciation of hummingbirds (because they're cute and chock full of personality). Fosco has a hummingbird feeder on his balcony, but he wanted to show Oz an even greater variety of humbird behavior. And so, a couple of weeks ago, Fosco and Oz took an afternoon to hike the hummingbird trail at the UCSC Arboretum.

Unfortunately, there weren't many humbies out at the Arboretum that day. However, we did meet this little guy:

Within minutes of our arrival, this humbo flew over us and landed on a branch only three feet away from us. And then he sat there posing for us for several minutes. We decided to call him "Hammy" because he was such a ham for our camera. Hi Hammy!

That's about it for wildlife on our visit. We did see some crazy yellow flower:

Even crazier, this flower gets weird when it goes to seed:

Look at all those bearded clams!

And then some nasty black bug bit Oz and so we left.

Boo!

It's Halloween. That holiday that seems like it should still be fun when you're an adult (but isn't).

Fosco was on campus this morning and it occurred to him that Halloween at UCSC is a lot like Mullet Appreciation Day at WalMart: there's a difference, but it's hard to notice. I would estimate that only 1 out of 3 students wearing a weird outfit today was actually in costume. After all, this is a campus where some guy dresses everyday as Spike.

Fosco plans to spend tonight in bed, loaded with NyQuil.

But, before Fosco hits the hay, he'd like to offer you some scary pictures of Isis (who is, after all, a black cat). The first two pictures are only scary because Fosco's camera phone is crappy and Isis is speedy.



The final scary Isis picture is one of my favorites--I love it when she stands on her hind legs and I love it when she looks in the mirror. But what does she see... inside?

Political Roundup: Just... One... More... Week...

The wait is painful. So painful. Apparently Fosco is suffering from what HuffPo calls "election anxiety." Seriously. Fosco has even found himself discussing his election anxieties with his therapist. That's right, Fosco is paying someone to listen to his fears about Sarah Palin. All of it makes Fosco want to hide in a cow-box. Can you help Fosco build a cow-box?

Fosco isn't the only one who is unbalanced by this election. As Larry David says in his election anxiety piece (find it here):

I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn.

Fosco can only hope that he hasn't become as annoying as Larry David (tellingly, Fosco's boyfriend Oz refuses to comment).

Here are some stories from the last week that Fosco is still obsessing about:

• Fosco never thought he'd agree with anything that comes out of the mouth of preppy asshole Fucker Tucker Carlson. So what is wrong when Fosco finds the first half of this article to be right on? Fucker Tucker:
  

  it would be nice if we stopped pretending that anyone can run the government. Anyone can't, as successive administrations have learned the hard way.

  Luckily, just when Fucker Tucker starts to sound absolutely reasonable, he throws in something more problematic:
  

  In foreign policy, at least, it could be time to drop the [idea that democracy is always a good thing]. Elitism may be annoying, but the mob is dangerous.

  Can I wait to decide on that until November 5?
  
  
• Here are some good questions about Sarah Palin:
  
  Why does she hate science so much?
  Why would a well-educated woman idealize her?
  Is she dangerous for the game of hockey?
  
  Oh, and Fosco would like to suggest that whoever coined the acronym VPILF should win the Pulitzer Prize.
  
  
• Who's getting screwed by Bushonomics? Sadly, hit hard is Fosco's childhood home of Michiana. Here's an NYT article about the hopelessness that has hit Elkhart, Indiana. The Times calls Elkhart "the white-hot center of the meltdown of the American economy." Fosco stills knows people in this town, but he didn't realize things were so bad. As the article notes:
  

  The jobless rate in Elkhart has increased more than in any metropolitan area in the country; it rose over 4.8 percentage points from August 2007 to August 2008. According to labor statistics released this summer, nearly 10,000 people were out of work, a rate of 9.3 percent.

  Even sadder, is the Times's characterization of
  

  garage sales — which for scores of people in this town are a sole source of income, and for others the only source of clothing

  The Times is apparently quite fascinated by the phenomenon of Indiana garage/yard sales, as they make another appearance this week in this article. (In this interests of full disclosure, Fosco will admit that in his lifetime he has participated in four garage sales with his family.)
  
  
  Things are so bad in Indiana, it seems, that for the first time in 44 years Indiana may vote for a Democrat for president. When Fosco heard that Indiana may turn blue, he teared up. He never thought he'd live to see it.
  
  
• Of course, there's still one problem: the Republicans are going to steal this election. You know, just like they did last time.