Wrayblog = old 'n busted, kgautreaux/blog = new hotness.
Besides, wrayblog never made sense after the move anyway. I'm not about to make a pun about bows or Nebraska or broken anything...puns are for sissies. The new blog has all the old content but is now 100% pun free (offer may not apply on the internet).
Here's a list of why kgautreaux/blog is better:
1.) Comment Feed!
2.) Relive your favorite Gaucasts!
3.) More exclamation points!!!!
4.) Site redesign! Ohhhh, grays...and blues!
5.) Anyone, or their brother, can leave a comment. You no longer need a blogger account.
6.) Easier to update = more frequent updates. More = better.
7.) If your name is Gautreaux and you want to host your blog at kgautreaux.net you just ask.
8.) Flickr feed.
9.) Easier search.
10.) You may...or may not...see five year old content from Mr. Babar and a cast of thousands.
11.) Faster.
I have pushed the button as they say.
Wrayblog ist kaput!
Just so everyone is on the same page.
If you haven't been following along, currently Shaleah and I are here. We started out from Broken Bow and made it out to the Olympic National Park for Mike and Jenn's wedding then back to Seattle. Let's have some evidence, shall we?
Shaleah danced with her Dad at the wedding.
We met a deer at Hurricane Ridge.
We also met some nice mountain goats.
The wilderness that eats cellphones.
We made it back to Seattle in one piece.
Changes at HQ
Now is the short several month time interval in Nebraska where the temperature is not too something and so there have been some projects in the works at the house. Some are still in the secret, hush-hush planning stages and cannot be revealed here.
First, there's a giant hole in the backyard. What do you do with a giant hole in the backyard? Fill it with the lifeless bodies of your vanquished enemies? Whoa, easy there Rumsfeld, we're just going to turn it into a patio.
Pay no attention to the fact that we don't have anywhere to put the dirt.
Second, Shaleah's (Peaches and) Herb garden, and her regular garden are really taking off, although I'm told mostly the zucchini is crushing all other plants in a mad grab for egomanical garden domination.
Above is a view from the veranda where the potted plants huddle for warmth.
Third, Shaleah is busy out-etsying Etsy. The sewing machine is not the sole provence of you, Spongetta! She made us some nice cushions for our bistro chairs. Behold!
A closer inspection:
It's as if the American Flag and a group of sexy ladies had twins that were comfortable to sit on.
Turn off your mike before you vomit
Join me, won't you, for this latest installment of the Gaucast. It might surprise you that this week we talk about nothing of importance besides Elliott's plumbing difficulties, law school research, the NBA, and true Air Force dedication. If you get bored just listen to the beginning and ending. That's where the songs go.
AT&T wants to take your virginity
I don't understand. Does AT&T's marketing department want Meatloaf to get to third base with this kid? Jim Steinman you incestuous pedophilic bastard! I think they should have left in the coda where the kid gets frustrated with his two year contract and sings about praying for the end of time.
P.S. Before you hit the send button on that email you've composed, Comic Book Guy, be aware that I know the GoPhone doesn't have a long term contract. I'm stretching the premise for comedic effect.
Also, a Meatloaf Aday sounds like great nutrition advice.
Every member of the household that smells like dead animals will be sleeping outside.
They call me "Krazy Eyes", what's it to you?
The forecast is...ZOMG RUN!!!11!!!!11
This is April in Nebraska. You should thank your lucky stars that you live in Tucson instead. Of course, you could live in Little Rock so don't complain.
Like Laguna Beach without all that pesky "water"
They emerge from their chyrsalis with that smile.
Dramatic Prarie Dog is also on vacation.
Is that our car on fire?
Translation from Libertarian-speak to English of selected portions of Mandates are not the answer by David Gratzer
Original article available here.
< Teddy Roosevelt Hat=On >
Insurers call them “young invincibles”: twentysomething hipsters who will spend $4 on a café latte or $80 on a monthly gym membership but won’t buy health insurance.
People under 30 are idiots and should get off my lawn.
“Health insurance wasn’t even an option,” 24-year-old aspiring designer Andrew Ondrejcak told the magazine New York in March 2007. “I was flying through my savings, trying to get a career started. . . . The last thing I’m going to do is spend $300 or whatever on insurance, you know?” Ondrejcak’s personal health plan: running, yoga, and vitamins. The cost: acute appendicitis and a $37,000 hospital bill.
All young people care about are double syrup half-caf Venti double tall lattes and trudging around on my goddamn lawn!
Liberal proponents think of mandates as social insurance.
Nothing provides a better safety net than handing over your healthcare to a multinational conglomerate with your best interests in mind.
But both the liberal and conservative arguments are less persuasive than they seem at first glance. Health-insurance companies pool risk in much more complicated ways than most people assume. Americans cannot be classified into one group for insurance purposes; every health-insurance company has numerous pools, dividing people by state, size of employer, and many other characteristics.
They don't employ actuaries to maximize profits, they're there to make sure everyone can afford health insurance.
Further, evidence shows that costs are influenced much less by mandates than by consumers’ ability to buy a broad range of competing health-insurance products.
Trust me, there's evidence, I'm just to lazy to cite it.
An insurance policy for a single male resident in mandate-enforced Boston, for example, costs five times more than a policy for his identical twin in mandate-free Tucson.
We should all move to Tucson! Also, correlation DOES equal causation.
This cost disparity is due in part to the Bay State’s many insurance regulations, which limit the types of policies that consumers can buy and drive up prices.
Just like passage of the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act allowed JP Morgan Chase to pay bottom dollar for Bear Stearns, so too will deregulation allow magical butterflies to dance around and make us all immortal.
As for the responsibility argument, uncompensated care costs federal and state governments roughly $40 billion a year—in a health economy that tops more than $2 trillion annually. That’s a very small percentage of the total expenditure and certainly doesn’t amount to a hidden tax of $900 per person.
Money is falling from the sky!
A third of uninsured Americans have family incomes greater than $50,000; 17 percent have incomes in excess of $75,000. They are opting not to buy coverage because they think that paying thousands annually, while perhaps not seeing a doctor for years on end, is a bad deal.
If people don't buy insurance because they don't think they'll need it, obviously making it cheaper will change that, right? Later I will confuse you by saying preventative care is important.
Rather than handing out more government subsidies, we should inject more competition into markets by allowing people to buy health-insurance policies across state lines.
Enron represented the best of power deregulation when it sold energy to California across state lines at only a 200% markup. Cancer is this year's rolling blackout. Also black is white, up is down, and telco deregulation is really solving that last mile problem.
An even bolder approach would be to end 60 years of bad tax policy and scrap the employer deduction for health benefits, replacing it with a tax credit for every individual and family. Notably, these are all ideas that John McCain, not known for his focus on domestic policy, has embraced.
Remember when John McCain stated in public that there was "strong" evidence of a link between vaccines and autism? Let's put that health science genius in charge!
Rather than mandate participation in a broken system, Washington should concentrate on basic, sensible reforms and then let markets experiment.
I am high as a kite.
Better never than late.
Join us for this week's month's year's Gaucast where we discuss a cornucopia of issues ranging from the NBA to the ABA. Warning: This Gaucast probably qualifies for the [Explicit] tag due to several references by Elliott to male genitalia, or poultry, I can't decide which.
Picture pages, Picture pages.
You can view the whole set here, but I thought I'd post some photos from our recent trip to Colorado.
Always keep a wide base.
"I said we came here to borrow a cup of sugar!"
This is exactly how Christopher McCandless died.
The outdoors is much brighter than I suspected.
Time is a harsh mistress
Nike is apparently celebrating 25 years of FORCE. What force I am not sure. Gravitational? Unstoppable? Van der Waals?
Given the appearances of their previous ad campaigns it appears they're celebrating FORCing their athletes to look ridiculous. I swear these are actually screen captures from their hard to navigate Flash site. Go here to witness for yourself.
Jeff Ruland, truly a game changer. Not since Tom Selleck at USC has someone so mustachioed played at this level.
This appears to be Charles Barkley and I'm guessing Quinn Buckner dressed as, I'm guessing again, Ruby Rhod in their high-school's stage production of The Fifth Element. I think Charles may have been down with gay marriage for longer than previously supposed.
Truly, judge not, lest ye be judged. Whoops.
My wife ran off to Mexico
Technically, she's coming back and I still retain custody of one Lucifer P. Jones and Athena Z. Jones. (The Z stands for Zzzzzzzz.) Has there ever been a custody battle where each party argued that the other should have to retain custody?
There won't be any new pictures accompanying this post because MY WIFE LEFT ME AND TOOK ME CAMERA. Let's hope she posts some cool pictures from Mexico on her blog.
The tough part about having a real job is when I get a good idea for a blog post sometimes I forget to write it down and then when I get time to post I've inevitably forgotten what I was going to say. But today I wanted to welcome back Matt Standridge to blogging. He never should have left, really. I don't have any children and I still have a blog. He has two, which I'm sure his wife can watch for 15 minutes while he crafts a post. That is assuming she didn't RUN OFF TO MEXICO and leave him wretchedly alone.
I'm also announcing today that I've graduated from podcasting to a real live radio gig. That's right, I am now one of the out of touch media elite. They didn't even make me get a degree in journalism. Jeffrey, did you know you didn't have to go to college to be on the radio? That would have been easier for you. I did read a journalism course synopsis so I felt as though I'd learned enough. I mean, how much could there be to know about "Ignoring facts: How to create a narrative where none exists?", "Modern Martyrdom: Why keeping sources secret makes you look like a hero (even if it's not necessary).", "Try to be handsomer: Chris Matthews used to have 5 chins.", and "Sound bites: Take a view so absolutist it needs no exposition."
Right, so if you like the dulcet tones of my voice but you think Gaucast is too exciting for your delicate constitution you can tune in here at 8:30 am CST every Tuesday. The good news is that even if you miss the show 90% of the setlist on KBBN is Electric Light Orchestra. In the interest of full disclosure CNMC pays the radio station for me to come on and sound like an idiot for 30 minutes every week. That's not without precedent though, my mom used to pay neighborhood kids to be my friends.
Still, it's not like an infomercial really. I keep shouting, "SET IT...", but the studio audience never chimes in "...AND FORGET IT!"
Next week I'll be doing the show using only Spooneristic, Emmit Smith-esque turns of phrase. Envoy the shoe, forks!
December is for imposing your tastes upon others.
It's end of the year list time again so you can't really blame me for getting caught up in the hype. This is my favorite time of the year not because of stupid things like quality time with your family to reflect upon the passing year, but because this is the time of the year when everyone publishes the Top Ten lists. How will I know what music and movies every hipster douchebag with a Blogger account loved this year if it weren't for the month of December?
As a service to the reader I've limited myself to one winner in each category (ties are allowed), you're welcome!
Best Album of 2007
Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War
Yeah, they are pretty much horrible live, but who thought they could follow-up Set Yourself on Fire with an even more consistently listenable album with lyrics like, "How could anyone not love the terrible things you do?" And it has a song modeled after a personals ad.
Best Album of 2007 you didn't think you'd like
The National - Boxer
Something about the typography on their last album, Alligator, made you think this was fratboy music. Damned if you were going to end up owning this year's Songs about Jane, but then you heard the song Green Gloves so you bought the album and damn...is...it...good.
Best Song of 2007
(four way tie)
Arcade Fire - (Antichrist Television Blues)
Bright Eyes - If the Brakeman Turns My Way
The Fratellis - Chelsea Dagger
Spoon - The Underdog
Best Song of 2007 on an otherwise horrendously overrated album
Of Montreal - Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse
This song has the trifecta: key shifts that are related to the meaning of the lyrics, crazy drug references, and ruminations on the fickle nature of inspiration. But the rest of the album is pretty damn tedious. Buy the single.
Best British album of 2007 (that actually came out in 2005)
The Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever
If you have children that can't understand the lyrics they will love this album. It sounds like the catchiest kid's show theme you can think of. If your children can understand the lyrics you might want to just enjoy this one by yourself.
Best Song About Housework
Hate It Here - Wilco
I try to stay busy too. I post to my blog, I cut my toenails, I load the dishwasher. I'm just like Jeff Tweedy!
Worst Album of 2007
Bjork - Volta
I like you Bjork. I like the Sugarcubes. I LOVED Dancer in the Dark. You scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a kid by riding around on a giant teddy bear with one eye on MTV, but I cannot stand this album. Sorry.
I'm stopping here before this list grows out of control but the You'll never fool me into buying another one of your tossed-off half-assed albums you drunken idiot award goes to....Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger.
Happy New Year.
Together we can win the War on Christmas
Listen:
Tim Rinne has come unstuck in time.
He seems to think everyone wants to hear about why the Norman invasion was really one set of Germanic peoples invading another.
I don't care about that. I just want to drink gravy from a straw, enjoy Phil Jackson's bowtie and laugh at Jamie Lynn Spears.
"Wait until you taste my peppernuts."
"If I were wearing this outfit ironically that'd really be something."
"This turkey is hard to carve."
There is no pun here.
I don't care what you say. I maintain that there is NO clever way to combine the words Nebraska and Ski together in a whimsical fashion. I defy you to come up with one! Go ahead. Wrack your brain for hours. Done yet? See I have been proven correct yet again.
Yeah, yeah, I forgot my camera again.
It's hard to tell but even with the goggles I still blinked.
Cow-tank oasis.
"I think these dogs might be following us."
"I'm skiing as far away from this blog as I can."
Wii Scavenger Hunt - Coming in 2008
Yep, it's been a long time. This is what I've been working on. It doesn't amount to much does it? It's only here to whet your appetite for pictures of our new home furnishings!
Next time we'll consider actually placing Kat somewhere in the same zip code as the microphone. Enjoy your Gaucast...you earned it.
Gaucast #11 (Inferior Potassium)
Come to Nebraska!
Seriously, if you slow down too much fat chicks will crawl though your window and before you know it fat chicks will be filling up your EXXtended Tuff-Man Crew Cab before you can say, "Fat chicks are like Zombies. Except instead of delicious brains fat chicks are driven by an insatiable hunger for troglodytes who hate them....and brains."
Does your alpha-adrenergic blocker punish your prostate?
Drug advertisements have become increasingly inane. Not that they were really ever nane per se but lately it seems that drug companies have realized that the same methods that sold metric tons of Viagra to American males suffering emasculation from every aspect of modern life can work to sell medicines that don't (necessarily) give you erections.
Plavix will totally waterboard your platelets into submission! It will pimpslap your platelets around like they're a ho that owes you your money. With Plavix you're manlier than some tiny clot that is giving you crushing substernal chest pain right now and will eventually lead to your death. With Plavix, you won't have to stop watching football because you're having a heart attack.
Here's to men! Men, Flomax will put a severed horse head in the bed where your prostate sleeps. Flomax will go to the mattresses against your prostate. No longer will you have to pee sitting down like a wee girl. Now your golden stream of concentrated manliness will gush forth from your urethra like a nitrogenous Niagara Falls.
How could you call yourself a real man and NOT be taking Flomax? Flomax is your wingman broseph. He will take one for the team, amend his "No-fatties" rule, and totally bang that hot chick's ugly friend for you. You know, the one they call mini-van? Flomax would do that for you dude because, to Flomax, "Bros before hos" is not just a phrase that rhymes, it's a mantra.
By the way, Flomax is sorry he caused you a decrease in semen. He's contrite, ya heard?
Gaucast Night In America
Yes, this is a little late. But I have a real job now so I have to...you know...sort of do that job. The job itself is going well. I made a sporotrichosis diagnosis this week so that made my day. Enjoy this guestless Gaucast.
Gaucast #10 (L-shaped couch)