I know I’m supposed to feel sorry for you, but I don’t.

They’re calling them “predatory lenders”, but when Diane and I went mortgage shopping for the house right next to yours we knew the kind of payment we could afford. When they told us they’d give us almost half a million for any house in our market, a snort of laughter propelled a booger straight out of my nose. We knew we couldn’t afford a house like that. If you’d spent 30 seconds running through your finances, you’d have known you couldn’t afford this house, either.

So don’t try to tell me how this wasn’t your fault.

I’d probably have a pang of sympathy if you and your friends didn’t use part of our lawn as your through-way to the main road after a party. But you did. How many times was I at your front door the next day? Four? Six? And Diane even made you cookies around Christmas for the two years you lived here. Never a card back or anything that might resemble graciousness. Unless you count tire tracks on our lawn, of course.

And now you’re gone, orange tag on the electric meter explaining why the lights aren’t on, phone books and other crap piling up on the front porch. Every few weeks I’m cutting your lawn, just so it isn’t overtaken by weeds that’ll infiltrate our lawn.

You sucked as a neighbor.  I’m not sorry to see you go.

I love pictures of babies with their mothers. Especially when the mother is a member of the undead and has spiders crawling out of her mouth. That’s just one of those things I find super sexy. I know I can’t be the only one that thinks that way.

Srsly? The photographer, in what can only be described as self-adulation, had the following to say about the photos:

“My images are not photoshop collages.I use photoshop to finesse details and to adjust color and contrast for printing. I use friends and family members as actors and crew. Everyone works for free. We do it for fun.”

So that’s a real baby hanging out there with Zombie Mom? How ’bout the one with the girl standing in front of the open fridge door with body parts inside (click the pic to go to the photo collection)?

Um, Joshua Hoffine? When you’re in your 50’s or 60’s and your heart isn’t what it used to be, don’t be surprised when these kids whose brains into which you burned some of the most disturbing images I’ve seen (and dude, I’ve seen a lot), come back to create elaborate visual pranks on you, designed to cram so much fight-or-flight adrenaline into your heart that it won’t know what to do except jiggle like jello on a spoon for a few seconds, then collapse in on itself like a pile of goo.

And if that doesn’t happen, I might just stop over and yank your testicles off with pliers. And photograph it. And then brag about how I only used photoshop to tweak the hues of your pale, screaming face.

John McCain had so many excellent choices. If he really coveted a female presence on his ticket, there were so many better choices he could have made, choices that were politically aligned with his party and were already very well versed in the languages of the day, including economics, energy, technology and the environment. Here’s three easy choices, each one being better than the selection he made. And this is from a guy who really doesn’t know jack about politics (despite the constant posts on the topic).

Meg Whitman. She slid into the driver’s seat at eBay when it was just a cute little site and turned it into the biggest thing ever in the history of the planet. Revenues at eBay under her guidance went from $4 million in 1998 to $1.83 billion in the SECOND QUARTER of 2007. Put another way, she grew the company to 2,000 times it’s revenue from when she took over. She knows how to run things. Was considered a potential running mate, but McCain’s “divining rod” pointed north to Alaska. Spoke at the Republican convention.

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Christine Todd Whitman. Not Meg’s sister. New Jersey’s first and only female governor. Republican. Saw her on a PBS show discussing the current political landscape and thought she was brilliant. She has a consulting firm specializing in environmental and energy issues. She’s a director at Texas Instruments and United Technologies. She was selected to run the EPA under George Bush and did it for a couple years before resigning. Probably a good move.

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Carly Fiorina. Another businesswoman. Knows how to run a big tech company as well as anyone. I watched with great interest when the business magazines chronicled her rising to power in one of the biggest computer electronics companies on the planet. Thought it was great as a push on the glass ceiling. Got the boot from HP’s board of directors, but she got the shaft on that. Made a courageous move to merge with Compaq, and the company probably has the position it has now as a dominant player in the PC market because of the moves she made while driving the bus. Stupid board. By definition, understands economics on a large scale. Is currently a top economic advisor for McCain (though this begs the question of whether McCain is listening to her, but makes it that much more frustrating that a more qualified person was sitting in the same room with him for months).

So there’s three great choices from a political know-nothing, without even trying. All three with more relevant cred than Palin. But he hahd ta pick da beeooty queen thet tahks like Marge Gunderson dair.

I’m going to keep my review of the Vice Presidential debate short and superficial.

Sarah Palin does not want Iran to have Nookyuler weapons. I guess I wouldn’t mind. I mean, a “Nookyuler Weapon” is just a supersized pacifier you bonk someone over the head with, right?

Joe Biden has had hair implants, and it appears that he also wanted to make himself look like Burt Reynolds by having his eyelids taped to his ears. I don’t think that means anything regarding a vice presidency, just thought it was vain. And Joe probly thinks this post is about him.

I didn’t like Gwen Ifill as moderator. Despite a right leaner’s predisposition for not liking people working for left leaning organizations, I thought she was even-handed enough in her questions and division of time. It just seemed like she was irritated by both Biden and Palin. I thought Lehrer did a much nicer job of speaking to each and bringing them out in the first debate.

That being said, I think we need someone like Chris Matthews moderating the debates. I can’t stand the guy, but he’d get some effing answers to the questions.

I thought Palin showed herself to be a quick study. I’m not sure I want someone who’s been cramming to live in The Admiral’s House. I want someone who’s been actually studying for awhile.

Whatever station I was watching was comparing Palin’s performance in the debate to previous debates that included Harry Truman and Andrew Jackson. ANDREW JACKSON. You might recognize Mr. Jackson by the famous portrait of him to the right. The woman making that comparison looked fantastic for being over 180 years old. That she could remember a debate from the 1830’s is spectacular. Maybe she was a vampire.

I was torn a bit by Biden’s performance - he threw so many bits of information out without enough intro to those bits that I was all huh? Couple that with a few “Obama - I mean McCain” and sprinkle in some double negatives and I was lost. I didn’t know if he just had sooo many tidbits of information up there in his aesthetically modified head and so little time to get them out that it necessitated the hurried delivery, or if he was making shit up as he went along. Probably not, but I though Biden could have done better.

I thought Biden was a perfect gentleman during the debate. Maybe a bit toothy when Palin was popping him in the nose, but overall very nice.

Palin took the first swing (of negativity). Biden seemed to be able to handle the blow and return it pretty easily.

I’m tired of Palin (or anyone, for that matter) talking about “winning” in Iraq. There isn’t a scoreboard, there’s no game clock. We just need to rebuild that country as best we can while getting hammered by religious freaks.

The Fargo accent is starting to drive me crazy. If it were coming from Biden’s mouth I’d expect him to be wearing overalls. That it’s coming from Palin’s makes it a bit more palatable. But not much.

Because Palin had to spin off a few questions to get to territory within her wheelhouse, and because Biden was able to handle every question sent his way (though neither answered them all, something I’m coming to expect), I’d have to give this debate to Biden.

Damn! I thought this was going to be short. Oh well. Sucks to be you, I suppose.

I’ve heard it said that you should not judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. My hearing has never been that good, because I often enjoy a good judgment every now and then.

I used to hate it when I’d visit one of my favorite blogs and find the author trying to leverage my loyalty by asking me to go somewhere else and read some other thing that author wrote. Like they were trying to squeeze me for every bit of traffic data they could, in the hopes they could parlay that into fame and fortune. Dirty sneaks.

Please allow me to present to you my new walking shoes. They’re only good for about a mile, but they helped me to understand the other side of the extrasite click request. As it turns out, that author of one of my favorite blogs probably put a lot of effort into that post somewhere else. So much so that the author probably didn’t have the time or energy to scratch together something interesting on their own blog. So instead of putting out garbage (though, hello? Don’t confuse that author with me - I put out garbage all the time), they point you to a link where there’s a post they wrote that you just might like.

So without further ado, please stop over to The Cheek of God, where I made a guest post for Brian who is currently without computer. I posted about how Some Call Me The Macgyver of Love. It’s probably garbage, but it’s the finest garbage a tall kitchen bag can hope to hold. It’s the kind of quality refuse you’ve come to expect from Family Clay.

By the way, the haircut? (gotta click over to see it)  I guess I’d wanted my hair to be just perfect before my class pictures, so the night before, I took matters into my own hands.