I Have Seen The Future Of Birmingham's Domed Stadium

And it's not pretty. (NY Times link, may require sign-in)

WhineFest '08

The economy's in the crapper, we're bogged down in a war we can't win, and now I need a real estate agent, a lawyer, an accountant, and a bunch of other besuited parasites designed to rid me of my money under the aegis of "consulting".

Mom was confused and irritable all day, demanding that I take her "home", that I "go find the cat she left at the other house" and that I give her her car keys back if I was just gonna ignore her, dammit.

Hint: there's no other house, there's no other cat, and you haven't driven in over a year, you crazy old bat.

And it never stops. That conversation loops through her head all day, and it erases every ten minutes. So, every eleventh minute it's like SHAZAM! what a great idea she's had! And I hear it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

And then I lose my shit. "GODDAMMIT LISTEN TO YOURSELF ARE YOU CRAZY?" And she looks so lost and confused and hurt that I feel like the lowest scumbag to ever get lippy with his sainted mum.

I need a break.

Farm Out!

So I'm clickety-clickin through MetaTalk, the snarky white underbelly of MetaFilter, and I see a call-out for awesomeness, which leads me to a great response on Ask MetaFilter to a question I didn't know I cared about: farm history.

Now that, friends, is what the Internet is good for (and at).

I can't wait for the third installment.