Author: Patrick O'Grady

After decades with his scabby little nose pressed to various grindstones of journalism, Patrick O'Grady came away with plenty of mental scar tissue, a good deal less hair to cover it, and an undiminished appreciation for three subsets of the craft: drawing cartoons, writing commentary, and composing headlines. All three are short, punchy attention-getters, the literary equivalent of yelling, "Hey, look at me!" before hanging a moon out the school-bus window, and thus own a natural appeal for an overgrown class clown with the attention span of a rat terrier raised on angel dust and bong water. And thanks to the Internet, the best thing to happen to journalism since the invention of movable type, he gets to do all three of them without having to go to work at a newspaper, where management has slowly devolved into a button-down mutant hybrid of the worst aspects of the Spanish Inquisition, the dental bits in "Marathon Man" and the DMV of your choice. He and his wife, the long-suffering Shannon, share an adobe hacienda in The Duck! City with their cat, Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Hulk smashed!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry . . .
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry . . .

Upstart Donk Mark Begich has sent Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Pork) a nifty present for his 85th birthday — a one-way ticket back to Alaska.

Stevens was the ethically challenged engineer on a gravy train that has sent Alaska far more of the taxpayers’ money than it deserves during his six terms in office; let’s hope the pork gets sliced a little more thinly and spread around a bit more fairly in his absence.

The evil old fart, a self-styled “mean, miserable SOB” who famously donned an “Incredible Hulk” tie when preparing for legislative combat over drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, goes to his well-deserved fate not with a bang, but with a whimper: “I wouldn’t wish what I am going through on anyone, my worst enemy,” Mr. Stevens said Tuesday morning in the Capitol, according to The New York Times.

Gosh. Kermit was right — it ain’t easy being green.

Rocky Mountain high

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
There's still some water on the Academy; the Blue Zoomies probably stole it from the Army while those guys were out of town, getting used to desert life.
There's still some water on the Academy; the Blue Zoomies probably stole it from the Army while those guys were out of town, getting used to desert life.

As in record temperature, I suspect. It was 75 when I wrapped up my lunchtime ride into the Air Force Academy and back, accompanied by a couple hundred of my closest friends. Seemed like everyone with a bike and a good excuse for riding same was doing so. Damn, it was nice. But dry, dry, dry, as in drier than a popcorn fart.

The creek is mostly not there anymore, and the trail is powdery, which makes traction iffy if you’re running a bald set of Michelin Jets on the old ‘cross bike and trying to slalom around ragged formations of tuned-out iPlodders taking their half of the trail out of the middle.

Back home, I laid a quick eye on the VN.com website to see if anything needed doing (it didn’t) and set about watering the lawn. Watering the lawn. In November. That’s just wrong.

Meanwhile, from the We’re All Hopelessly Fucked Department, we’re facing an economic collapse sometime this century, perhaps as soon as 2020, and we’re too stupid to watch movies. There’s some news you can use. A tip of the Mad Dog Kevlar helmet to Steve F. and Khal S. for the tips.

Late update: Meanwhile, as long as we’re on the subject of movies and stupidity, indulge your inner geek with the new “Star Trek” trailer.

The cheese doesn’t get cut

~ Patrick O'Grady

Sen. Joe Liederkranz (D-Quisling) will keep his gavel at the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee despite actively working for the Magoo-Barbie ticket in the election just concluded. He will, however, be removed from the Environment and Public Works Committee, a boldly punitive move that Josh Marshall rightly describes as the equivalent of being expelled “from Pilates class in (the) Senate gym.”

Focus on . . . looking for work

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

The gentle souls at Focus on the Family just shitcanned 149 workers and croaked 53 vacant positions, just in time for Thanksgiving. Donations are down, says the Gazette, which must mean that IQs are up. I’ll bet this bunch — the jobless ones, anyway — wish FOTF hadn’t spent a half-million smacks on Prop. 8 in California. Looking for work in Bibleburg is gonna be a lot like trying to stuff Jimmy Dobson’s fat ass through the eye of a needle. The Sally Ann only needs so many bell-ringers.

So many websites, so little time

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Assistant DogSite editor Mia Sopaipilla hard at work in her office.
Assistant DogSite editor Mia Sopaipilla hard at work in her office.

I broke out the BFH last night and spent the better part of quite some time pounding on the DogSite v2.0 (that would be this site), straightening out dents in this and kinks in that while swearing into a frequently empty wineglass.

So now we have three DogSites up and running, more or less:

  1. The original: www.maddogmedia.com
  2. V2.0: http://www.maddogmedia.com/wordpress
  3. V3.0: www.maddogmedia.wordpress.com

I thought for sure that v3.0 was going to be the way to go, mostly for cost (none) and ease of use (plenty). And then I took a sharper glance around under the hood. Only 3MB of storage, which limits photo uploads, and no video or audio uploads at all without “upgrading.” Sheeyit. I already have a paid site — the original, hosted by Hostcentric — and I can chuck my little digital stones into that vast pond for years before I fill it up. And with WordPress installed there, I can do what you see here.

The downside is, running your own WordPress show requires you to get a little more hands-on behind the scenes. Mama WordPress ain’t there to hold your hand and walk you through kindergarten on things like RSS feeds, header images and other tweaks and sneaks. Hence the wine and swearing.

This morning I think things look more or less OK. Of course, it’s early yet.