Karol Comes Home Tomorrow (by guest blogger Peter)

I end my term as guest blogger the way it started, with a few bits of randomness.

-- I went to my favorite baseball blog and a discussion on socialist healthcare broke out. One commenter weighed in with this analogy: "If you needed something sent across the country overnight would you use FedEx or the US Postal Service?" Funny he should mention that, as the past two mornings really frustrated me with the inefficiencies of our state-sanctioned mail carrier, but I'll spare you the details.

-- Go, Ethiopia! Go!

-- I learned that if you publicly praise a cat, he'll spend the next two days acting like a psychopath. Yes, I know what it looks like but no, I haven't attempted suicide.

-- I was going to make a comment above alluding to those Soviet toilet paper lines of yore. I chose not to, but I instead found this Time article published in 1971 titled, "The Soviet Union: The Risks of Reform." I have no interest in reading all 10 pages but the passage about food shopping was rather humorous. After mentioning that the average Soviet spent 400 hours a year waiting on line and describing the half day affair which was buying a piece of meat from the meat shop, the author wraps up the section with: "Despite such shortcomings, however, the Soviet consumer has never had it so good. Food shops arrange supplies, while they last, in neat, tempting pyramids."

-- The Soviet Union was a hellhole? Here's another Karolesque bullet point for you. I saw the new Jarvis Cocker video last night. I can't say I'm too impressed with the solo songs I've heard, nor for that matter did I care for the last Pulp record, but the video is fun. I don't think it's as funny as people are making it out to be, but there's one moment which is just brilliant. I'm not saying which, though.