Mmmmmppphhhh

After a day jam-packed with utterly mundane domestic chores, I am unapologetically sitting with my feet up watching the Tar Heels biff it to a bunch of guys dressed like mustard bottles and enjoying the best snacks the kitchen has to offer. If pale ale and Girl Scout cookies are wrong, I don't want to be right ever again.

Thin Mints. Le sigh.

What a fuck of a week. My deepest personal misery can never touch the super special suckwad misery that accompanies my kid's life unraveling. His best friend is still in an undisclosed location in California and CPS can barely muster the energy for a shrug in the boy's direction. And he (my kid) got cut from the varsity volleyball team in a decision that spurred the captain to come apologize to him on behalf of the rest of the team for the coach's baffling rostering decisions. But! He got his driver's license today, so maybe things will start to turn around for him.

They better. I've been too heartsick to do much besides bury myself in work, not even slacking enough to update the blog more than a couple of times.

There is a lot to talk about, after all. We have North Dakota deciding that zygotes have equal legal standing to actual people and superior legal standing to their mobile incubators the women carrying them. We have the Arizona legislature deciding to cut off all non-federally-mandated funding to the Division of Economic Security, which administers minor programs like children & family services and services to people with developmental disabilities. Oh! And we have Hootie-Hoo Carla advancing to the finale of Top Chef! Swoon!

I will get to these topics tomorrow. Today I am busy with a Thin Mints tower.

Friday Fun Day in BoltLand

Snuggies frighten me. I'm glad somebody has take action.

Random Saturday Bits

Blogging whilst on painkillers sounds very appealing right about now, but since I have none I will settle for blogging whilst propped up on a heating pad and wondering exactly how many oxycontin a body could theoretically take before going Limbaugh. Because currently it feels like my left trapezius has ripped itself away from my spine and is currently in negotiations with the deltoid and triceps to blow this cowtown and hop the next train for LA. Who knew some innocent pushups could derail things so badly? Am I really that old? Fuck.

Airplane disasters! Speaking of prescription knockout pills, I am deathly afraid of flying, so the images of the plane floating in the Hudson with a ferry sidling up to it saying o hai yur not supposed to be in teh water gave me a serious case of the willies. I can pull it together enough, though, to roll my eyes at the inevitable yowling about miracles and angels and God being the co-pilot and say well, can't definitively go either way on the God/angel thing due to their convenient inherent invisibility, but what we can say with 100% confidence is that what they did have on a very well-designed and built aircraft was a pilot with Air Force fighter experience, a side venture teaching aviation emergency response and survival, and oh yeah glider training, and an actual corporeal co-pilot who hopped into the 36-degree water to retrieve life vests for passengers and flight attendants to organized the evacuation and passengers who followed instructions and helped each other. They had the best of humanity all rolled up into one incident. Oh, and there wasn't any ice on the river or barges in the way, so I guess if you're looking for something to pin on divine intervention you can choose that over luck, but whatevs. Did I mention I hate to fly? If I gotta do it, I hope that pilot or one of his students is driving my big sky bus.

Inauguration Mania! Well, sure. I'll watch it at work and then have a few people over for dinner that night, and will try to keep my creeping bitterness at bay by repeating it's not McCain it's not McCain over and over if that's what it takes to scrub the image of Rick Warren from my brain. And since I can't make it to DC for any of the official Inauguration Gay Orgies, does anyone know where the Tucson one is going to be held? You know, just in case my dinner party starts to drag.

Facebook craziness! Many people I went to college with all discovered Facebook in the past month, maybe six weeks, which means it's been one big weird timewarp since then of catching up, looking at pictures, and wondering how so many of these people manage to do things like ski Whistler and fish Barbados when I can barely get my bills paid on time. Be that as it may, there still needs to be some oh-so-clever word coined to describe the weird little rush you get when long-lost friends suddenly pop up again and want to send you a Martian or potted plant or some other damn thing, and they don't look a day older than when you were drunk-ass 22-year-olds stumbling up the stairs to the el platform together. Except that they do, because you do too.

Back hurts! A lot! Diving into the Tiger Balm momentarily!

In Which We Are a Lame-Ass Excuse for a Semi-Political Blogger

I did not watch or listen to W's last presser today, because this close to the end of the nightmare I did not want to be spurred to grind what's left of my nubbin teeth by the sound of that voice or whatever random words it was saying. One of my co-workers gave it a gallant effort but had to stop after the "misunderestimated" intro--W apparently has been watching a little too much Frank Caliendo; at least he didn't feel compelled to fill the uncomfortable, laughterless silence that followed with a heh heh heh. Jon Stewart probably had a field day. Will check tomorrow.

Oh, I was very gratified to hear Ken Blackwell explain that anybody can get over teh gay if they just try hard enough.

The answer is that I've never had to make the choice because I've never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual, but if in fact I had the urge to be something else I could have in fact suppressed that urge.

Neato! As I remarked to Top!Secret G-woman this evening, this is like me never having had the urge to eat a kalamata olive, but being totally sure I could resist one if the temptation had ever arisen. Just like I could completely suppress the urge to write with my left hand or go to the Talladega 600. Or the urge to breathe water. Thanks for the insight, Ken!

And with that, I'm off to bed.

Halloween Grab Bag

Full-size Twix bar: Maddow scored a sitdown with Obama yesterday (has she officially arrived as Queen of Everything? yes. yes, she has) and asked him about Afghanistan, reaching out to non-insane Republicans, and the possibility of resurrecting some old-skool FDR socialism with a modern Works Progress Administration. Score, score, and score. The only downside? Her lighting was awful. She looked like a Dickensian street urchin, but clean and in better clothes.

Fun-size Snickers: Obama told her he liked her pants!

Fifty of those little Reese's Cups: This may be the most thoughtful op-ed I've yet seen in the Arizona Daily Star arguing against that goddamn Proposition 102, which would protect straight people's third and fourth marriages by amending the state constitution to keep my partner and me from making our long-term two-kid, two-dog family legal. Take a sec and send the writer a thank-you note; I did.

In our learning, there is one truth we do not question. It is that our influence as a straight couple cannot change the orientation of our son, nor will it change the orientation of any non-heterosexual person we meet. Likewise, those of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persuasion cannot influence our straight orientation.

From this truth, we have concluded that to whom we are attracted is not a choice, but rather a continuation of our normal development begun at conception.

As unique human beings, then, our personal and very private rights to love another belong to us alone. We, every one of us, should be free to choose our life partners without fear of laws restricting our natural birthrights.

Fun-size Krackel: Abby Wambach was one of nine US athletes the Chinese government put on a watch list of potential protestors prior to the Olympics. Even though the broken leg kept her at home, the shout-out as a rabble-rousing progressive is all sorts of awesome.

Box of raisins: Thursdays that feel like Fridays, making Friday feel you're having to come into work on Saturday. Yesterday was so totally a Fridayesque day that those of us in the office today are grumpy about it. Also, office Halloween parties without alcohol. Although those are more like a box of stale raisins left over from last year.

Toothbrush: Do you have ovaries, a uterus, a vagina, or any combination of the above? Then you're paying 32, or 39, or 49 percent more for your healthcare than a man of comparable age. You know, because when you're young you might have a baby and when you're old you might be incontinent. Actually, you'll pay more even if you opt out of maternity coverage, because the insurance companies reason that, as a woman, you tend to go in for preventative care and take their prescriptions more frequently than guys who man up and shrug off minor symptoms until their appendixes explode or their prostates swell up and pinch off their bladders or their depression gets so bad that they kill themselves. Or something. If you still need a reason to vote for Obama, think about what your matching X chromosomes will do to your prospects in an open healthcare market. Enjoy that $2500! It should last you about two months.

Science Monday

Back in the saddle, three spreadsheets open and bucking and snorting as I shovel data into them, utterly disregarding the inelegant clanging of mixed metaphors, hot on the trail of the secret lives of a few people who hung out on top of a hill outside Payson, Arizona about 1700 years ago and made a mess of things. These people were inveterate recyclers, resharpening just about everything they had down to a nub. This is highly unusual behavior for the geographic setting and time period, so I need to figure out what all was all up in they grillz to make them do that. That's my job. That, and replenishing the coffee pot.














Puzzling evidence.

In completely unrelated news, the Emmys managed to top the previous edition of Completely Pointless and Stupid Format Tweaking we last saw when an awards show made a big hoo-hah of being In The Round, as it was uttered breathlessly and repeatedly, although "in the round" in that context simply meant "maintaining the same two-camera format despite half the audience being seated behind your mark." Cutting edge, that. Anyway. To top that, last night's Emmys featured the Worst! Idea! Ever! by being hosted by five reality show hosts, simultaneously and painfully unscripted. When both Ryan Seacrest and Tom Bergeron fidget and look distinctly uncomfortable, you know you have a serious dog. And I thought Howie Mandel creeped me out before. Holy shit. Uh, yeah, so I guess some people won awards and stuff. I didn't pay a lot of attention since more and more of the nominees are for things I can't see since I don't have HBO. I did see the bit at the beginning with Ricky Gervais and Steve Carell, which was howlingly funny and should have earned both of them another Emmy on the spot.

Friday Fulminations

A long overdue edition! Of! Things we hate!

1. Migraines! Would you like to experience the Boltversion of a migraine? Get two icepicks. Jam one laterally into your temple and one vertically through the top of your head so that they meet directly behind your left eye. Stir and enjoy!

2. Sleep disruptions induced by said migraines! Last night the migraine was accompanied by random itchiness, probably courtesy of our newly arrived dry fall air and the hordes of mosquitoes that have refused to acknowledge the end of monsoon season and keep sucking our blood. My half-asleep brain managed to conflate the onset of each itch with lingering fears of Sarah Palin, translating the whole experience into a nightmare in which every new itch signalled Palin banning essential household goods. Itch on my face? She just banned buckets. On my shoulder? There go the forks. And so on. It was awful. It is very difficult being inside my head sometimes.

3. Googly bits showing up in my chicken! Do you want me to vomit?

4. People who scream at the ref! I am heading back onto the pitch in two weeks. Please be polite.

5. Writer's block! Yes, I am home recovering from a goddamn migraine, but I'm also trying to work, and since half my work requires this thing called "writing," the ten-ton cinder block currently parked on top of my writing lobe is getting me down. Sledgehammers, anyone? Anyone?

6. Self-indulgent blathering masquerading as a blog post! Aaaaiiiieeeee!!!! Time to take down the blog!

7. Also getting pinched, and that annoying rattle in my right front quarter panel, and paper cuts, and running out of coffee before I'm ready, and bacon that's not crispy, and USC.

And whiners. Jesus god, do I hate whiners. Ha!

Just One More

So I've read a couple of pieces in which people opine that we need to get away from Palin-bashing and back to Obama-promoting. I'll do that in just a second, honest, but before I go back to real newshounding we need to talk about the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. Plugging in my first name gives me Buster Taint, and my middle name--which I go by--returns Bomb Locomotive, so I feel completely justified in referring to myself in the future exclusively as Buster Locomotive, which may be the most awesome name ever. Ever! If your name manages to top that--and I wish you luck in that endeavor--leave it in the comments. I still win.

Warmest regards,
Buster Locomotive Boltgirl

If It's Friday, It Must Be a Hodgepodge

Uno. Hey, the men's U23 soccer team acquitted themselves very nicely against Japan yesterday, coming away 1-0 winners in a match they really dominated more than the score indicates. Maurice Edu, Marvell Wynne, and Robbie Rogers particularly impressed me--Edu and Wynne with their solid defensive play and Rogers with his elegant footwork and ball distribution. The team as a whole looked pretty sharp, although Michael Bradley didn't have his best match and Freddie Adu needs to look up for open teammates now and again rather than consistently dribbling into pressure until he loses the ball. Oh, and Sacha Kljestan, this is not Argentina. Please cut your hair. Or at least wash it.

Dos. See, it's not just me.

Love is too weak a word to describe how some people feel about Rachel Maddow. They lurve her, loave her, luff her. New York magazine’s online Intelligencer column recently ran an item headlined Why We’re Gay for Rachel Maddow, and the blogosphere is dotted with posts like “I’m totally gay for Rachel Maddow.” The “gay for Rachel” meme appears to transcend gender and sexuality. Women, men, straight and not straight: they’re all gay for her. In a year in which we have decided to become postracial and postgender, Maddow may embody a media in which adoring fandom is postgay.

Tres. I try to support locally owned businesses over chains when I can, but sometimes a corporate entity comes along that is simply so delicious that my slender principles are no match. Grimaldi's Pizza (work warning: musical website) is owned by somebody in the Evil Northern Empire of Scottsdale, or possibly Brooklyn--who can tell? not me--but damn. Damn, damn, damn. One of my New Yorker co-workers fussed that it's "not real New York pizza," which probably explains why it tastes so good. It is a thin crust, but its crisp body refuses to be folded, and the rich tomato sauce sings with marjoram and possibly the slightest hint of rosemary, just enough to perk up your tastebuds with a delighted oh, what is this? Even the really unforgivable move of the waitress bringing me an already-opened Stella because they were out of the Sierra Nevada IPA I'd ordered (after being told they were out of the draft Nimbus IPA and had never had Sam Adams, despite its being on the beer list) wasn't enough to make me want to firebomb the place. The pizza was that good. Oh, and it's baked in a coal-powered oven, so the carbon footprint of your meal covers vast swaths of southwestern Pennsylvania. But it is so. freaking. tasty. Chalk it up to a guilty pleasure.

Cuatro. No, I'm really not a fan of Stella Artois. Meh, Belgian Budweiser. But now I guess all Budweiser is Belgian anyway. Maybe they can consolidate their brewing and save some money.

Cinco. Cake Wrecks. Just because.

Brrrrrrrrrrr

I have never been on a bad acid trip--well, or on any acid trip at all, regardless of quality--but I think this might make up for that. Mommy.

Back to the Grind

The falls, McCormick's Creek, southern Indiana.

This is where I was. And it's where my mind still is, mostly, when it's not off wandering North Side neighborhoods in Chicago looking for the next bakery with promising cupcakes. I came home to a Tucson that is much greener and damper than when I left, although the big monsoons have yet to fire up overhead since I've been back. Half the flowers in the yard are dead, a bumper crop of weeds is springing up, and green fuzzy stuff that is probably mold but that I'll hopefully call short moss has taken over one of the rock terraces in the back.

My office failed to spontaneously combust during my absence, so today I have to make good on a vague promise to myself that the piles of paper will be plowed under at least once a year.

Politics rage on. Bush is lifting the offshore drilling moratorium, causing Bomb Bomb McCain to clap his hands with glee. The New Yorker has put out a deeply satirical cover this week portraying the Obamas as angry black Muslim terrorists, forgetting that most of the country doesn't (a) recognize satire or (b) know that the proper response is not fuck yeah that's what Rush has been saying for months! And the people who led the fight against Arizona's most recent anti-gay-marriage amendment are admitting that they were only in it for the straight couples who might have been adversely affected, and so aren't really interested this time now that gays are the explicit, exclusive target. Awesome. Thanks for the welcome home, guys!

Random Noise Friday

Yesterday was borderline surreal for no better reason than the combination of a nearly empty office and a nearly fully stuffed head. Thanks, palo verde trees! Your pollen is Teh Awesome!







The prime culprit.

The office was empty because, as Homer noted, we have the best boss in the world, who occasionally takes us on paid all-day field trips. This one was to the Coyote Mountains, and it sounds like it was lovely (it looks lovely, too; Homer's pictures here), but I didn't go due to parenting obligations. That was probably a good thing, since the aforementioned palo verde allergies had my brain so nonfunctional I repeatedly typed "discussion" as "dicsuccion" throughout the day. Which is really not something I'm all that into.

Item the first: Extra Sugar-Free Gum is pushing itself as "the five-calorie snack" to help you lose weight. Excuse me? Gum is a snack? A five-calorie snack? Jesus. There are probably more calories than that in the drool I produce thinking about actual snacks such as tacos and cheesesteaks. Maybe swallowing the gum clogs your stomach and nauseates you to the point that you don't feel hungry any more.

Item the second: OMG, Lost.

Item the third: The Olympic torch hasn't been put out by protesters for nearly three weeks now. Step it up, Indonesia!

Huh.

Proof that the Blog-Cuss-O-Meter is seriously fucked up:


Created by OnePlusYou

In Conclusion, All I Got to Say

The bullshit factor is too high today for serious discussion. We have Michael Mukasey either (1) lying through his teeth or (2) inadvertently exposing the utter incompetence of US intelligence gathering whilst (3) manufacturing a emotion-choked moment during a speech about FISA and the evil liberals who don't want telecoms permanently immunized against any repercussions for helping shred the Constitution. We have, finally, the full text of John Yoo's remix of the old-skool Nixon hit, "When the President Does It, That Means It Is Not Illegal." We have the Center for Arizona Policy proclaiming the end of the world because the governor decided to extend taxable healthcare benefits to unmarried partners of state employees.

In the face of that, I finally remembered something that's been bugging me since yesterday. I hate it when women refer to their breasts as "the twins" or, especially, "the girls." It seriously fucking makes my skin crawl. Not sure why. Just stop it. Now.

Apropos of Nothing Friday

Maybe the fifteenth time the dogs went berserk yesterday I trudged out the front door to see if it was an actual threat, or one of the goddamn cats next door, or just the mailman (who has the temerity to put mail in the box within eyeshot of the guardian hellhounds--seriously, man, what are you thinking?), but found just a little flyer rolled up and tucked under the hose bib. Usually these are handyman ads or menus for restaurants that invariably close within two weeks of their menus showing up at my front door, but this day it was someone's anonymous statement of gratitude. I just skimmed the front material--the upshot was that someone had challenged this person to list 25 things he was grateful for, and he wound up with something like 340 before running out of space. The first one listed was an early memory from the age of 4, of initially being grateful that a neighbor had bought him a double-scoop ice cream cone, and then immediately after that being grateful to his cousin for sharing one of her scoops when he accidentally dumped his own cone on the sidewalk. And so on for most of a double-sided xerox.

I'm not sure how to pick the items that would go on my own list, since obviously any middle-class American's list should be completely filled with stuff like housing, employment, access to medical care, and that whole Constitution thing before even getting around to the juicy bits that make better flyer copy than "7.25% fixed mortgage rate." Fail to list the basic stuff you should be weepingly grateful for and karma snatches it away! Did I mention my family and my dogs? Very grateful for them, capricious universe! Very much so! No takey! Hands off!!!

That said, after this shit week I am grateful for the database guy fixing some major problems that were giving me fits. I am grateful that my company's proposal for a major excavation from an early time period that interests me greatly won the county contract. I am grateful for prehistoric people using rocks for tools in consistent ways that left identifiable signatures in the archaeological record, ensuring my continued employment.

I am grateful for the best teacher I ever had, and was remiss in not making the big TomDay birthday post I'd planned for March 1. I'm grateful that he touched so many students' lives that we sought each other out after his passing, and that as a result a couple of people I hadn't talked to in 20 years are back in my life as e-mail buddies.

Also grateful for Big Head Todd, the Santa Catalina mountains, snow in the desert, Merrell footwear, Frankie's Philadelphia Cheesesteaks and Hoagies, cool shade, streaming internet radio, cushy soccer balls, sunflowers, and geckos. Not grateful for static electricity, constant desert springtime dry winds, feral cats, olives, being pinched--fucking pinch me on St. Pat's day and you'll be picking yourself up off the floor--Will Ferrell except in Elf, cartilage tears, or John McCain, who is a douchebag.

I could go on and on.

More Surname Fun

I may have mentioned a while ago that people invariably transpose two of the letters in my last name, transforming my heritage from partly Bohemian to partly Hispanic, just like that. The NY Times last week published a study of surnames in America, and included a search form that tells you where your name ranked in the year 2000 and how that ranking has changed since the 1990 census (the point being to highlight the growth in Hispanic surnames).

Okay, so I gave it a whirl with my actual last name, and...

Sorry, the name

S****

was not one of the 5,000 most common surnames
in the nation during the year 2000.

Humph. Well, hell, I thought, let's see how the alternate last name fares. Aha!

214 S**** 47 occurrences per 100,000 people
254: rank in 1990

I bet at least some of those 47 are the result of people with my name having it officially misspelled, going from vice pivo, prosim to mas cerveza, por favor with the stroke of an Ellis Island pen.

In other surname news, my almost-name-doppelganger continues to follow me into the most unexpected places as our lives take eerily similar paths. We already share the same first name, and essentially the same last name given the world's propensity for changing my surname to hers, and the same general practitioner (where I first learned of the other Boltgirl's existence when my doc started rattling off a list of meds she wanted to see if I was still taking, before realizing she was talking to the wrong Boltgirl). Then last month, as I waited to hop onto the cardiologist's table for an echocardiogram, the technician confirmed my birthdate of 10/23/64. Which is in the right decade but otherwise isn't close to my birthdate. Confused, she asked why I was back since I was just there the previous week... which I wasn't. Oh my god, I screamed, she's here too?!? The other Boltgirl had been in for the same test I was about to take. Jesus. I feel like I ought to buy her a beer or something. I've seen more of her medical records than I have of my girlfriend's.

Lesson? Always confirm the birthdate. Spelling the name, spelling it again, correcting the spelling they write down, and correcting the pronunciation doesn't work.

Friday Not List

Things I did not do last night:

Didn't go to the Arizona-Oregon game, even though I suspected this might be The One for this year, you know, the one game where the planets align and the 'Cats act like they know how to play football and drub a vastly superior opponent. And indeed, they flattened the #2 Ducks, 34-24. All this does, of course, is knock Oregon out of the national championship picture and give Mike Stoops another week's breathing room before the chorus starts up again after what will probably be an ugly result at ASU. Unless ASU's starting QB blows a knee in the first quarter too, a la Dennis Dixon.

Didn't go see Neko Case at the Rialto, which is even more disappointing than passing on the football game. My officemates went and said she was marvelous. Damn these kids and their late start times, but if she comes back to Tucson I'll coffee up and make it.

Didn't throw up! Although it was close for a while. Where that came from, I have no idea.

Didn't gasp in surprise when I watched ESPN's report on Barroid Bonds being indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Nor, it should be noted, did I shed a tear.

In Which We Ponder New Career Directions

I have been an archaeologist for a long time, starting with my first fieldwork in southern Peru in 1987, to lab work in grad school, to freelance artifact illustration after grad school, to the fulltime gig chasing rocks here in the desert since 1994. I have a few "real" publications on my resume and wheelbarrows full of CRM "gray literature" to my name. I've named a few projectile points and put together a regional typology other researchers have adopted. I'm teetering on the edge of putting together a definitive big-picture treatment of a major prehistoric arrowhead industry in Arizona. Grad students call me with questions. Professionals ask my opinion.

And I think I'm sick of it all.

During my freshman year in high school, we took a career aptitude test. Sister Jeanne told us to take it seriously, and I was thrilled to be missing her algebra class period for the test, so I cheerfully complied and answered the multiple-choice activity preference questions as thoughtfully as a 14-year-old can. The results came back some time later. My suggested future careers? Rabbi. Or handbag assembler.

Rabbi? I had checked the "Catholic" box on the form.

Archaeology is very much a jack-of-all-trades sort of profession, incorporating elements of history, biology, anatomy, geology, geomorphology, soils science, hydrology, chemistry, physics, geometry, metallurgy, tribology, agronomy, botany, zoology, sociology, political science, cartography, art, technical writing, essay, and landscaping. First-aid skills are a plus. What other work does this actually prepare me for? Fuck if I know.

Training assistance dogs would be rewarding. I don't know how you break into that field. Engineering awesome prosthetic limbs for people who got blown up in Iraq would be extremely rewarding, but I'm thinking that takes higher level math than my brain can handle. I like hiking, picking up rocks, taking pictures of dramatic scenery and pretty flowers, and writing about it afterwards. That probably doesn't pay too well; actually, it's what I mostly do on this blog, and no one has yet come forward with a fat contract for me to sign.

The dream job, really, would be running an independent bookstore with a good coffee bar inside, next door to an Irish pub, with a good bakery down the street. Boltgirl Books. Did I mention the coffee bar also has Guinness on tap?

Cardiac Diagnostics Day

Not exactly how Boltgirl looked on the treadmill.

This guy is way too happy. Otherwise, yeah, pretty much a mirror image. I trundled away for ten minutes before hitting the target heart rate, and had to bail out not because of any need for a defibrillator but because the front of my left shin started to cramp like a motherfucker. What the hell do they think they're doing tilting the treadmill up like that? If they'd kept it flat I could have gone on and on.

Anyway, I managed to churn out a lovely series of peaks and valleys on the EKG. Now I get to wait another ten days to get the cardiologist's interpretation and verdict on whether I can continue my accustomed cheesesteak and red wine justified with regular bouts of chasing a ball lifestyle.

Friday Videos and Streams

Two people we heart mightily: Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow. First, AfterElton.com has put together a compilation of Stewart's greatest Daily Show gay hits. We have many straight allies out there, but when it comes to having our back, Jon Stewart is king.

If you have any afternoon left after watching these, zip over to Air America and stream yesterday's Maddow show. Brilliant, cute as a button, and a self-described giant lesbian. Hot, hot, hot. What's not to love?