Wow. And it's not just her, at 44 my god. It's also the brilliant, in your face wisdom of John McCain. It's not about reaching to conservatives, or catching Hillary's lost and disgruntled women. It's about garnering that special large group - the cynics. The sarcastic, laid-back people who aren't serious or flat out don't care about politics. Well, they'll care now. A mother of five V.P.I.L.F. I was wavering, but this emphatically ends that.

Last night at the Democratic Convention keynote address speaker and former Virginia governor Mark Warner said that if we mustered our will we could outcompete and outhustle the citizens of other nations, including those on the rise like China and India, while leaving no American behind. Now what the fuck. What exactly does that mean? Are you saying that if we put the effort in, everybody conveniently born here or comes here can prosper, while everybody else will indirectly fail, suffer, and perish? Sounds great. Patriotism, truly one of humanity's admirable virtues. Dictators often desire the triumph of one group over another by distinction of race. Patriots desire the triumph of one group over another by distinction of geographical whim. Please someone demonstrate that these faulty aims are not largely the same.

Today's entry is a tribute to drinking. Oh but it's not what you think! I'm not talking about alcoholic drinks. I'm talking about drinking, the act of, an affinity I share with my former roomate, Andrew. So wonderful, so enjoyable. Liquid > solid. Drink > food. Drink > eat. If I could obtain all my nutrients via oral liquidation I would prolly do it. I've already cut down on solid vegetables in favor of delicious V8. Mmmmm, milk, water, gatorade, coke, so many delicious things to drink!!!

I've solved a mystery, part of one anyway. Often I finish a run with my chest and arms covered with dead ants. Vexing, because ants, as you know, live on the ground. I had always explained this conundrum by the brushing up against overhanging branches, because many of the trees here in central Texas are ant infested. Nay, the answer is much simpler. Upon closer inspection, the small dead ones have wings. Beg your pardon, highnesses. Solenopsis invicta, or the red imported fire ant (RIFA), has undergone two critical mutations recently. Traditional territorial defense communication has broken down, leaving an intensified war raid attitude among all RIFAs, against anybody and anything, including their own. Secondly, one queen per colony, crux of formic hierarchy, has broken down as well, with several queens occupying a single colony. The result is an exponential increase in number and aggression among one of the most numerous and aggressive species in existence. The amount of queens that end up on my post-run chest is testament to the sheer number that patrol the ground. In central Texas, total invicta numbers have increased 40 fold in the last 25 years, while all other total arthropod, ant, and other insect numbers have fallen. Invicta is responsible for more extinctions in the area during recorded history than any other known phenomenon.

Why do we have flying dreams? Did we used to fly? The explanation for falling dreams is convincing. Haven't you ever had a dream where you experienced a falling sensation, followed by a violent kick and waking up? Our arboreal ancestors slept in trees. Some of them fell out and died while sleeping. The quick penetrance of the falling sensation into one's sleep was therefore advantageous; those who didn't have the dreams are not around anymore. Then why do we have flying dreams, perhaps more common than falling dreams? Are we descendants of flying hominids that glided from tree to tree?

I had such a dream a few nights ago. My flying dreams are more vivid, realistic, and are accompanied by the same sentiments than most of my others. I don't skyrocket straight up, I always steadily climb around an angle of 20 degrees from the ground. I have a feel for the air more like a conscious airplane than a nimble bird. After a while I feel like I'm going to lose momentum and I come down. When I get really high I feel like it's because of the wind, or something else, outside my control. Once I get really high I wake up before coming down. The dreams are always exciting. In this particular dream I flew away from a Halloween party because I had forgotten something that I felt I needed. The guy at the door said "Remember to use _____." I don't remember what ______ was but I thought to myself that the guy was an idiot because I don't need _____. The flying ghoul-like creature elicited screams from outsiders and this made the flying ghoul feel powerful.

On a Puerto Rican ranch in 1995, eight sheep were discovered dead, each of their chests having small incisions, and exsanguinated, or completely drained of blood. Near San Antonio in 2004, a rancher reported a hairless dog-like creature attacking his livestock. Unidentifiable bodies were found in Cuero, Texas, where 30 mutilated chickens were documented in one year. Other exsanguinated bodies have been found, other sightings reported, escalating in recent years. Few types of farm animals have been spared. Most believe that the bloodthirsty beasts are coyotes with severe cases of sarcoptic mange, and the incisions and exsanguination explained by the activities of sadistic cults. But I know better; it is the work of chupacabra.

The chupacabra, Spanish chupar, to suck, and cabra, goat, is a relative of the vampire bat but has developed fox and canine-like characteristics. Nocturnal and reclusive, they have successfully remained unknown to humans, covering the southwestern United States and Mexico. This is what they prolly look like:

Deadly chupacabra

Chupacabra with a good haul

Video footage caught by a DeWitt county sheriff this month, near Cuero. Curiously long chupacabrish snout.

Nessie, Bigfoot, yetis, banshees?!?! Prolly no. But Chupacabra, Yes! More T-shirts please.

I took a dip in the lake today. More like moving from the sauna to the hot tub, given the heat. Temperature predicament aside, it was refreshing, even if came about from the mere act. I was reminded of a funny conversation my brother and I had there earlier in the summer. We humans always think about how wonderful and liberating the ability to fly would be. The weightlessness! But what if we weighed very little, with a great surface area, or what if another organism were conscious with similar characteristics. Would they not look longingly at us humans, with our amazing ability to swim under water. The weightfulness! The grass is always greener on the other side.

Today I had to get 8 small photos of myself. No big deal right? Well Walgreens charged $35. Are you kidding? No value deal? Screw that. Across the street to Not Just Mail. No dice. Ahhh Sam Walton you genius. I can always rely on you for what I need. Once at Wal-Mart I located the section of the store that would serve my particular daily need. $10, much more reasonable. But I had to wait an hour. No problem. I was on the fringe of the Austin urban sprawl, and I felt like an hour mosey drive through the undeveloped hill country. And that's what I did. One of the few moments in my life when I wished I had a truck.

A couple of nights ago I tried dip, because, hell, I try new things. That shit will knock you out.

The heat wave is upon us. Unbearable, intolerable, cruel heat. The dog days of summer. Hundred plus days ad nauseam. One cannot venture outside between 10 and 5 without water involved in some capacity. And I love it. I will be sad to see it go.

My grandmother just slumped into her chair and exclaimed aloud, "Where has all my energy gone?" My grandfather leaned over the kitchen counter and pronounced matter of factly, "Nineteen hundred and forty."

Houston is one large big city! Too big, and too large. It's almost less of an urban sprawl and just a freeway sprawl. Gross. The human parasite desperately needs to come to terms with what it's doing. Or we need to launch into space, the new frontier. That's why James is going to design space suits. That's why we were in Houston yesterday. Actually, I think he just enjoys engineering. Schphshshf.

But seriously, overpopulation. This is the only real problem people....people. Not global warming, not taking America the next step to communism, not the endangerment of our cherished values. Our cherished values are going to change with the inexorable shift of the prevailing zeitgeist and that is more out of our hands than we are able to realize or admit. We can educate the world about sex, we can distribute birth control, we can save valuable resources, we can raise the average quality of life not only of today's world citizens, but more importantly, of tomorrow's. This is an is that is also an ought. This is a permanent issue, always has been, always will be. Let's focus on it rather than on transient issues that will be forgotten tomorrow and distract from the real future.