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Here at Capitol Annex, as much as we love Lege watching, we’re getting a bit fatigued just as we’ve passed the 60-day mark. So, in the spirit of David Letterman, we thought we’d come up with a little “top ten list.”

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM LEGISLATIVE FATIGUE

10. Every window or tab in your Internet browser is pointing to something at “Texas Legislature Online.”

9. You find yourself saying things like, “Oh, my God! Did you see the Fiscal Note and Bill Analysis to HB 1009 yet?”

8. Every other word or phrase out of your mouth is, “conservator,” “legislative intent,” “committee substitute,” or “local and consent calendar.”

7. You star to panic when you can’t access the webcast of the House Committee on Culture, Recreation, & Tourism.

6. You know exactly how many bills have been filed for consideration before the Legislature, but can no longer remember your phone number, your ATM pin number, or anything else.

5. While watching TV, you also watch a Webcast of the Senate Committe on Criminal Jurisprudence and consider it “multi-tasking.”

4. It is suddenly of vital importance to you know exactly how Tan Parker and Joe Heflin vote on every single amendment.

3. You have spent so much time talking about “Jessica’s Law” that your friends think it is a spin-off of Law and Order.

2. No matter how bad your sinus headache is, you have to get out of bed and check the agenda for the House Committee on Agriculture.

1. You start wondering what it would be like if Simon Cowell was Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

Seriously, though. This is so 1997.

Enjoy!

Today, I decided to start off with an easy one: Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland). I’ve got some ideas on who I’ll write on in the coming days, but I’d also love some reader input, so put your thoughts on legislators and gifts in the comments and I’ll put the best ones in posts throughout the week.

So, what would the discerning lobbyist give Craddick? Given that his recently renovated tony new apartment is a major source of pride for him, I’d propose the following:

Designer Toilet Paper: You can’t use plain old Angel Soft or Quilted Northern if you are sitting on a $1,000 brass toilet. No, no, only the finest designer bog roll will do:

Consider Renova Negro: This all-black toilet paper from Spain is brand new, real, and mercilessly chic. Very Pedro Almodóvar. And, as it turns out, 10 times more costly than the average Euro-wipe. Renova Negro is the brainchild of an established, successful company already famous for an ad campaign in which barely clad models dry-hump near a commode while rolls of toilet paper look on, unmoved, as though they’ve seen it all. In Japan, meanwhile, luxury toilet paper is de rigueur. Japanese rolls are routinely scented, extra-thick, aloe-moistened, strictly “virgin” (unrecycled), patterned, or — the latest trick — infused with pineapple enzymes to counteract odor. And in Germany the American brand Charmin Ultra is known as Charmin Deluxe; it comes in urbane black-and-charcoal-gray packaging“designed with the consumer in mind,” according to Procter and Gamble’s European division, “with a Gucci look and feel.”

That’s right: pineapple scented TP on virgin paper with a little aloe. Only the best for the speaker’s bottom and his $1,000 can.

And, of course, you can’t just read an old GQ while sitting on a toilet like that. Thanks to About.com and their bathroom reading section, I’d recommend Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts, which is written in to be read in small segments. That’s sure to impress Dewhurst next time he needs to take advantage of the Speaker’s facilities during one of those harried breakfast meetings.

And, of course, Texas-made all-natural soaps would compliment the room nicely.

Finally, what would the Speaker’s Bathroom be without music? With this handy IPod system that doubles as a toilet paper holder (for that designer bog roll) the legislator on the go can listen to their favorite tunes or the mp3 of their latest committee meeting.

Put your ideas after the jump!

So, without any further ado, the Laws of Thanksgiving.

No matter how many pies you make, you will always have failed to make the one type of pie your pickest and bitchiest guest will want.
No matter how good your dressing is, someone will always announce that their mother’s/grandmother’s is better even though your recipie came from your grandmother. You can counter this by hiring the elderly lady from down the street to hide in a back bedroom and walk out in the middle of the Thanksgiving meal to fill a plate. Totally ignore her, and when someone asks, “who’s that,” just reply: “Oh, that’s my Grandma. Her ghost shows up when people diss her stuffing recipie.” After you say this, the elderly lady should make a ghost-noise. Make sure you pay slip the elderly lady a $50 for her services.
Even if you tell everyone you invite that it is not necessary for them to bring any side dishes or desserts, they will always bring something that (a) clashes with the menu and (b) which they demand to set on the dining room table, disrupting the table setting you worked on all morning.

If you go to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving, and they announce that their friends or cousins are coming over with their kids, at least one child present will be a 16-year-old who is carrying an illegitimate child and has brought the baby’s dad along. The baby’s dad will be listening to “Sexyback” on an iPod, wearing a tee shirt, and take both legs off the turkey.

It’s always best to have some nice, cheap Sutter Home wines on hand for Thanksgiving. This way, when no one is looking, you can fill the glasses of the uninvited guests, family you hate, and others, with cheap ass wine and save the good stuff for yourself and those you truly care about.

Pumpkin pie does not travel well on a plane.

If you are going on a long trip and take your already baked desserts, some jackass sitting in the back seat will eat at least half a pie.

No matter how much you pay to attend a Thanksgiving Buffet at even the toniest of establishments, the mashed potatoes will taste like they belong in a nursing home cafeteria.

The casinos at Shreveport are always packed at Thanksgiving.

Keep a small bottle of your favorite hard liqour in the spice cabinet in the kitchen. That way, when everyone in your house is in your kitchen trying to tell you how their mother used to cook whatever it is you’re cooking, you can take a swig for sanity preservation. And, if the extra cooks get on your nerves too much, you can smack them with the bottle.

Whatever falls on the floor while you are cooking belongs to the dog. If you do not have a dog, borrow one so that they can eat what you drop, preventing you from having to bend over too frequently.

If you try to serve something classy like Cornish Game Hens, some idiot will always say, “what, no turkey?” Luckily, Cornish Game Hens are just small enough that you can throw one across the table at head of the offending guest with no lasting brain damage.

You can never have too much green bean casserole. Never. Ever.

If you decide your guests are worthy of your grandmother’s silverware, some idiot will always ask, “why are there so many forks and spoons?” Accidently throw a turkey leg at them.

No matter how many cans of cream of mushroom soup, evaporated milk, and broth you buy, you will discover that you need one more on Thanksgiving morning.

If you want to know what Hell is like, go to Wal-Mart the night before Thanksgiving and hang out in the grocery section. Better yet, try to find the Karo Syrup and cornstarch–go ahead, I dare you.

If you cannot find a particular item at the store during the rush of your Thanksgiving grocery shopping trip and also can’t find any store staff, slowly walk up and down each aisle staring straight ahead repeating loudly (and with crazed eyes) the name of the item you are seeking. Trust me, if you  walk up and down four or five aisles moaning “Karo Syrup! I need Karo Syrup!” an associate will quickly find it for you.

Whatever nice outfit you picked out for your Thanksgiving dinner will be ruined by dessert. Either you will spill gravy on it, someone’s child will spit-up on your shoulder, or a three-year-old will smear pumpkin pie on your pants.

No house has enough ovens to cook a proper Thanksgiving dinner.

If someone brings a dish to your Thanksgiving lunch and proudly announces that it was prepared entirely in the microwave, accidentally bump them while they are carrying it and then make them pay to have your carpets cleaned.

The best hash brown casserole is always found in the most humble of surroundings.

Keep a couple of cans of cranberry sauce on hand even if you make it from scratch. If you prepare real cranberry sauce, some jackass will complain that canned is better. Announce that you have a can you’ll gladly open and serve, and then accidentally drop it on their foot.

There is always one guest at Thanksgiving Dinner who would prefer to eat dinner in front of the television. As punishment, make sure that the kid’s table with the loudest, most obnoxious children is set up right in front of the TV.

If you serve your dinner buffet style, there will always be a child who walks through the entire line with their mother with nothing but mashed potatoes on their plate because everything else “looks gross” and they “don’t like turkey.” Tell them they can have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if (a) they can find where you keep the peanut butter, and (b) if they can make it themselves on the back porch because it will make too much of a mess in the kitchen. They’ll quickly realize they love squash casserole. It helps if you have a large doberman sitting on the back porch.
If you have a dog, it can come in very, very handy on Thanksgiving. When one of your relatives complains about the food, that you didn’t make a certain dish, or that something doesn’t taste like it should, tell them you’ll take care of it. Gently whisk away their plate (with a smile), call the dog into the room, and present the dog with the plate. Then tell the guest, “sorry, no seconds until after dessert!”

If you’re tired of your uninvited distant family members inviting themselves to your Thanksgiving dinner, invite four or five local prostitutes to share your meal with you and tell your family it’s part of your church’s ministry. Your family will probably never invite themselves back.

Someone’s child, spouse, or boy/girlfriend will always show up and announce that they are “vegitarian.” Grab a can of green beans, open them, and grab a fork. Present this to your vegit guest  (in the can) and say, “that’s ok! I’m prepared!” Then, announce to your meat-eating guests, “Isn’t this turkey great? I went to that new grocery store where they let you kill it yourself.”

It’s inevitible that someone at your Thanksgiving dinner will announce they’re on a diet and can eat nothing you’ve prepared. Announce, “That’s ok! I prepared a separate dinner for the dieters!” and hand them a packet of Splenda and a straw. Tell them they are welcome to enjoy their dinner in the garage or bathroom so they aren’t tempted by the other foods.

There will always be someone at your Thanksgiving dinner for whom even a mere glass of wine is far too much. They’ll either be laughing like a 12-year-old school girl or telling jokes worse than Kinky Friedman. It is not inappropriate to slap such people silly.

Never bring business cards to Thanksgiving dinner and if you do, don’t hand them out. Why? Because no matter what your occupation, someone at the dinner who you’d prefer to never see again will need your services and want them for free because they met you at their cousin’s Thanksgiving meal. For example, if you’re a lawyer, someone will have a kid with a DWI. If you sell lumber, someone will want a load for free for a new shed.

As an addition to the above, never tell people you don’t know your real occupation at a Thanksgiving dinner because they’ll immediately decide they need your help. If you’re a banker, they’ll want you to hook them up with a loan; if you are an electrician, they’ll need a house rewired (for free). Just tell people you are a “consultant.” If they are smart enough to ask “what kind of a consultant,” reply with something like, “I consult with the principals in the nuclear power plant industry to help them assess their risks, needs, and future development with regard to federal deregulation of various aspects of the industry.” They’ll immediately decide you are too boring and move on. If they act interested and you can’t keep faking it, spill something (if you are at someone else’s house) because that always stops a conversation.

When the meal is over, you will likely want everyone out of your house. However, chances are they’ll want to plop down and watch football while spilling beer and pumpking pie all over your sofa. To prevent this, before dinner, descretly disconnect your cable or DirectTV. When someone turns on the TV and sees static, casually announce, “Oh, our receiver went out and they won’t be here until Friday to fix it. We don’t have cable anywhere in the house! That’s OK though because I rented old black and white movies from the 40s for us to watch!” Your house will clear out within minutes.

It’s always tempting to use family heirloom lenins on the dining room table at Thanksgiving. After all, that’s what they are there for. However, if there are any children that will be present, resist the temptation. Even if the kids are at another table in another room, someone will run to their mommy because cousin Johnny called them a name and smear gravy on the tablecloth.

For at least the day of Thanksgiving, everyone loves leftovers. However, if you have a lot of company, you may not have any leftovers left to enjoy after everyone has had seconds. To prevent this problem, let everyone serve themselves (or serve them) and immediately whisk the remaining food away to the fridge, etc. Guests usually will not ask you to get it back out. If they do, announce that you pledged the leftovers to a homeless shelter and that they’ll be picked up in a few minutes.

Someone will always show up to Thanksgiving dinner sick with a contageous illness like Flu. Put them at the kids table–everyone expects them to get sick in the winter anyway.

No matter what your political affiliation is, someone at your Thanksgiving dinner will want to argue with you over politics. After they’ve said one or two things, simply reply, “Well, you’ve convinced me. Your political party really is a bunch of assholes.”

If your family isn’t in the habit of saying ‘grace’ before meals, some guest will usually be somewhat offended by that and loudly ask, “aren’t we going to bless the food.” If the guests in question are protestant, announce that the Rabbi came by this morning and already did that. If the guests in question are Jewish, announce that a Catholic priest came by earlier and already did a blessing. If the guests are Baptists, tell them that the local Methodist minister already came by and did it while they were in the bathroom. If the guests are Methodist, just offer them more wine.

If your family is in the habit of saying ‘grace’ before meals and some rogue digs in before you have the opportunity to do so, loudly announce, “Well, I guess we’ll have to bless every plate here but yours!” Other good announcements include, “excuse me, but those of us here who aren’t heathen would like to give thanks to God,” and “excuse me, but I am afraid that some of this food might be undercooked, so if you don’t want e-coli or salmonella, you’d better spit that out and pray with the rest of us.” Good blessings to offer in such situations include: “Lord, please bless those of us who had the patience to wait for this prayer and condemn the rest of these sinners to Hell, amen.”

Someone will always be a “downer” during dinner by starting to cry when some other relative mentions another relative who has passed on. Interrupt and say, “yes, it’s sad, but you can bet if our late (insert name of relative that brought this on here) was here, she’d tell you to shut the hell up and eat the rest of your grean bean casserole.”

Pop siblings Jessica and Ashlee Simpson have been criticized by a Texan priest, who warns the pretty pair will pay for their overt sexuality. Reverend Bob Harrington is disgusted by the sexy twosome for swapping integrity for wealth.

And he has hit out at their manager dad Joe - a former minister - for ditching the cloth in favor of a life of glamour, insisting he has “replaced holiness with horniness”.

He fumes, “Their father has replaced his faith in the Lord with the love of money, which is the root of all evil. He has replaced holiness with horniness. Jessica and Ashlee will reap the dismal crops they are sowing. Their breasts will sag and their faces will wither, and they will be left with nothing but a hollow shell. They don’t represent American standards and certainly not Christian standards.”

Why couldn’t this guy turn his venom on Carole Strayhorn and Rick Perry. I couldn’t stop laughing at what he had to say about the Simpsons: holiness to horniness, sagging breasts, et al. Wonder how he’d roast Strayhorn?

When the South Texas sun bakes the downtown Cuero area, take a good deep breath.

Not so pleasant? Blame bat guano.

Thousands of the winged creatures live in downtown Cuero buildings, and have for several years. Each night at dusk there is a rush of wings and a chorus of squeaks as the bats pour out of the downtown buildings to feast on insects in the night air. Most of them exit from cracks in the rear of buildings that face the 100 block of Main Street. The bats rush out dozens at a time, group after group for 30 minutes or more, filling the dimming sky with black whirling dervishes, zigging and zagging in search of an airborne meal.

10. We have our own dedicated columnist/critic at Texas Weekly (Robyn Hadley).
9. Rick Perry’s blog is now open to the public. (Expect that electric bill at the mansion to go even higher now as he checks his stats over and over again and wonders if commenter Sk8erGirl69 is really Martha Wong).
8. The merger of two Texas blogs is discussed like the merger of Exxon and Mobile.
7. Paul Burka has started a blog.
6. If you Google “Ben Bentzin” and “Douch Bag,” the first hit you get is from Pink Dome.
5. A Republican getting positive press from a blog is used in newspaper ads by her opponent, in which all blogs are characterized as “pro-homosexual and/or left leaning bloggers.”
/Paging Carter Casteel to the Annex…Representative Casteel to the Annex, please.
4. When a statewide candidate holds a “media conference call,” the blogs are invited, and we feel like we’re not doing our jobs if we don’t attend (sorry I didn’t get to join the call Thursday, btw. I had a conflict).
3. Eileen gets invited to fund-raisers at multi-millionaire’s homes for United States Congressmen. Guess my invitation got lost in the mail. That’s okay, though, because they thought she was on the catering staff.

/Or, so she says…

2. The Republican Party has put out a smear sheet of talking points on Markos Zuniga of DailyKOS fame.

…and…**drum roll, please**
1. I quoted Charles Kuffner like he was a mainstream media talking-head analyst/political scientist (after he was quoted in another blog) and realized it was a watershed event.

The New Braunfels City Council on Monday approved an anti-littering rule that targets “Jell-O shots” on local rivers despite some residents’ complaints that the ordinance will be ineffective.

Although the ban is actually on “small fluid containers” (is that not ambiguous?), it’s designed to target Jell-O Shots.

I stand amazed…

]]> http://capitolannex.com/2006/08/16/jell-o-shot-regulations/feed/ http://capitolannex.com/2006/08/13/youre-on-notice/ http://capitolannex.com/2006/08/13/youre-on-notice/#comments Mon, 14 Aug 2006 03:23:16 +0000 Vince Leibowitz http://capitolannex.com/2006/08/13/youre-on-notice/ Everyone else has already done this, so it’s my turn. Click the “read more” link to see who I’ve put “On Notice.”

No personal toilet item is a threat when used properly.

Thank the Lord for that clarification. I was so worried that my mouthwash was going to stab me while garggling in the morning.

I’m going out to the store right now to buy a new toothbrush. I’m really frightened that I may not be using my current one properly, so I want to use the directions so none of my personal toilet items are a threat to me or others.

Of course, the other interpretation of this statement would not be “toilet items” as in hygene items but…well, toilet items.

In which case, I wonder if the flushers or seats on the $1,000  toilets House Speaker Tom Craddick purchased for his Capitol apartment are being used properly. If not, members of the House leadership had better be careful when they’re taking potty break, lest the toilet swallow them into the bowels of the Capitol’s wastewater system.

I’m off to secure my personal toilet items, and punish any potential evil do-ers. [I strongly suspect my conditioner has been plotting against me].