Bleh

So next door has a bunch of Mexicans working in their backyard again (they like their cheap labour, and I generally do question the legality of the people they get to work in their yard). This is the fourth summer in a row by now... it's getting to be ridiculous. They even had some earthmoving machine in there again this morning/early this afternoon, flattening out the bottom of the yard.

What's worse is that after four summers of work, with hours and hours of sleep disrupted by noisy stinky machinery, it should look like the Hanging Gardens of fucking Babylon by now, but it doesn't. It's altogether a very underwhelming garden design, and I could have done better with less equipment, in less time, and with a lot less money. When the weather clears up a bit I should take pictures.

Speaking of which... where the hell is that Spring weather anyway? Other than an insanely gorgeous few days about 2 weeks ago, when we even hit 82F (28C) for a day and high 70s F a couple days before that, the weather has been mostly wet and a bit dreary, with too few spots of sunshine.

The Other Bush

Did anybody happen to see Laura Bush's speech at the Washington Correspondent's gala dinner a couple of nights ago (I believe Friday)?

I'll state that I've never really warmed to her at all, and there's no real reason for it (other than her choice in spouse I guess), and Kit often points out that she reminds him of a Stepford wife, which is true also, but that speech definitely put her in a much better light for me.

Usually at those dinners (held annually since 1914) only the President makes a speech, and aparantly Shrub was making a speech. However, just as PreZ and I flipped past CNN Dubya had been interrupted by his wife, who took his place at the podium, got him to sit back down at his seat, and took to the microphone herself. Apparantly not something that's ever happened before, because the talking heads on CNN and Fox were all kind of going "well, this is certainly something we've never seen before".

While I'm sure she had scriptwriters helping her out with that speech, she could almost consider a sideline in stand-up, because she spent most of her speech poking fun at Bush himself, the Bush clan (comparing mother-in-law Barbara to Don Corleone), Cheney and she even left room for some self-effacing comments too, and it was actually really funny. She's definitely the better and more engaging public speaker of the two, that's for sure. Granted, being a better public speaker is easy ;)

"At least I can pronounce nuclear" was a particularly nice jab ;)

The jokes relating to her being a desperate housewife who ended up watching Desperate Housewives because "Mr Excitement over there" goes to bed at 9/10pm, and how she and Lynn Cheney and Condi Rice had gone to the Chippendales, that that was how Mrs. Cheney now had the Secret Service codename "dollar bill" were quite racey for what you'd expect from her.

It'll be interesting to see whether Jon Stewart discusses that speech on the Daily Show tonight.