Of Russian Serial Killers and Cramming

On Linda's new blog, NobleNonsense, a tale of my fat ass versus a new love seat (the love seat lost) was recently related. It's all true, and run-ins with furniture frequently happen to large people like myself. On a positive note, to the extent that any of my stories end on one, I'm extremely soft and pliable (that's right, ladies) so I can literally cram myself into even a Fenway Park seat. I cram, I crumple, I crease, I do fine. And it's also true that we contemplated what it would be like if our bloated, rotting corpses were pulled from the "wreckage" by local firefighters, and how a grisly photograph would be circulated on the Internet.

It wouldn't be any worse than my no-pants dance video, which just topped the 1,000 views mark.

In other news, Apocalypse Cow, who maintains a blog that is another Friend of the House of Four Cats, took a political quiz and was discovered to be a liberal. I took the quiz years ago, at the Socialist Scholars' Conference in New York City. The Libertarian Party set up a table there, and gave people the "Shortest Political Quiz In The World." I imagine that they were invited out of 3rd Party solidarity. I forget what I scored at the time, but today when I took the quiz I scored 100. The questions are worded a little differently to keep up with the times, but it's the same thing. My score means that I'm once again crammed somewhere, this time on the far, far left that the quiz-makers had in mind. I'm not surprised, except at the predictability of how I did. Surprised at predictability...isn't that witty?

I'm sad to learn, again, of Ron Paul's growing poll numbers. Mainly because I really think that most of his even most adamant supporters don't have a clue of what he stands for, beyond eliminating gun control and the 16th Amendment (which allows the income tax). But maybe they do know. I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of the nation. The Wikipedia article on Paul is replete with effusive, loving commentary like, "Paul's opposition to the Federal Reserve is supported by the Austrian Business Cycle Theory..." and "His warnings of impending economic crisis...were derided by many economists, however events in 2007 seem to vindicate his positions." The latter has a "reference needed" citation.

I've grown to really dislike Wikipedia and the "experiment" of relying on rubes to provide encyclopedia entries.

In other news, Alexander Pichushkin, a Russian serial killer, was just convicted of killing 48 people. He claims that he killed 63, and that he was going for 64, one for every square on a chess board. You can read about it here. Since he preyed primarily, if not exclusively, on homeless people, he probably did kill 63 people, but they only found 48. They even discovered a chess board in his home that had 63 places blacked-out in pen, or something like that. He lured his victims to a park via vodka (what else, it's Russia) and a promise that they were going to bury Pichushkin's dog. A sort of dog-funeral bender. I could easily see myself getting duped by this ploy, although not with vodka. Maybe weed or Vicodin. And at the same time it's likely that I'll end my life as a homeless person, so I really feel for his victims. Killing people to fill a chess board is cool, if it were a novel. But a dog-funeral with booze sounds a lot more interesting and enjoyable, as a novel or real-life anecdote.