Morning Outrage
This is an outrage almost everyday, but I haven't mentioned it yet, since this a new series.

Why is it that the Starbucks employees are always so chipper at the drive-thru? It makes me feel pressured to be chipper as well, when I haven't had my coffee yet. OUTRAGE.

On Being Outraged...
"Many of us have wondered what it takes to be OUTRAGED." -Constitutional law prof Jonathan Turley

For me, it doesn't take much, Jonathan Turley. I have registered my personal taste for being OUTRAGED all the time. Or at least once a day. Now, my friend, let's call him BP, says he likes it too.

This Way To Forever
My man Stiles' ex-girlfriend got married. This would normally be a non-event, but homegirl got married on the We TV program, Platinum Weddings! It's kind of a combination of Bridezillas and My Super Sweet Sixteen. The show only features weddings with half million dollar budgets.

Snippet from Stiles: "It's not only funny that she got married. But it's even more funny that she's on this ridiculous show where you have to be like a Saudi sheik to be on it."

Watch the video

Snippet from Stiles: Mini Me
Me: Are you ready to go?
Him: No, I'm looking for the Verne Troyer sex tape on TMZ.

Fishy Outrage of the Day
I am making fish sticks for myself because I think they will be easy to prepare. Then I read the back of the box to discover I have to turn each stick over halfway through. Pain in my ass. OUTRAGE!

A New 67 Degrees Series
Men of the Week and Snippet from Stiles will return occassionally, but not with regularity because they got kind of stale after awhile. My new series will be "Outrage of the Day", which I expect will be nice and negative. They will also probably be petty outrages. But outrage is in my top five favorite reactive emotions.

Let's start... Outrage of the Day
3,000 political bloggers from around the nation are in town for Netroots Nation. Where am I? On another Governor's Mansion story with no substantive change from Monday. OUTRAGE.

It's Not South Carolina That I Miss, It's the South Carolinians
I give you SC Governor (and onetime McCain VP prospect) Mark Sanford on the differences between Bush and McCain.

Confessions of a 6th Grade Drama Queen
Wow. Over Christmas, Dad brought a suitcase filled with random things he cleared out of the basement at my parents house. He figured now that I have a house of my own, I should start keeping my own crap.

I have kept a journal since age six (I guess I was precocious first grader). I only switched to typing my entries twice, once for about a month in 1993 when I typed out my entries in an early version of WordPerfect and then printed each one out, and the second time was early this year when I decided to abandon handwriting in favor of this new-fangled electronic storage concept.

Back to the suitcase. Inside I found the print-outs from my 1993 foray into typed journal entries. Being twelve was so dramatic! I'm not editing these because they are so hilarious the way they are. Just picked out some excerpts:

12.30.93 My day started out with a visit with the dentist, for a full mouth x-ray that I need for my braces next month. I wore my striped Limited Jeans sweater and navy blue leggings. Last night while I was babysitting I started the John Grisham novel, The Pelican Brief. It's really getting pretty good.

12.31.93 Lunch was at the Japanese restaurant Nobu's, which is a good place to eat. I just has the shrimp and veggie tempura. Dessert was green tea ice cream that I enjoyed. [Editor's note from present day: Some things never change. I still love green tea ice cream AND tempura!] I am about to leave for babysitting. I will by babysitting at the Reed's for the Sanders and the Reed children. See you next year.

1.3.94 Whew! I got back into the swing of things today, with school starting again. We had a sub in band, and she was terrible, personally I think I could've done a better job. All I need to do tomorrow that is pertinent is present a newspaper article for science and work on our bridge project on depression and suicide.

1.6.94 Oh yeah, in Academic Stretch we got to use the modem, and I used it to call the St. Louis County Library! Ain't that cool? I am lookin' forward to FRIDAY!!!

1.8.94 Right now the Huangs are over and I think Jamie screwed up my Chopin CD -- I hate her. She's really annoying and a spoiled brat. I mean it.

1.10.94 I got homework in every subject besides two, and a large amount among them all. On Wednesday, Kelly and Dave are going to a movie together, and Scott and I are planning to go too. I just don't know which one to see. In the afternoon I was talking on the phone alot. Kyle Johnson claimed I was pranking him, but it wasn't moi, since I was talking to Scott. I do not, in any way like Scott. We are just friends that can get along OKAY!!!

The Masses Revolt
My man Stiles toiled for weeks on a massive, searchable database that shows the salary of every Harris County and City of Houston employee -- cops, superintendents, bus drivers. It's taxpayer money, why not make it accessible to taxpayers? The database also shows how much overtime these employees are getting, and the fact that some police officers make more than 100K a year in overtime leads to important questions.

His paper launched the database today. It quickly made Drudge Report, and Stiles is getting pilloried by newspaper readers (who I suspect are the city/county employees). Some of my favorites:

roxj wrote:
i love the chronicle it comes in handy where i work we use it to wipe our asses becaus it is softer than the toilet paper the city provides for our building and once again m@tt stiles always has the softest section of paper

sithlord1 wrote: This is yellow journalism. How is this news? The Chronicle is proving itself to be nothing more than a fishwrap.

HTownCrewLeader wrote: WHERE ARE THE SALARIES OF CHRONICLE EMPLOYEES? DON'T THEY FANCY THEMSELVES PUBLIC SERVANTS? I CAN SEE PUBLISHING SALARIES OF ELECTED OFFICIALS, BUT EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE? THE CHRONICLE JUST CREATED A WHOLE NEW SET -- A LARGE ONE -- OF IDENTITY THEFT VICTIMS. THANKS, LOCAL INFORMATION SOURCE. THANKS.

CALL 713-362-7171 AND CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND CALL 713-362-7073 AND ASK M@TT ST!LES HOW MUCH HE MADE LAST YEAR.

I especially like it when people rant in all-caps.

I Don't Think You're Ready For This Jelly
This weekend we went to see Willie Nelson and friends at his annual picnic. We got there too late for Asleep at the Wheel and David Allan Coe, but caught Los Lonely Boys, Ray Price and Willie. But the best part of the show was the "show within the show", as my friend Drew called it. We stood behind a woman who stood a podium high-fiving everyone who walked by. A few hours into her drunken debauchery, we notice the wetness between her legs.



No, that's not butt sweat or spilled beer. How do we know? Because the spot expanded.



Twice, she fell off the platform she was standing on. More than twice, people told her she had peed her pants. But she was way too blitzed to care. Eventually they left the little makeshift stage she created for herself, but we will always have our memories.