Thor Hushovd wins Stage 6 of the Tour! Take that, Mark "Douchebag" Cavendish who didn't even finish in the top ten! The God of Thunder put the hammer down, or something. Ask PhilandPaul. They'll explain it to you.

So, the Tour de France started Saturday, and so far they've had an individual time trial, a team time trial, and two crazy awesome flat stages. Armstrong is in 2nd place, 0.22 seconds from the Yellow Jersey, Fabian Cancellara. (And Cancellara isn't a mountain guy, so he'll probably lose it when they hit the Pyrenees.)

I'd missed the team time trial so much. Cancellara basically pulled his team through it, from what I could tell. Armstrong's Astana team went flat out the whole way, with Armstrong and Contador (who won the Tour in 2007) both pulling a lot.

Today was fucking awesome. My boy Boonen got dropped and got stuck at the back, which was not awesome. But! There was a six-man breakaway that stayed away from 10 km on, and then at about 5 km to go, I think, Thomas Voeckler attacked the breakaway and succeeded! You remember Voeckler, right? He's the one who came out of nowhere in the 2004 Tour, got the Yellow Jersey in stage 5, then hung on to it for an extremely unexpected 10 days.



Anyway, today he attacked the breakaway he'd been with for like 180 km and got away, then rode it all the way to the finish! He spent the last 500 meters or so looking over his shoulder and shaking his head, adorably, because he couldn't believe he was going to win. It's his first Tour stage win ever! And did I mention that he's adorable?



Awesomely, Versus has live video and audio, with PhilandPaul commentating, so I can watch it at work (Um, I mean, listen to it in the background! Right!). And then I don't have to put up with Bob Roll and fucking Craig Hummer in the evening broadcast. Craig Hummer is an idiot and like the most annoying person ever.

Yay! My Tour is back!

Lucy is artsy, yo!

When acostilow and I first rescued Lucy, she was scared to death of us, had a huge cut on her neck that had to be sutured, and seriously lashed out at anyone who came near her. This isn't a good pic because of the annoying red, but it's the best one I've got of her behaviour then. This is the day after we brought her inside, after she'd been to the vet and had her neck sutured. All she did then was sit on top of the couch in a wary huddle and occasionally hiss at people if they came within 10 feet of her.



Moving on to Lucy now. Her neck healed completely--her fur grew back over it and I haven't even looked for a scar. She wears a collar all the time without appearing uncomfortable at all. And she *really* wants to be a lap cat, she just doesn't quite know how. She's still touchy (she gets very upset if you touch her tail the wrong way, for example), but she loves to cuddle with me if it's on her terms. If I lie down in bed to read, she wants to knead my chest or stomach for awhile, then lay down right where I normally hold the book:

So Dr. Tiller's clinic isn't going to stay open after all. I don't blame the family for closing the clinic, not after all they've been through. I just wish the anti-abortion fuckwit brigade wasn't winning like this. Scott Roeder is calling the AP from his jail cell and *gloating*. Motherfuckers.

I maded you a vidio!

These are acostilow's two cats. Taka is graciously accepting a bath from Captain Jack. I took the video at acostilow's birthday party in March. In the background acostilow and picara are messing around with the Wii. Enjoy!

It didn't work. Women's Healthcare Services will be closed this week to mourn Dr. George Tiller, but Monday it will reopen "back to 100 percent". Three other physicians who previously rotated shifts at Dr. Tiller's clinic will rotate weekly shifts to keep the clinic open. The important women's health services Dr. Tiller provided will still be available in Wichita.

So take that, motherfuckers. You may have killed him, but the work to which he devoted his life, and for which he gave his life, will go on.

RIP Dr. George Tiller.

He saved many women's lives, had already been shot in both arms for his trouble, and finally this morning "pro-life" forces murdered him in his own church.

My mother just told me half an hour ago, and I just want to cry.

...I just took a quiz on Facebook to find out whether or not I'm a potato.

I'm not. Thank FSM.

...but (you knew that was coming), this news is making me pretty happy:



Robbie McEwen will be back in the peloton this season, but rules out the Tour

Australian sprint star Robbie McEwen has ruled himself out of taking part in the Tour de France after undergoing surgery on a fractured tibia.

The 36-year-old Katusha rider underwent surgery on Thursday after suffering
a heavy fall on the second stage of the Tour of Belgium in Knokke-Heist.

"I had an accident today in tour of Belgium, broke my tibia," McEwen said
on his Twitter account late Thursday. "Operation, two screws in it. Luckily the tendon is ok. Hit a barrier.

"Thanks everyone for your support. I promise you this, I will be back."

Speaking to Belgian television station Sporza on Friday, McEwen effectively
ended any hopes he or the Katusha team might have had for him to compete in
the July 4-29 Tour de France, a race in which he has been the green jersey
winner on three occasions.

Yeah. Like I said, I didn't *want* him injured, and I'm glad it's reparable. But--he's not going to be in the Tour de France! \o/ No watching Robbie McEwan win all the sprints, watching Robbie McEwan be a dick, watching Robbie McEwan give interviews in which he blames his failure to win on his teammates' alleged ineptitude (In fact, I'm surprised he's not blaming *this* on one of his teammates.). Of course, Boonen, having been caught using cocaine *again*, will probably not be racing the Tour either (Dammit, Tom, would you get your fucking act together?!). Bright side: maybe Thor Hushovd can actually win some sprints this year! That would be awesome!

Okay, I've gone back skip=100, and rather than force LJ to let me go earlier I'm just going to declare myself caught up. Go me! (I did notice that at least one other person has already done the 15 book meme, which is why I need to, you know, actually read my flist.)

Okay, I suck, because I haven't been reading my flist. I have an excuse, really! I was behind on Supernatural, and I didn't want to get spoiled, and then by the time I caught up Star Trek had come out, and I didn't want to get spoiled on that either. And now that I've seen Star Trek I've got a lot of catching up to do.

So instead of that I'm going to do a meme. \o/

"Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes."

1. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (Too bad he's become such a sucky writer lately.)
2. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
3. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
4. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
5. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
6. Stranger at the Gate by Mel White
7. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
8. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (First book I can remember not being able to put down.)
9. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom (Probably the first book I read about the Holocaust.)
10. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
11. The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
12. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
13. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
14. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (My mother used to read this to us when I was little.)
15. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (I think this was my first chapter book. I remember reading it while I was in kindergarten, anyway.)

If you want, consider yourself tagged! I'd like to see other people's lists, and I'm going to go get caught up right now so I actually *will* see them.

And its highest ideals: Truth, Justice, Freedom, Reasonably-Priced Love and a Hard-Boiled Egg!

*HYPERVENTILATES*

I have just spent like an hour trying to get rid of an ancient Yahoo account and move everything to my current Yahoo account. This was way harder than it needed to be. I had some subscriptions to groups on the old account, some on the new account, and my Flickr pics are on the new account. So I ended up making a list of the groups I was subscribed to on the old account, deleting the old account, then resubscribing to those groups using the new account. Then, since I can never remember my login info for Yahoo (because I don't fucking use it, Flickr keeps me signed in and groups are stupid), I had to make a note of the login info for the correct account. Grr. In case you're wondering, the only reason I'm bothering with groups (email lists, I mean, WTF, right?) at all is because Freecycle uses Yahoo groups. Even then, I hardly use Freecycle at all, but on occasion it's useful.

I also spent like an hour a couple days ago trying to get coloured labels to work in Gmail and finally gave up. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with my Gmail account, but the option to change the colour of labels that's supposed to be there? Isn't fucking there. I hate the Internets sometimes.

Ooh, but I did finally deposit my tax refund check, which means it's time to start shopping for my new laptop! I think that deserves Paul Gross Arms. \o/

I feel really proud of myself today. I'm wearing my new knee-length denim skirt, knee socks, and Converse. And I *didn't* shave my legs! In fact, I haven't shaved my legs in months! Only the bit of my knees between the skirt and the socks shows, but I still feel damn proud of myself, because it's more than I've ever been able to get myself to do before. It's like, "See this? This bit of my hairy knees? *This* is what a feminist looks like!"

My motto right now is "Fuck beauty contests." Really living that makes life so much easier.

Yes, this day in 2003 we won the war in Iraq! Just pretend the last six years didn't happen.

Happy birthday picara! Have a great day!

Tyler Hamilton expected to announce retirement this morning following second positive doping test

He was the first, wasn't he? And then they all started dropping like flies. First Tyler, then Landis, then Basso and Ulrich and everybody else involved in Operation Puerto, and now you can pretty much expect that anyone who does anything spectacular in cycling will show up positive in a doping test within a few days.

The French doping authorities are trying to get Lance right now, too. This sport sucks.