Despite my dismay of cruelty, I am a big believer in balance; without extreme or obvious opposites, it is impossible realize the merits (or horror) of something. But it doesn’t make it any less hurtful…painful…utterly heartbreaking…to see, hear or read about something like Oogy the dog.

Some friends of ours were over the other night telling us about how they saw Oogy on Oprah. To summarize, he was used as ‘bait’ in a dog fighting ring. I’m sure you can imagine what that means, but please…let me just describe it for you just in case your imagination isn’t quite creative enough.

In order to train a fighting dog, trainers will often use other animals as bait. This could range aywhere from rabbits to kittens to puppies to grown/older dogs. These animals are then used as living breathing punching/mauling bags.

They are, at the very worst, maimed in the process…and at the very best killed quickly.

Oogy’s story starts with a severe maiming, as inidicated by the picture to the left. Oogy was a 4 month old puppy when this happened. At 35 lbs, he was chained to a stake and then mauled by a pit bull. The entire left side of his head and part of his face was chewed off right behind the ear. But he didn’t die. The trainer took him and threw him in a cage and left him to bleed out. It was by some odd miracle that the police came and got him to a shelter/hospital in time to save his life.

People make me sick and sad. How can anyone look at an animal and think, “It’s going to be great to see this thing die in a horrible painful way.” It’s amazing to me to think that there are people in the world who have no emptahy towards animals, that animals are somehow ‘less’ because they are not human.

But on the same hand, there are Oogy’s new owners who took him in and made him a part of their family despite his odd looks and his checkered past.

Oogy’s new owners gave back to him what any dog has to offer his or her human counterpart…and that is unconditional love and acceptance. They did not question, they did not judge, they did not turn away. They simply acted and selflessly gave, and in return, they will always have the same from Oogy.

While Oogy will bear the physical marks of the very worst humanity offers, his owners embody the spirtual balance of the very best of what humanity offers, and so shall the two forever be intertwined in constant reminder of what humans are truly capable of.

You can read more about Oogy here.

If you haven’t seen this yet, it is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Mom sent this to me. Thanks Mom…

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If you thought that the people who set up a room full of dominoes to have them knocked over later was amazing, you haven’t seen anything yet. There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in these images. Everything that you see happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The recording required 606 takes and in the first 605 takes there always was something, usually of minor importance, that didn’t work. It was necessary for the recording team to install the set-up time after time and it took several weeks, working day and night to achieve this effect.

The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence. The duration of the video is only 2 minutes, but every time that Honda shows the commercial on British television, they make enough money to support any of us for the rest of our lives. However, this commercial has turned out to be the most displayed in the history of the Internet.

Honda execs think that it will pay for itself simply because of the free showings (Honda is not paying one cent for you to see it). When Honda senior execs viewed it, they immediately approved it without hesitation-including costs.

There are only six Honda Accords built by hand in the whole world, and to the horror of Honda engineers, the recording team disassembled two of them for the recording.

Everything you see in the sequence (besides the walls, floor, ramp and untouched Honda Accord) is part of those two automobiles. The voice is that of Garrison Keiller. The commercial was so well received by Honda execs when they saw it, that their first comment was how amazing the computer graphics were. They almost fell out of their chairs when told that the recording was real without any graphics manipulation.

By the way, about the wind shield wipers in the new Honda Accords, they are sensitive to water and designed to start working as soon as they get wet.

The same guy also did Pole Position, Pong & Space Invaders. Pretty cool, though he must have quite a bit of time on the hands…

For some reason I found this picture mildly entertaining. So I doctored it up a little bit.

Actually, the picture is kind of depressing when you think about it. It makes me happy to live where I do. You know…not having to live in a place where guys are walking down the street toting high-calibur rifles and rocket launchers is kind of a sweet life bonus.

Today, friends, was a breakthrough in culinary happiness

We’re not just talking, like, “That was some fine cuisine” good. No…no…that’s just way to little. We’re talking, “Oh my dear sweet god…there has never been, and there never will be, similar foodstuffs that could come anywhere close to the goodness of what I just put into my belly.”

That is what I experienced today at Torchy’s Tacos…pure culinary genius. Little (but big for tacos) bundles of pure heaven served within shining sheaths of aluminum foil.

I truly believe that if I all of a sudden died right after eating these tacos, I would have died one of the happiest individuals on the planet. I would have died thinking, “I have experienced Taco Nirvana.”

If heroin is the true drug connoisseur’s “Drug of Choice”, then I would have to say that these tacos are one above that.

If I could direct inject them into a vein, I would happily tap a vein or five and start pumping away.

I hope my point is made.

Torchy’s is located on West 6th street in the parking lot of a restaurant called ‘Woodrow’s’. Note that I said in a parking lot; these glorious little bastards are served from a trailer. A new friend at work told me about it, and I was excited. These are TACOS we’re talking about…and who can’t get excited about tacos in Austin?…especially when you’ve been taco-deprived for most of the years of your life.

But I had no idea that I’d basically be falling in love.

I ordered a breakfast taco with potatoes, egg and cheese and a Green Chili Pork Taco, flour tortilla (instead of corn) hold the cilantro, please. Upon getting back to the office and sitting at my desk, I promptly unwrapped the breakfast taco. I was surprised at the fact that it wasn’t completely soggy and gross as I had just walked about 5 blocks to get back. I also got waylaid for about 10 minutes at CVS because they didn’t have enough cashiers. But that’s a different story…

I noticed they put some green chili salsa and what I think was green chili queso in with the bag. I threw the salsa on but decided to save the queso for the other taco.

Within my first bite, I recall seeing Jesus. In person. Dressed in a nicely cut wool suit. With really pimp looking sunglasses. He was pointing at me saying, “Son, that is the best taco you’ve ever had, right?”

Right.

It was the kind of experience where you feel like every bite is magical, like you want to savour it as if it were going to be the last bite of something you ever take. Everything was in its place and as it should be…a beautiful greasy mix of eggs, potatoes and cheese all glommed together in one of the tastiest (most likely 100% lard based) tortillas ever.

After finishing the first, I quickly moved to the second…the Green Chili Pork Taco. This one was something special because I am a green chili fiend. And even though we live in Texas, green chili just isn’t as prevalent as I thought it would be. But here we had it ready and available in a taco, ready to be consumed with much vigor.

After dumping some of the green chili queso AND the remainder of the green chili salsa, I took a bite. Again, Jesus, standing there in the wool suit, pointing at me with a smile and saying, “Son, I sinned. I lied to you. But that’s OK because I’m Jesus. That first taco was child’s play. This one you’re eating now…THIS one is the best taco you’ve ever had, right?”

Right.

I’m not even going to try and explain how good this thing was because, honestly, I don’t think there are any words to describe it. Let’s just say that my life has changed. I now know that not all tacos are anywhere NEAR created equal.

If you haven’t been and you live in Austin, I need for you to stop what you’re doing right now and go there. NOW. Go there and eat a taco as if your life depended on it.

If you haven’t been and you don’t live in Austin, do yourself a favor and buy a plane ticket to come down and have lunch there.

You will be happy.

Here’s the menu for you. I’ve been told that The Trailer Park, extra trashy (read “take the lettuce off and smother the thing in lots of queso) and the Ranch Hand are unbelievable. If they are better than the two that I had, then I’m note quite sure that my taste buds would be able to take it without my head spontaneously combusting.

Why are you still reading this? Go now.