ZZZZZzzzzzzz

President Barry gave a speech on the budget yesterday. He started yammering on at 1:05pm EST. Isn't that a weird time to give a speech that people might want to hear? Maybe not if you don't really have anything to say and you don't want a lot of people to hear you say nothing firsthand. Can I take this moment to mention that I'm tired of everything being done on East Coast time? One in the afternoon there was ten in the morning for me. I'm in no mood to listen to any President at ten in the morning. I'm barely awake. And I'm not the only one.

Below we have video of Vice President Joe Biden at President Barry's speech. (If for some reason you can't view the video here, you can check it out over at Real Clear Politics.) Poor ol' Joe can barely keep his eyes open for at least a good thirty seconds there. Look, I know it's boring. It's boring as hell. I get that. But come on, man! You're the Vice President of the freaking United States! Can't you at least pretend to pay attention? He didn't talk for very long. He couldn't have held it together until he was done? Did he have a big lunch or something? It's not like that would excuse it or anything, but I'm just saying. If he tends to fall asleep after a large meal, perhaps only stick to a salad on speech day. I'm trying to be sensible and offer ideas here. For once.

People On Drugs Need Sleep Too

I started this year off with a post about some dumbass who fell asleep with a meth lab in his car. Thus, I find it fitting that I end the year with a post about some dumbass who fell asleep with a meth lab in his car. Actually, this guy fell asleep with his meth lab in a cab. But really, for the sake of the argument, isn't that pretty much the same? I'm thinking that it is.

Here's the scoop: According to the Chicago Sun-Times, what we have is a one 25-year old (and old enough to know better) Joseph Hoffman, hailing from the fine Vancouver, Washington area. Mr. Hoffman, who was in the Chicago area for some unknown reason, decided to take a cab. I guess it must get tiring walking around a city carrying your possessions. I guess it must get really tiring if your possessions that you're carrying happen to be your meth lab. That's when Mr. Hoffman decided that it would be a good idea if he and his meth lab took a cab. (By the way, that's Mr. Hoffman over there on the right. He looks about like you'd expect him to.)

The cab driver took him somewhere (where isn't exactly clear because the media sucks) and when the cabbie went to collect his fare, he encountered a problem. The guy didn't pay up, but not because he had a problem with the fare or bolted or anything like that. No, he didn't pay up because he was asleep. SOUND asleep in the back of the cab. Yeah, it's problematic when you're trying to get money from someone and they aren't conscious. It makes it a little tricky.

The cabbie decided that he'd just take his slumbering passenger to the police station and see what they could do about it. Well, they couldn't get him to wake up either. Not knowing who Rip Van Winkle really was, they decided to search his bag for some identification. They found some, all right. He is now known as "Guy who fell asleep in a cab with a meth lab in his duffle bag."

Yep. They found three pounds of meth (which the cops claim is about $448,000 worth), and "chemical bottles holding a clear, crystalline" substance, wired to a power source." Again, it's unclear what the "power source" was because the media sucks and that was not addressed. The story goes on to say that "Police said the duffle bag included a "mobile meth lab". Wait. What was the substance wired to the power source? Wasn't that the meth lab? Are these separate things? Was the power source an alarm clock, powered by a liquid methamphetamine? I'm so confused.

But I'm not as confused as Mr. Hoffman. After he "... was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston for treatment...when he woke up he allegedly gave police permission to search his temporary residence". What in the world is a "temporary residence"? Hotel room? Back alley? Pup tent at the KOA? Hard to say. Because why? Because the media sucks, that is correct. But I digress. Inside the "temporary residence" "...officers found "a gallon-size bottle of crystal material suspected to be GHB, or the so-called date rape drug, small blue pills suspected to be ecstasy, and a bag of cannabis". Wow. No wonder he was asleep. Mr. Hoffman seems like a very busy man. Naturally, Mr. Hoffman was arrested and charged with five felony counts of asshattery and dumbassed-ness.

When in court, Mr. Hoffman "...allegedly shook his head...when prosecutors said methamphetamine was worth $448,000 on the street." And while I think that Mr. Hoffman is a complete moron, I'm going to have to agree with him on this one. I've done a little research. Three pounds of meth isn't going to get someone almost half a million dollars. I'd really like to know what street that's on. According to the Department of Justice, "...methamphetamine prices nationwide range from $6,500 to $20,000 per pound, $500 to $2,700 per ounce, and $50 to $150 per gram." It's unclear to me when this was written, but even if we assume that prices have tripled since whenever and is now $60,000 per pound, they would still only be looking at $180,000. That's a far cry from $448,000. By their estimation, a pound of meth is $149,333. That's $9,333 per ounce and $333 per gram. A gram isn't a whole heck of a lot. I'm having a hard time that meth users are coughing up over $300 for a gram of stuff. I'd really like to know how the prosecution arrived at their estimate. I'm sure that Mr. Hoffman would too.

Why does one need a travelling meth lab? Is he like the old timey Fuller Brush man or the Hoover vacuum people? They just show up at your door out of the blue and start demonstrating their product right there on your porch? That seems like an odd way to run an illegal drug business. Then again, falling asleep in the back of a cab with your illegal drug factory in your duffle bag seems like an odd way to do things as well. So what do I know?

Jacko's Last Day

Well, we finally know how Michael Jackson spent his last day on this earth. I kind of thought that we knew the basics already, but apparently CBS News felt the need to re-hash it a little bit given as how Jacko has been dead for almost a year now. (Is that really possible? Has it really been a year? I would swear to you that it was only like a month ago that my cell phone was blowing up with texts telling me he had croaked it. A year? Really?) Here's what we know (knew).

"Early in the afternoon...Michael Jackson came down the stairs of his rented mansion" and "wanted to eat something light but sustaining." It had to be both. Light but sustaining. Not just one. Not just the other. Both. Light but sustaining. He ended up with his personal chef preparing him "...seared ahi tuna with an organic salad and a glass of carrot and orange juice." Hmm. That does light but sustaining. It also sounds like his last meal.

The article says that shortly before 7pm, he left the aforementioned rented mansion and he "...traveled downtown to the Staples Center, where Jackson and his team of musicians and dancers were in final rehearsals before heading to London". So, wait a minute. It's now seven o'clock at night and all the guy has done is have breakfast? It sure wasn't a very busy last day on earth. I had busier days than that when I was 5.

"Later that night, Jackson and his dancers performed "Thriller" on stage in full costume for the first time." Tell me something. Did Michael Jackson really need any sort of costume for that show? Couldn't he have looked like a creature that was undead and not necessarily human just as he was? I'm thinking that his makeup wouldn't have required a whole lot of extra work. I mean, maybe a little extra adhesive to make sure that his nose stayed affixed in the correct position, but other than that, probably not a lot of effort.

His rehearsal ended somewhere around midnight and one of his hired, Islamic goons drove him home. "Soon after Jackson arrived home, he started complaining of fatigue and that he needed sleep." Hmm. So, it's likely after midnight and he's complaining of fatigue and needing to sleep? Is that unusual? It sounds like me...at night. I get fatigued and I decide to go to bed because I need to sleep. It's not a unique occurrence! But what happened next will shock you! And kill him!

Around 1:30am that fateful day, the now infamous Dr. Conrad Murray gave Jacko 10 milligrams of Valium. Considering that Jacko usually wanted the equivalent of a horse tranquilizer to get to sleep, that did nothing. Thus, about half an hour later, Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of lorazepam (it's the same drug family as Valium) through a saline drip. It's unclear as to why the Valium was in pill form and the lorazepam was administered through a drip. It's also unclear as to why Dr. Murray (or any doctor, for that matter) would have agreed to such an arrangement.

How would you like it if that was your job? You spend all of that time going through medical school just so that you can sit in a chair and watch Michael Jackson sleep? Yes, it sounds like an incredibly easy gig. It also sounds like an incredibly boring gig. And the way that we now know that everything turned out? He probably could have had Bubbles the chimp doing what he did.

Regardless as to the amount of drugs now coursing through his veins, Jacko was still awake around 3am, so this time Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of another Valium relative, this one called midazolam. By 5am, all of this had done absolutely nothing, so it was back to the lorazepam for another 2 milligrams. And by 7:30am, it was back to the midazolam for another 2 milligrams of that.

At this point, he now has taken 10 milligrams of Valium, 4 milligrams of lorazepam and 4 milligrams of midazolam and the guy is still wide awake. By 10:40am, Jacko had been begging for the propofol or what he called, his "milk". Look, Jacko...it's almost eleven o'clock in the morning. You have several drugs making their way through your emaciated system. It's over. Stop trying. Just give it up and get up. You've been lying there all night. It's not like you're exhausted or anything. Yes, not sleeping sucks, but come on, man! Get over it. Get up and get yourself a light but sustaining breakfast and go about your day.

Why Dr. Murray ended up caving in is beyond me. I think by 10:40 in the morning, I would have said "Screw the propofol!" and just thwacked him over the head with a baseball bat or something. That would have knocked him out. And you'd probably only have to do it once. It wouldn't require multiple applications like that lorazepam and midazolam crap. One good "THONK!" and you're done. Or maybe suggest to him that he count sheep. Or count Macaulays. Something.

Unfortunately, I wasn't around to keep Jacko in line. Nor was I there to keep Dr. Murray in line. And Dr. Murray ended up giving him 25 mg of propofol through his drip. Now, usually propofol is used on people as they're being cut open by a surgeon. It's rarely used on reclusive pop stars, once married to Elvis Presley's daughter, who have a hard time nodding off.

What happens after that, in the end, is fairly clear. (He croaks it.) How it happens (the dying and all) isn't. Dr. Murray says that he gave him the propofol, stayed with him for 10 minutes, left for 2 minutes and came back to find him not breathing. Of course, he didn't end up calling 911 until about 12:27pm. That translates into about an hour an a half after all of the breathing stopped. He wasn't pronounced dead until 2:26pm, so that means that they were essentially trying to revive a corpse for about 2 to 2-1/2 hours. I know that it seems silly to state that it was clearly a waste of time, but I'm kind of thinking that they would have known that then as well. Wasn't he starting to get stiff by that point? You can pound on a guy's chest all you want, but once you notice that it's the equivalent of pounding on a 2x4, what say you call it a day, all right? Ok, then.

Sounds like a pretty sucky last day of life if you're asking me. I mean, at least Elvis had some stuff on his schedule before he died straining at stool in his own bathroom. He had a dental appointment at 2 in the morning. He played racquetball at midnight or something. He had lots of stuff going on. All Jacko did before 7pm was eat breakfast. A sad end to a rather sad life. I still can't believe it's been a year.