Abba Zabba

This started as a reply to odessa's comment on "Osama Bin Pooh", but then it just kept getting bigger, so I made it a full post.

I hate 9/11 conspiracy theorists. I'm willing to believe that the public story of what happened isn't quite true. Maybe some warnings were ignored, maybe some mistakes were made, etc. But the conspiracies are just ridiculous.

So apparently the Bush administration convinced a group of Islamic fundamentalists to hijack several planes. (After, of course, giving the fundamentalists flight training and allowing them to live in the country safely.) Two of the planes went to New York, where they hit the World Trade Center. Those buildings were already set up with explosives, so they could be detonated when the planes hit. Another plane was blown up by a missile somewhere near Pittsburgh. And then someone fired a missile at the Pentagon, to make it look like another plane hit there. (Apparently the plane headed towards DC was also blown up by a missile, because it sure didn't land safely.)

How is that more credible than the standard story? Why do people believe that our government would kill thousands of US citizens for political gain? Or, for that matter, that it's possible for the government to create such a massive cover-up without there being any leaks? But the biggest hole in this theory is the same as many other conspiracy theories. Let's say everything in my second paragraph really was true, and I make a movie explaining the truth. Why doesn't some CIA agent just come and kill me? We've established that the government kills people and covers it up all the time. If there really was an effort to cover up a conspiracy, then people wouldn't be allowed to talk about it as freely as they do. The conspiracy logic is self-defeating.

I like drinking at home. And when I drink, I like to have an appropriate glass. Sometimes what I have breaks, or I decide I need more glasses of a certain type, or I just want to replace the thrift-store glasses I bought during college. The point is that I look at glassware a lot in stores.

And you know what? It's practically impossible to find a reasonably-sized glass anywhere. When I want to drink whiskey, I want a small glass, big enough for maybe a couple ice cubes and my drink. But the smallest glasses I can usually find are "double old-fashioneds", 10-12 ounces. That's way too big. And sometimes they're labeled "whiskey glasses" despite being that size. Who needs to drink whiskey out of a 12-ounce glass? How much whiskey do they think people are drinking?

Then, today, I saw a bunch of sets of shot glasses. All of them were 2-ounce glasses. But 2 ounces isn't a shot. 1.5 ounces is a shot! That's a standard measurement! At least it used to be. But now someone decided that 1.5 ounces isn't enough, and people need to drink larger quantities. Between the 2-ounce shots of tequila and 12-ounce glasses of whiskey, I'm surprised there aren't a lot more alcoholics running (staggering?) around.

Note: I'm aware that some glasses are extra-large to let the drink breathe, especially brandy snifters and balloon-shaped wine goblets. But these are just normal straight-walled glasses that are just too big.

Second note: I'm also aware that this is a lame rant about an extremely boring subject. By posting it here, I'm trying to give everyone out there an idea of what it's like to have a conversation with me.