No new tale to tell.

You would think I had more to write, seriously. Funny thing though is life proceeds in an uneventful way these days. There are storm clouds on the horizon in some ways to be sure but, for the most part I’ve been content to be a passenger in the car of life just staring out the window and taking in the scenery.

Sounds incredibly boring but, it isn’t.

Right now, I’ve spent the last few days enmeshed in one of those sisyphean jobs that come my way from time to time. The kind of job which at the outset seems so insurmountable because you just need some time to go back and mull it over figuring out how you will attack it.

And, when I say enmeshed, I mean enmeshed as I spend several days with my ass parked in front of the computer slowly chipping away at the “pile.” Today when I got up, I could see an end in sight. Of course I got up at a little before 9 am but this was after being up until 3 am working to get to a logical point at which to stop. The thing is I’m working from home and I know I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) want to work these kind of hours in an office.

At home the TV is on if I want it, the refrigerator is mere steps away, I can lounge around in the uniform of the day (I will refrain from sharing what the uniform of the day is just to spare the more delicate sensibilities of those among you and not conjure up a frightening image) and take a break when I need to or if I just get too fed up with the project.

I’ve got a big pile of my own stuff to address - like this ever goes away - but I seem more inclined to at least make some of that diminish by being around the house. Right on the tail of this project, I have another small one lined up... simply amazing!

So, consequently I find I have little time to rant about the goings on in the world around me. Excuse me if you will.

Taking satisfaction where you find it.

The things that I find myself really taking pleasure in, really deriving satisfaction from my efforts are a varied and odd lot. They cover a broad range of personal likes to be sure.

One of the things I take great pride in is a well adjusted kitty. When kitty and I first met we approached each other warily, neither confident in our trust of each other. Now, I am alone with kitty and while I am sorry that I am the sole source of attention for her (at one point her having had three humans around to lavish her with love), I do take pride in the fact she does genuinely seem to be very happy.

Most days start off and finish in a very similar fashion.

Mornings find kitty perched in some spot atop my sleeping form or close at hand. If she is not happily sleeping, enjoying the heat I give off (and I am told I do run hot) - she sits, sits! Quietly studying me for any hint I may be close to awakening and thereby close to feeding her.

Sometimes she will become impatient and she will take it upon herself to torture me. By this I mean she will discern the most uncomfortable part of my body on which to perch herself applying the cat form of accu-pressure in order to force me from dreamland. Or maybe it will kitty-krazy time (cat owners are all too familiar with kitty-krazy time as it is displayed by the cat darting around the house for no good reason) and she will run across the room using my lower abdomen as a trampoline in the process hoping to burst my bladder.

It’s a dance we do. She will sit there and if it gets to be too late she will begin to whine incessantly, making the most woeful cries imaginable as if she is in the throes of the greatest sorrow a creature can bear.

After bounding upstairs leading the way towards the glory of the foodbowl, she will chow down afterward looking for her post meal petting and stroking. There are times she anticipates this and is so happy her little body vibrates due to the very strong purring her happiness brings.

At night there will come a point when the cat thinks it is well time I went to bed and she will come over to me, stand on her back legs, swat at me and cry. If she does not jump atop me, she will impatiently wait for me to make my way down to the bed so she can crawl up at my side. Once I am settled, she will again be purring very loudly as she makes herself comfortable next to me.

Quite the pair we two and truthfully I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Spring cleaning.

I’ve managed to figure out a way to just have all my drafts displayed in the que and so at some point over the coming weeks I’m going to give it a go to take all those unfinished thoughts and weave them into something of a coherent thread - won’t be easy, I’m sure.

In the interim, I’ve been taking a lot of pictures and spending altogether too much time devoted to the Flickr side of things (see badge at right). The flickr stuff is fun and surprisingly enough I have enjoyed getting the feedback I have been getting as well as making friends with people all over the world.

The other thing is, I’m finding things have been very busy lately but, busy in a good way.

Happy birthday!

I have to send out big time Happy Birthday wishes to not one, not two, but three remarkable women.

First off is my cousin Jill who is closest to me in age (and who I have a picture of the two of us taken back when I was five and she seven where the family resemblence is unmistakeable - we look like brother and sister). I was digging through some more of the big pile of sort and found a list of family birthdays and I noted frantically Jill’s is tomorrow! She sometimes lets me edit her newspaper column which I enjoy doing.

Second and third respectively are two glorious women who I know only peripherally.

Audacia Ray of Waking Vixen fame who I had the very pleasant occasion to meet several weeks back. I have a partially done entry about that experience hiding away in my drafts que - needless to say Dacia was even more incredible in person than I could have possibly imagined. A tremendous Happy Birthday to her - she was writing on her birthday and I’ve no doubt she has long since celebrated.

Second is the inimitable Cherry Bomb! A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her! I am anxiously awaiting the opportunity to attend her next burlesque performance, I’ve meant to go to several but work obligations and other things have always seemed to get in the way. Cherry I must note was incredibly kind enough to link to me and I find I sit in a prime position on her blog just below Wassabusco and Dacia - actually a very good place to be! Maybe she will one day model for Mr. Sketchy’s or I’ll get a chance to take some shots at her next performance and post them up on the flickr site.

I would certainly buy both these ladies a drink if the opportunity were to afford itself - hell, I think I have a couple of bottles of champagne around here I would be willing to throw in the mail if only I knew where to send them to. Anyway, they are both incredibly charming women and I send out heartfelt birthday greetings their way.

More Friday Cat Blogging...

...OR HELP ME MY CAT IS POSSESSED!



Anna pre-haircut, in the carrier and moaning woefully. I hate hearing her like that but, she is generally a lot happier after the clipping.

Big brother would be proud!

The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The exact locations of the cameras were not revealed, but the electronic eyes will be set up in 253 spots, including many Operation Impact zones - high-crime areas already targeted by teams of cops.

One night (when I was working nights), on the way home I was stopped by the police. I was driving up Broadway trying to get over to H&H to get a bagel to take home when the lights came up behind me. I was really annoyed.

See, I had seen the cruiser when I stopped for the light going up Broadway at Columbus Circle. I hadn’t paid particular notice of it. As I made my way up Broadway, I have to say I was more tired from a long shift than anything else. Being just after 5am, my main interest was getting a bagel and getting home. The drive home is always more leisurely than the drive to work. Broadway is bumpy in the sixties so I didn’t feel like going fast (banging up the car in the process) but, I imagine my slowness must have piqued the curiosity of the boys in blue.

After following me for a few blocks in their cruiser (ironically which had a defective non-working headlight - an equipment violation), I was pulled over.

At this point in life, it’s the exception rather than the rule when this happens. It’s never something I eagerly anticipate but, at this moment in my day it’s just plain aggravating, especially when I'm not speeding or doing anything else. I turned the car off, turned off my headlights, rolled down the window and lazily leaned back against the headrest as the officer warily approached the car (his partner flanking me on the passenger’s side in the very best police trained fashion). In between getting pulled over, shutting off the car, I pulled the lap belt over and latched it. I don’t often ride with the seat belt in use and it’s become just another reason to get a ticket.

The officer approached. I initiated our dialog, “Is there a problem, Officer?” My voice was laced with no small amount of impatience at the interruption of my journey to a welcoming bed.

“Um...” there was a pause as the officer tried to come up with a reason for the traffic stop. “Well, you didn’t have your shoulder belt on.” He could plainly see the lap belt strapped over me stymying his ability to write a ticket for that specific violation. “Can I see your license and registration please?”

When I was looking for the registration, I had thumbed open the glove compartment, prompting the officer‘s partner to shine his flashlight into the glove compartment. Meanwhile, on the passenger’s seat in a misshapen pile were my warm winter coat, my bag, another bag containing remnants of whatever food I had taken to work with me to snack on and the newspapers. Quite the unshapely bundle next to me there. I didn’t have the registration but forked over my license. As I waited, they went back to the cruiser and performed whatever intrusive magic PO’s perform in this brave new electronic age.

I must to point out, now, when the rare occasion presents itself and I am pulled over, the officer is usually much younger than me. There is something less fearsome in being pulled over now than there was as a teenager or a younger man. Then, the officer was a bit of an authority figure, now they are just another wet behind the ears eager beaver.

A few days prior to this I had been walking along the street and had another officer yell at me after I approached him regarding a continuing nuisance out in front of the building I’ve been working in.

A string of loud profanity to erupted from the officer when I interrupted his contemplative moment. Staring off into space, he looked as if he was trying to mentally note where the closest Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts shop. It seems, I was the third person who had inquired as to whether or not the police could provide some respite from our problem. As the third person in a string of people, I had lit a fuse in the young man hence the barrage of the profane.

My traffic stop, happening as closely on the heels of my prior negative experience, found a certain amount of residual contempt for my present blue stalwart. He returned indicating everything was in order and all the while I am thinking - DON’T YOU HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME?

In the interim, I get a phonecall from work (of course). I loudly rant into the phone about being stopped for no reason and about the idiocy of even being stopped in the first place. I am speaking in very loud, easily audible tones, as the officer sheepishly approaches my car to return my documents. Rather than get off the phone or better still, start to drive off while continuing to talk on the damnable phone (a sure moving violation), I remained sitting in the stopped car with the cruiser behind me. The officers impatiently waiting for me to start my vehicle and pull out so they can continue forward without backing up.

Needless to say, I stayed on the phone long enough for them to get antsy and back into one of the side streets and turn around and go back down Broadway. Now looking back, I wonder what I was thinking but, at the time all I was, was very tired.

Friday cat blooging.



A soon to be rare sight as today kitty goes for a haircut.

Memories of a bygone era.



Just came across this series of IBM ads from years ago up at the DigiBarn website. They’re interesting not only for the design of the ads which captures the sensibilities of the era so very well but also, because of the way they position the product. The story of the DigiBarn itself is an interesting one since it’s a museum of the computer. Worth taking a look at.

Work and you.

This previously unfinished entry was started back in the beginning of March. I thought it still had some value so, I finally got around to getting the damn thing done...

So much to do so little time to do it all. The old saw applies today in the workplace more than anywhere else. A couple of long days on the job and I find myself looking at work through a jaundiced (if tired) eye. It’s not so bad, except for the long hours and at this point in life I find the body can only do so much before it rebels.

Speaking of which, something happened the other day which was quite interesting...

A co-worker, a friend if you will, has been toiling away with me on and off for the last few days.

I’m no longer gung ho about work anymore, not that I’m surly, I just won’t buy into the rah-rah stuff. I’d probably buy into it a bit more if any of the places that tried to foist it on me would have figured out you need to reward people for going those extra miles but, it’s been my experience the whole employer/employee relationship is often a one way street. You put in your hard work, toil and sweat and in return you should be thankful to have a job.

In previous generations people would spend their entire working careers with an employer. These days, it’s the exception, not the rule. The economy slows down and expenses have to be trimmed, so people must be cut, they don’t keep you on just because of years of good service. Hell, if you’ve managed to work your salary up to a respectable level, it may mean you are even more of a target because of it.

The result of this is a dysfuntionality in the whole work dynamic, people are understandably worried much of the time, job security for people today can be termed tenuous at best. This results in people doing things that just aren’t good for them.

Case in point, the aforementioned co-worker/friend. The person in question, has a tendency to put in way too many hours in working than is good for a person. Toiling away through a day shift and a night shift (consecutively), getting very little sleep, surviving on coffee and little else. The job is sedentary, there isn’t a true abundance of physical toil but, that doesn’t mean your body still doesn’t suffer the effects of all those long days.

People‘s body’s are funny in that you can only ignore the signals your body sends you for awhile before the body figures out a more dramatic way to get your attention.

This particular Monday had been a long day and round about 5am I just about had it. A long drive ahead of me, it being Monday (meaning I had been up a bit earlier than I normally would have bee), when 5am rolled around it REALLY felt like it was 5am. I don’t know about most of you but, I’m not really effective after about 9 hours of having my ass parked in front of a computer. After 9 hours or so my mind begins to wander, all I can think about is how the crappy office chair I’m sitting in is really uncomfortable, what it would be like to be in bed at the moment, how many bad life choices bought me to the point where I had to sit in a chair for nine hours, blah, blah, blah, blah - you get the drift.

5am rolled around the shift had dragged out to almost 12 hours and the last three or so hadn’t been all that pleasant. Besides tomorrow’s another day! I no longer buy into the work until everything is done mantra, not since it has become a way to cover a lack of proper staffing and leads to people rapidly burning themselves out.

I scooted out of the office at 5am and started to make my way back to the hinterlands just hitting the cusp of the morning rush hour. Even with the twelve hours I had put in, it was somewhat frowned upon when I announced my intention to leave but, so be it.

As fate would have it, I didn’t immediately jump onto the highway as I would normally. I proceeded to look for a mailbox to mail out a letter (got to pay those bills). I was on a quest, not realizing the corner mailbox is fast becoming a thing of the past. I didn’t realize it but, in Manhattan anyway, the terrorists have won in you can hardly find a mailbox on the street anymore! Something so relatively innocuous and convenient has now become the matrix for terrorist activity on the urban streets. So, I imagine in the name of safety, street mailboxes are vanishing faster than Bush supporters.

I made it up to around midtown when my phone started vibrating in my chest pocket. I couldn’t fish the thing out quickly enough but, when I looked at the number and saw it was work my heart immediately sunk. My first thought was, “Oh no! Only three weeks on the job and already we’ve broken down those barriers where work intrudes on life past work hours. Already we’re beginning the odyssey of the work emergency phone call.”

A lot of people know exactly what I’m talking about, immediately I was thrust onto the horns of a dilemma, to call back or not to call back? The Hamlet-like question of the morning, suffering the slings and arrows... well you get the drift. Finally, I succumbed and I called back only to wind up speaking with a very shaking up supervisor. The friend who had worked a day shift and night shift, still at work when I left, succumbed finally to exhaustion in the form of a seizure!

The guy had had seizures before. While I hadn’t been present when they happened, I was fairly nonplussed by the whole seizure thing having experienced myself a few decades back. Plainly put, it’s more embarrassing than anything else for the person having the seizure. You don’t feel so hot on the tail end of the thing but, the really off-putting moment is realizing how little control you have over your own body. Embarrassing to be sure but supremely terrifying to lose command of one’s own ship of self.

I had intended to speak to the supervisor in question about keeping my friend on a limited amount of hours to avoid exactly what had happened but seeing as how the guy was only on his second day I hadn’t had the opportunity to get around to having the conversation.

The upshot of everything was I wound up getting little sleep that day as I felt obligated just to go to the hospital and be there for the guy. How horrible is it for something to happen to someone and no one is there for you? I mean, I had to make sure the guy was alright.

In the meantime, the supervisor was absolutely, positively freaked out by the whole thing. I’m sure it was an unnerving experience but the guy was just totally shaken up. There had been a bit of a resultant mess from the incident which meant the supervisor had to toss his shirt, socks and shoes. I went back to work to get my friends possessions only to find the supervisor shaking, really out of sorts and unclad. I almost wish I had used my camera (which I did have that morning) and taken a picture to capture the moment for posterity but it probably would have bordered on bad taste.

It didn’t stop me from taunting the shaken and distraut man by observing how I thought he was a truly nice guy - what had he done to terrify my friend so? I would have to rethink my whole approach to him as a person! The next evening when I came in, of course this was the talk of the department. The event that had happened, everyone was curious to whether or not I had been there at the moment and I took the opportunity to equate the supervisor to the incredible Hulk having torn off his shirt and socks and shoes and running around like a madman.

I’m horrible, what can I say.

At the end of everything, I spent a bit of time at the hospital with my friend and explained all the necessary background information to the medical staff. After it became obvious he wasn’t going to get out in the next hour or so I left him with his possessions and a voucher so he could at least get a car home. Mind you, he was looking at his watch while he laid on a gurney in the emergency room of the hospital and when I asked him why he was looking at his watch he responded he was concerned how he might not be able to make it to work that day!

There’s dedication and then there’s something bordering on work insanity. The only thing I can say at the end of all this was, don’t let this happen to you.

On a Sunday no less!

You know, if you mistype the address of my blog you wind up at some kind of Mega Studies bible site! How f**king weird is that!

Friday cat blogging.

Trying to get back into the habit:



What! What! I’m comfortable here!

Wow!

It’s almost May!?!? Where does the time go?

So fitting for Easter?

Mom: Baby, now if you don’t put your coat on, I’m gonna spank you.
Little girl: No! I will tell Daddy and he will spank you.
Mom: No, baby, he will not. Nobody spanks me but Jesus.

—M101 bus

Overheard by: Lucy Sorensen

From the incredible Overheard in NY site.

Lost weekend.

What I call the many hours spent diagnosing drives and reinstalling system software. Watching the computer come up in the shell and really missing simpler days of OS9.

I’m free.

The precipice.

I imagine I shouldn’t sit down and write something while I have White Riot by the Clash playing but, I get this feeling we are on a precipice. By that I mean we are on the verge of one of those periods where our society undergoes significant social change.

Looking back over the course of my life, I think the mid-nineties (93-97) was one of those periods where a lot happened. It was the dawn of the age of the web, the end of the nuclear arms race as we had lived with it from the fifties and sixties with the breakup of the USSR. The late nineties was just the country waking up from all the frenzied speculation as things came back to earth. You think about 98 through 01 and it was more about the bubble bursting than anything else. Everything since September 11th has been about the war on terrorism.

I never think of the eighties as being much of anything after about 82 except a lot of really bad music (hair bands) and all the years of trickle down economics. The mid to late seventies are still those wonderful days of being a teenager and watching the growth of punk and lots of other cool things (which amazingly some of which survives even to today).

Today, reminds me of the fifties and early sixties in a way. Boom times followed by a frenzy of patriotism. Then, the late sixties happened and everything changed. Could we be approaching another period like the late sixties? I think we might be. Two terms of Junior, war overseas with no end in sight, an economy that seems to be in a state of uncertainty. Do people have faith in the institutions of society today? In government? In business?

I wonder, if you put people into a position where they no longer feel secure in their jobs and they find that the framework of the society around them will do little to address their needs, how long will it be before the populace takes notice.

Just some random speculation on my part of course but, I always like to look at analogies throughout history and recent events have me wondering.

What I do with my free time.

Take pictures and screw around with them in Photoshop.

On the flip side.

While I feel a certain amount of regret over the path Dwight Gooden’s life has taken him, I feel nothing but contempt for Barry Bonds.

On the West Coast, Barry Bonds was astounded and aggrieved by the outpouring of hero worship for McGwire, a hitter whom he regarded as obviously inferior to himself. Bonds was 34 years old, had played in the big leagues for 12 years and was known for an unusual combination of speed and power. Before the 1993 season he had signed what was then the richest contract in the game: $43.75 million for six years, and he knew he was on his way to the Hall of Fame. For as long as he had played baseball, Bonds had regarded himself as better than every other player he encountered, and almost always he was right.

The link is to the excerpted portion of Game of Shadows which Sports Illustrated ran a few weeks back. At the time I had started writing an entry only to have the computer crash on me. Hardly forgotten as the season progresses, you can be sure this story will move ever more into the spotlight. Especially as Bonds closes in on the records established by both Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

Bonds has been know throughout his career as something of a ‘me’ player. While possessing incredible talents, he has been antagonistic towards both the media and fans throughout his long career making him a hard guy to root for. He is actually the only person who could make someone side with another egotist in Jeff Kent (hard to believe).

It’s worth taking a moment out to read the excerpted portions of the book as it does give a fuller picture into the story and the person Bonds is. Funnier still after witnessing his ‘poor me’ crying scene on the premier episode of his reality show on ESPN.

If he was smart he would’ve saved everyone the trouble and just retired at the start of the season.

Just plain sad.

“This is not a case of a pampered athlete,” Hobson said. “He took it like a man. He took it like any citizen in this situation. He didn't whimper, he didn’t cry, he didn't beg. He took it like a man.”

You had to live in New York during the 80’s to understand just how big an event Dwight Gooden was. He took the city by storm at the tender age of 19 and it seemed as if his career would be nothing short of spectacular. So, this year is the first year Gooden is eligible to be voted into the Baseball’s Hall of Fame and when the ceremony for the inductees rolls around, Gooden more than likely will be in a jail cell.

How very sad.

How big was Gooden at that time? He was one of those rare sports figures who were big enough to transcend sports. On April 7, 1986, he was the cover of TIME Magazine, along with the title: “Doctor K: Baseball's Hottest Pitcher.” And the record will clearly show that the 1986 Mets won the World Series.

Gooden at that moment was a 21-year-old world champion with a Major League record of 58-19 and 744 strikeouts in three seasons. It should have been just the beginning for this once-in-a-lifetime talent. But if it was a beginning, it was the beginning of trouble.

The start of a new day.



Just an image captured during the ride home from work one morning. The city is so incredible sometimes, especially in those quiet moments when you stop to notice it. Looks great big (which you can see by clicking through and checking out the Flickr account).

Just had to pass this along.



Click on the cartoon to read a rather interesting story resulting from a phone call made because of it. Of course, if you’re a woman and find yourself having a tough time making a choice you might want to jot down the number for just such a moment.

Lament for a lost love.

I’ve been liking the Flickr thing, it gives me something to do that is less labor intensive than blogging. With work being so busy and all and occupying so much of life, it is often hard to be able to take a moment out and just think of things other than work and life in general.

To that end, I read this thing up on the Monster blog which was so very relevant:

What scientists have only recently begun to realize is that people may do their best thinking when they are not concentrating on work at all. If you've ever had a great idea pop into your head while you were washing your car, walking your dog, or even napping, you already know what a team of Dutch psychologists revealed last month in the journal Science: The unconscious mind is a terrific solver of complex problems when the conscious mind is busy elsewhere or, perhaps better yet, not overtaxed at all.

Back to the subject at hand though, lost loves.

Is it possible to consider someone you’ve never been intimate with (physically) a love? I think it is.

The reason I bring it up is I keep coming across these pictures of this one Flickr user. Without going into too much detail, it’s a woman whose face I find compelling. It took me a bit of time to realize just how much the Flickr user’s face reminded me of a woman from my past.

The woman from my past is someone I’ve fallen out of touch with through the years, she has long since gotten married and had a kid but, you would be amazed at how often she manages to tug at the edges of my thoughts. It wasn’t easy being around her, she was beautiful to be sure but, she had had a rough life and she carried around a full set of baggage. I can tell you though, when it was good, it was beyond good to be around her, it was wonderful. There are few things that have been able to match it and I can quite vividly remember those days spent together where it was wonderful, they are the high points of life.

A year or two ago I had gotten a call from her out of the blue - she was going to be in my neck of the woods and thought we might meet up. It seemed to be more of a convenience thing for her and as the fates would have it, it never did work out for us to meet. The schedules just didn’t quite synch. I have her number just as she has mine and we each know where the other is. We don’t speak anymore, it’s just the way life is sometimes, you move into the orbit of each others lives the way comets pass in and out of our solar system sporadically every few years.

I just can’t help thinking about the bright light she cast in my sky and wonder when (if) I’ll see her again sometime soon and also wonder if she thinks about me.

Friday cat blogging.

I got a rock.

So, I had this whole big entry in process and left the app running for a few days without saving the thing. Lo and behold eventually the app crashed (yes, it still happens in OS X - you just don’t have to restart the machine). Blogger didn’t do its nifty trick of retaining my half finished entry so that’s one for the wind.

In the meantime more Flickr fun. It’s incredibly easy to take crappy photos (of which I take many) and do something with them, at least bringing them up to the level of viewability with Photoshop. Everytime I do it though I feel like I’m cheating somehow - it’s so easy to pull something out of a photo using Photoshop.. Stuff you would have to labor over in the darkroom when I was in school is nothing now.

You decide if the results are worthwhile or not.

The wanderer.

Work is quieting down, something of a relief. By quieting down I mean I get out at 2 or 3 in the morning instead of 5 or 6. It still doesn’t do wonders for my sleep cycle but, I’ll gladly forego deep sleep for a few weeks in the attempt to square myself with my creditors (or at least make a dent).

So, last night I got out at the reasonable hour of 2am. Now, at 2am you can’t really call anyone you know and say let’s meet up for a drink or an after work tete-a-tete (coffee or a meal). Most of the rest of the world is on a different schedule and they are well off into slumber-land saying hello to Little Nemo. The few hardy souls who are still awake don’t feel much like venturing out in the cold Manhattan night.

What to do, what to do?

Well, drive around the city and take pictures for one thing.

So as I made my meandering way home last night. I took a leisurely drive up the length of Manhattan stopping along the way to snap pics of things as they caught my fancy. It’s a bit of self-indulgence if you will, a little treat at the end of a long week.

I took a bunch of photos too. I was surprised at the discomfort I felt though taking them. See, nowadays there is so much more concern for security and there is much more surveillance of us than we might even realize. As you walk around the city, at times you may not even be aware of the fact you are being watched, whether it be by security cameras (rather unobtrusive) or security guards or police.

It’s all in the name of safety but, I have to wonder if the price isn’t too great. I wonder if in fact we are sacrificing much more than we know. I doubt all these increased security measures will truly prevent anything from happening. There is still crime, there is still violence, these things do not go away but, in the name of safety we allow ourselves to be watched and monitored. We give up a piece of ourselves, we give up our privacy and also we wind up giving up part of our freedom.

In the days following September 11th, many statements were punctuated with the phrase, “...and then, THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON!” So, in order to keep them from winning, the law abiding, the decent, the humane, the free allow themselves to give up their freedoms under the guise of preventive measures. It’s akin to putting people in jail so they will be safe from murder or other crime. It makes little or no sense to me.

We give up the very things which our enemies hold us in contempt for and then we turn around and say they have not cowered us.

Anyway, my circuitous route through the city took me many places last night. Often I would find myself walking along in the very quiet pre-dawn hours the only person around that is except for the unmistakable camera, or guard or policeman. Not doing anything wrong per-se but, certainly feeling the presence of the omnipotent eye of authority looking down upon me keeping track of my movements.

At one point, I found myself in a public park taking a picture of Grant’s Tomb of all things. Grant’s Tomb is just beautiful at night. It’s lit up, glorious in all its splendor. It sits in a corner of Manhattan almost forgotten by many except those in its immediate neighborhood. By this I mean, it is something many deem not worthy of a special trip, it is not something big on the destination list of tourists.

Tucked away at the edge of Morningside Heights, it stands vigilant, a last outpost of gentility before arriving into the poverty of Harlem just on the other side of the bridge or down the hill from where it stands.

Truly magnificent, it looks as if it could be plunked down in Washington DC and not seem at all out of place among all the other structures of national significance but, here it is, lonely and forlorn on the edge of the neighborhood.

At night (and I imagine much of the day too) the building has those ugly metal gates used for crowd control surrounding it. They don’t do much in terms of security and only ugly up what is a rather gorgeous piece of urban architecture in the grounds surrounding the monument. There are two guard booths, small structures, much like those used by parking attendants at outdoor lots scattered throughout the city. Ugly, little squat squares with harsh fluorescent lighting, they seem like punishment booths for the personnel required to man them and are structural pimples on the site.

When I snapped a few pictures (odd in and of itself because of the hour), I walked back out to my car only to find a police cruiser with its lights going. It was a bit unsettling. I wasn’t hassled or anything but, there was this momentary panic. I wasn’t do anything wrong but, welcome to the post 9/11 world.

We really need to fix that.

Indiana Jones and the Wheelchair of Peril?

Looks like Harrison Ford can finally take the fedora out of mothballs.

The Hollywood megastar told a German magazine on Wednesday that after rewrites too numerous to count, he and director Steven Spielberg are finally satisfied with the script for the forever-in-the-works fourth installment of the whip-wielding, tomb-raiding adventurer.

If Harrison Ford were a smarter guy he’d take a cue from Sean Connery, who started out as an action hero but never really lost his cool.

The great chair hunt.

So, I freelance. One of the consequences of being a freelancer means usually getting the worst. The lousiest place to sit in an office (the noisiest, the least private), the crappiest computer, the shi**iest chair. Over the years I’ve grown accustomed to this kind of abuse. It’s not entirely surprising, if something good is in an office, I can hardly see it being set aside for staff that is infrequently there over people who are there day in and day out. I will admit though, it does color one’s view of an office and makes it all the harder to convince me to stay until the bitter end or go above and beyond - two way street and all that.

Anyway, there was an email circulating at one of my clients about someone’s chair which had gone missing. People get possessive about these things (chairs) and with good reason, you spend a lot of time sitting all day and that chair you sit in becomes quite an importrant part of your life. The email in question was trying for the cutesy aspect with the ‘we’ll just turn off all the lights and the party in question will return my chair’ kind of thing. It was more humorous because the chair played a small role in another workplace drama which I started to write about but never got around to finishing the entry on.

In one of life’s ironies, I came across this up on the Monster blog and thought I would pass it along:

Time to stop fooling around — I’ll just steal the chair from the guy who used to sit next to me. He happens to have moved on to a new job today. This one holds its height and is somewhat better padded. But it’s still not right. “When did I become an office-chair possessive?” I think to myself.

Scroll down on the page to see the entry in question.

What the *$&#~!

I was wandering around the internet today, partially because I had grown bored the this show I was watching on (yes, I will admit it) Christina Aguilera. It was an overview of her career and one of the things touched on was a video shot by Dave LaChapelle. I was looking at the videos over at his site, commercials he’s done and the like. Some of them I really like, like this one. Some of them are mediocre, like this one. And then there’s stuff like this which while interesting to watch and has some very interesting selections for the musical track but didn’t make much sense to me. If anyone else can make heads or tails of it, please explain.

Doing my heartfelt best to antagonize the many.

It came to my attention recently, my comments regarding the current administration have been off-putting to some people. The great thing about our country though, is the ability to voice ones’ opinions so I will do my level best to generate even more ire with this post.

I’m a little tired of labels these days. There are a lot of places where the words liberal or conservative are used to divide the population into two distinct camps. If it isn’t liberal or conservative, there’s always the handy Republican or Democrat. Talk about the need for simplification that some people have!

I have always resisted the compulsion to make the world a black and white place, I would think more of the intelligent and forward thinking among us would do the same but that doesn’t seem to be.

Anyway, back to pissing people off...

So, I garnered a certain amount of animosity because of my comments regarding the current administration. The fact is, I have watched this administration squander the goodwill of the American people over the last five years, a display which surpasses the performance of Bush 41. A remarkable feat in and of itself. After the events of 9/11, the government could have pretty much done anything they wanted to do, that’s how much support our government had. The one thing they couldn’t do was fail and it’s the only thing they have managed to accomplish consistently.

Whether it be on the domestic side with the federal response to Katrina or the failed strategy in Iraq there’s very little to point to over the last five years which can be claimed as successes by the current administration. Even the choreographed events such as Bush’s landing on the aircraft carrier and proclaiming victory in Iraq will undoubtedly be looked back upon through the lens of history as one of greatest blunders by a president.

So, even if you support Bush 43, do you think we’ve won?



The reason I bring this up at all is something I saw this week regarding the president’s polling numbers. Bush 43 is tracking downward and perhaps the only solace he can take from his diminishing poll numbers is the fact that Congress fares even worse! But remember, the Republicans have a majority on both houses right now so I have to imagine that it is something of an empty victory.

Stung by criticism, senior officials at the White House and the RNC are reminding GOP members of Congress that Bush’s approval ratings may be low, but theirs is lower and have declined at the same pace as Bush’s. The message to GOP lawmakers is that criticizing the president weakens him — and them — politically.

The current polling results have pollsters comparing Bush 43 to Nixon! Imagine that!

By comparison, Presidents Clinton and Reagan had public approval in the mid 60s at this stage of their second terms in office, while Eisenhower was close to 60 percent, according to Gallup polls. Nixon, who was increasingly tangled up in the Watergate scandal, was in the high 20s in early 1974.

So, as a registered Republican you would think I would be terribly upset but, I’m not.

I’m not upset now – if anything I was more annoyed when I was hearing all the histrionics during the 2004 campaign about the world coming to an end if Bush 43 won reelection. See, I won’t let anyone plant Bush’s failings at my feet. I didn’t vote for the guy - either time. As a matter of fact, I was quite disappointed when he became the Republican standard bearer in 2000. Of all the people, talented, educated, committed people to choose from, I was really upset when Bush 43 became the front runner. I much preferred McCain, Dole or Powell, three choices which somehow didn’t make it.

Looking at Bush now, I have to wonder if his name had been anything other than George Bush if he would have even made it out of the primaries but, that’s the way politics is in our country these days. A Johnson, Nixon, Eisenhower or Truman probably couldn’t get elected in today’s society - they’re just not telegenic enough. We pick our political leaders based around appearance rather than substance and this is particularly true on the national level.

I’m not upset because I think Bush‘s polling numbers prove that deep down, we’re not as stupid as we would appear at first glance and when someone does a bad job, we recognize it. Even if you like the guy (and I have to imagine he’s not a bad guy), he’s just done a bad job. We have a midterm election coming up in a few months and the onus will be to take the administration to task for its missteps.

I’m actually looking forward to it. It proves that things do work.

Let’s change the name!

If you’re out of the New York area you may not have heard about this story.

Families of people who perished in the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center petitioned the court Friday to stop construction next week of a ground zero memorial that they say fails to do justice to the memory of the victims...

The petition says that unless the current plans are blocked, “the ability to visit and contemplate the authentic site where their family members’ last remains reside will be forever lost.”

Yes, something will be built on the land. It will not remain a gaping hole in the center of downtown forever so the authenticity of the site is without question going to be lost. Maybe instead of Reflecting Absence we can rename the memorial Inciting Stupidity as it becomes clearer and clearer that there will be absolutely no way to make everyone happy whatever happens to the site.

Think about it, they’re suing to stop a memorial!

Flattery, will out.



So, I’ve been doing the Flickr thing quite a bit. I put everything I shoot up on the site regardless of whether or not it’s the perfect picture. Consequently, there are as many failures displayed as successes. I think it’s the way it should be. The flickr thing (the photography) is an experiment for me more than anything else, an experiment and an outlet.

I enjoy recording the things I see in the world around me during the course of the day. The world is such a beautiful place and I feel we are often exposed to that beauty if only we take the time out to look for it.

I live very close to one of the planet’s most notable and large cities. Often, I take that city for granted having grown to know it so intimately through the years. Still, even though I may take the city for granted, the love affair has been simmering for a long time and a deep seated passion exists within me for New York.

New York is a funny place because New York is much like a person. Each of us are many different people, depending who we are interacting with at the moment. New York is similar in this way, it is many things depending upon the viewer. While beauty in the landmarks and the incredible architecture is apparent, the ugliness of poverty and street life inherent in big cities is also in abundance.

So, the other day I had a picture picked as a favorite by someone. Shortly afterward a few more pictures were picked as faves by someone else and I would be lying (sp?) if I were to say I wasn’t incredibly flattered and didn’t get a bit of a boost from the selection. Yes, I am as susceptible to praise as the rest of the world, I guess.

Friday cat blogging:

Since I’m up at a reasonable hour...

I love stuff like this:



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

I love my cat but...

... I know she is taking things for granted when I come home early from work only to find her sitting up in my favorite chair smoking a cigar, watching TV and drinking some whiskey. I mean, really! I had no idea the trouble she was up to at home when I wasn’t around. She tried to play it off like nothing happened. You know how cats do that, when they fall they try to walk away gracefully like nothing happened only to turn the corner out of sight and begin kitty swearing.

Well, she tried the same thing except it was really hard to get rid of the telltale smell of the cigar smoke.

Who knew!

Photo fun.



More new photos up on the Flickr site. I still haven’t mastered the art of taking pictures of people candidly. There is something about taking the unrehearsed, candid photo that seems like such an intrusion into a person’s life. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with it. I do it from time to time but, truthfully when I do I want to remain somewhat innocuous in the process. Consequently, most of the photos I’ve been taking have been devoid of people. Mostly, I do shots of what I see during the course of my travels.

Last night, there was this really interesting picture I wanted to take. They’re demolishing a power station over on the east side by the UN and the building is all lit up at night so workers can see what is happening with the building. The interior of the building is exposed and the light gave it this eerie glow.

Only problem is to get the shot I have to stop on an exit ramp on the highway within a stone’s throw of the UN an I’m reluctant to have an encounter with the PD in these times of heightened security.

He looked like a fireplug...

A proven team leader with an ever-present smile and infectious exuberance who led the Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991. Over 12 seasons hit for power and average, batting .318 with 414 doubles, 207 home runs. Also a prolific run producer, scored 1,071 runs and drove in 1,085 in 1,783 games. A six-time Gold Glove winner who patrolled center field with elegance and style, routinely scaling outfield walls to take away home runs. The 10-time All-Stars career ended abruptly due to irreversible retina damage in his right eye.

There are few ballplayers I really, really enjoy watching play the game. Kirby Puckett was one of those players.

At 5-foot-8, Puckett was a risky pick when the Twins selected him third overall out of Triton (Ill.) College. After two years in the minor leagues, he made it to the majors in 1984 and was an immediate defensive presence. In Puckett’s third season, his bat caught up with his glove, and he hammered 31 home runs to go along with a .328 batting average.

It was tough not to like Puckett. He looked like a tree stump, short and thick, and playing so uninhibited, it seemed as though he had little regard for his body, something that would truly manifest itself once he retired.

Now for some real news...

For everyone for whom this is important, may I have the envelope please...

The Oscars winners list.

Yes, tomorrow the front pages of many papers across the nation will be running front page story on who took home the Oscar. Me, who cares! Ranks right up there with the Emmy’s, the Tony’s, the Grammy’s, People’s Choice, Country Music Awards, MTV Awards and any other stupid compilation of clips assembled together to fete the rich and the famous. I don’t care about the red carpet, I don’t care about the stupid awards (quick, who won the emmy for best tv series in 1995?), it’s just non news. Overblown and just unimportant, why has society become obsessed with this kind of crap?

The 2008 Republican Convention.

Rather than deal with the messiness of primaries and the like, the Republican party today announced the convention in 2008 would commence with a hunting expedition led by VP Dick Cheney. Party leaders thought this was a more expedient way of choosing the next Republican candidate.

(IT’S A JOKE, PEOPLE!)

Oh, get a fuc**ng life already!

About 50,000 people, many chanting “Hang those who insulted the prophet,” rallied Sunday in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. The protesters burned the Danish flag, hit an effigy of President Bush with a stick and chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Musharraf.” Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf welcomed Bush to Pakistan on Saturday.

Cartoons, they’re demonstrating over fuc**ng cartoons!

Too bad they couldn’t get behind ending hunger, illness, or poverty the way they can get behind these demonstrations. What an absolute fuc**-ng waste of time and energy.



50,000 people!

Think about all the time and energy and effort spent in organizing and getting all these people to show up just to burn flags and yell and scream. You think if you could get 50,000 people together like that you’d do it to make the world a better place and to ease some suffering on the planet. What morons, find something better to do with your time.



Thing is, them burning the flag and everything, like who gives a flying f**k. Waste your money, buy more flags, make us rich! Idiots, come up with something new. I am morally outraged they have burned our flag! (NOT!) Like that hasn’t been done in the Muslim world before. Oh, the humanity! The best part is when one of these dopes gets over zealous and sets themselves on fire too.

Oh no, Mister Bill!

Wow, Sunday night already! Where did the weekend go?!

Well, to start your week off right (if you’re reading this on a Monday morning) here’s a little something called What if the Fantastic Four got real jobs?

Fractured fairy tales.

Another take on Red Riding Hood, enter the world of Black XXX-Mas if you dare. (borderline NSFW - play it wearing headphones)

A musical interlude.

I came across this in my wanderings. I found I iliked it quite a bit:

Cherry Blossom Girl by Air.

or if you prefer you can watch the interesting video of the song here.

WARNING!

Click on the following link only when you find yourself incredibly frustrated at your job. It will bring you immediate relief and provide much humor and joy. So far, anyone I have shown this link to has not been able to contain their laughter. I bring you the interactive world of the Whack Your Boss game. Move your mouse over the various items in the office and click on them when they change color. This is the virtual answer to “Going Postal.”

Friday cat blogging.

I one up everyone doing cat blogging by providing you all with a link to the Daily Kitten. I am somewhat embarassed I find the daily kitten so fascinating and imagine I will be visiting it daily - Look! Kitttteeeyyyyyy! (there is only one person in the entire world who will understand the reference).

Lazy Sunday.

You know you’re getting old when...

So, what does the weekend become - precious days off spent just trying to recharge the batteries more than anything else. Also, looking around and trying to figure out what things I can get done in the gaps of the week, those that absolutely positively need doing and the ones which would make life nicer and move it along in the right direction if they were done.

I had hoped to get to the NY Comiccon this weekend and take some nifty pictures of the event but, as fate would have it the fire marshals intervened and the event planners did a piss poor job so after a certain point on Saturday people just weren’t getting into the damn thing. Going to a Comic convention is one step short of just totally embracing geekdom but, this was supposed to be a fairly big event with a lot of good panels with industry pros which caught my eye more than anything else.

Long gone are the days of wandering around a convention thinking about what to buy, more it is about seeing just how I can finagle my way into getting some work published and making some good connections.

The night shift thing is wearing me out.

I mean the work is actually pretty good but, even with the limited amount of hours I put in I find myself mostly exhausted.

Like last weekend this weekend was marked by a big cooking extravaganza. Last week it was this pork and bean soup thing (pork in the form of Kilbasa and Chorizo), it came out pretty good and served as a meal for a couple of days. This weekend it was finally getting around to making a big batch of sausage and peppers to take to work as I promised I would. Sounds easy but the only way you get the things to taste really good is by cooking them for hours and hours over very low heat and allowing the flavor to permeate the meat. We’ll see later this week if my efforts were appreciated or not.

Frankly, I’ve just been plum tuckered out these past two weeks. I’m waiting for nicer weather to come and trying to figure out what I would like to do with the summer. So, in lieu of talking about mosques being destroyed and the resultant frenzy, or the death of an actor or two or even just the general stupidity that pops up in the news on a fairly regular basis, I just find myself enjoying each and every bit of quiet there is.

You never call, you never write.

Becoming enmeshed once again in the workaday world, I find one of the first things to fall by the wayside is regularly contributing to the blog (unfortunately). I view work as a necessary evil, it’s specter is akin to a trip to the dentist’s office, you have to go and it will probably be painful but the outcome is to your benefit.

I can’t and shouldn’t complain as the people I’m working with are nice enough. I’m working a night shift which has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages in that the overall experience of the workday is a quieter one. All the people who would normally get on your nerves are long gone by the time the night shift shows up and if they are still in attendance, they’re just to tuckered out by the length of the day to cause any significant trouble.

Disadvantage in you find yourself constantly adjusting. Your sleep clock is never really quite what it should be. Some days are day days which stretch long into the night and others are just periods you pass through, sleeping throughout most of the daylight hours trying to readjust your body clock.

One night last week, I got stuck at work pretty late.

There’s this optimum window of time when I want to leave work. After 4:30 in the morning the rush hour actually begins and you have a lot of truck traffic and early commuter traffic on the road which makes the whole experience a bit more stressful than it needs to be. But, get out anytime after 2am and before 4am and your in the golden zone where there are very, very few cars out on the road and the trip home is a breeze. The ride home can take a very satisfying 35 to 40 minutes at that time of night, giving me a sense of what the world is like for people who have more reasonable commutes. I can do 35 to 40 minutes, it’s those hour and a half each way commutes that get to me. Three hours added on to the average work day make for a hellish experience.

Funny thing is, in recent years a few friends have taken the plunge and moved quite far out into the ’burbs. It’s been somewhat ironic to hear their moaning after the fact about the length of the commute and how onerous it makes the day. Ah, I think to myself, join the club as I’ve been doing it for much, much longer.

Anyway, one night last week I was on my way home and got caught in one of those drive home limbo experiences:



Yes, an hour and a half on the FDR. Just parked, not moving forward, not moving backward, just sitting there. If I had a ball I could have played a game of catch with my fellow motorists. Next to me was a cab with a fare in it. I watched as the meter went from just over $11 to over $25 by the time the traffic began to move again.

There was some kind of serious accident - 8 cars involved - up around 116th Street. So, they just closed the highway until everything was squared away. Just imagine working until 6 or 6:30 and then getting stuck on the road until 8, and still not being home!

It really wasn’t that bad though, I mean I could have been in the accident, instead of merely waiting for traffic to clear.

Finally!

Days late cat blogging:



Anna, roughing it. More new photos up on Flickr.

Rich white men.

Here’s a story for you...

Gary Sheffield is out in the woods with a group of friends during baseball’s off-season. They’re out having a good time, just a lazy day, doing some hunting. Somewhere along the way - Gary shoots one of the people out in the woods with him. It’s an accident but, the man he shoots winds up being hospitalized and subsequently having a heart attack. Later on, details come to light that one of the party was a medic and tried treating the injured man at the scene. Further, while the wounded man was given prompt medical attention and subsequently bought to a hospital, there was a delay in reporting the incident to the local law enforcement authorities.

Okay, so at this point do you think there would be cries about having an investigation?

Even if the guy who was shot claimed it was an accident. I have to imagine, Sheffield would be crucified in the press. There would be questions about the validity of his story and inference that he abused his position as a famous athelete to escape repercussions stemming from the incident. Further, I would imagine Sheffield more than likely would be facing the prospct of some jail time in his future as a result of either his actions with the firearm or his failure to report the incident promptly to the local authorities.

I’m only using Gary Sheffield to illustrate a point in this instance - mainly because he has gotten a rep as a bit of a surly guy in the media. The fact that he is black and is a professional athelete are also part of the reason I’m using him as an example.

You see, fat, rich, white men are held to a different standard in this country.

Our VP, Dick Cheney shot someone!

The way they’ve kept Cheney in hiding over the last few years, I wasn’t even sure if the guy could come out into the light of day without bursting into a pillar of flame a la some Anne Rice character. Not only did he shoot somebody, the guy he shot is in the hospital, had a heart attack and there was a delay in reporting the incident?! Cheney is trying to downplay the whole thing and the administration is responding in a testy and combative manner when reporters ask questions about what happened.

Now, I don’t know if Cheney is trying to wrestle the title of ‘Evil Dick’ away from our departed former president of the late 60’s, early 70’s but, clearly there is some skewed attitude being displayed in response to the whole event. I didn’t even think they allowed these guys to play with guns while they were in office! I mean, they have access to all kinds of nuclear weapons, tanks, aircraft carriers, fighter jets and the like. Don’t you think that would be enough for their macho joneses?

Besides, isn’t the only reason we have a VP around is in case something happens to the main guy? Why would you let the guy out there in the woods with guns? Hasn’t this guy had a bunch of heart attacks already? The government was so afraid of OSB zeroing in on Cheney they had the guy in lockdown and now he’s out in the woods with guns?!

Beyond the stupidity and lapse in judgement there is of Cheney being out in the woods hunting, the fact he’s out there shooting the other people in his hunting party shows incredibly poor judgement. So, I ask you, think Cheney should slide on this one? Are they making a big deal out of nothing? Or, is it just another example of the growing disconnect between the White House and the nation? Is it emblematic of how the current administration feels they are somehow above the standards the rest of us are held to?

You make the call.

One more reason.

To regularly read Nat Hentoff’s column:

<James Madison, the principal architect of the Bill of Rights, warned: “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment in our liberties.” Because of the continually expanding surveillance technology available to the government, no administration in our history has been engaged in more pervasive “experiments” on our liberties than Bush’s regime.

The increasing prevalence of computers, electronic commerce and other factors in our society are combining to erode personal privacy quicker than people would care to recognize. We may in fact, be witnessing the most insipid and devious attack on freedom ever bought to us, all under the guise of convenience.

And then... you decided to... break wwwwiiiiiiinnnnddddd.



Years ago there was this class offfered in the New School catalog which caught my interest. It was a series of lectures with famous actors and directors and I thought it might be interesting to check out. So, for two semesters, I spent my Monday nights running down to the twelfth street auditorium of the New School and listening to the life histories of people like Stanley Donen, Carol Burnett and Jessica Lange.

More often than not they were very entertaining evenings. I never would have known who Stanley Donen was, had I not went to these lectures. However, along the line the course changed in scope. It went from lectures with people who had long histories in entertainment, to more of a spectacle. It became about capturing the flavor of the moment.

There was a swarmy, groveling quality to the series’ host but, it was worth tolerating if only to capture a glimpse into the lives and minds of some very creative people. When the focus moved to the most recent name in the news, it became less interesting and my focus quickly shifted elsewhere.

This past weekend though I had the opportunity to catch Dave Chapelle’s appearance on the show. It captured, once more, something that had been lost over the ensuing years. Chapelle proved to be a thoughtful, intriguing man full of great depth and humor. If you haven’t seen Chapelle’s appearance, I highly recommend it. Chapelle was disarmingly honest and forthright about his views on success, his comedy and our country. It is further proof Chapelle inherents the mantle of Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor for today’s times.

Cheney’s hunting skills as a metaphor.

Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year-old hunting companion during a weekend quail hunting trip after the man went to retrieve a bird and Cheney failed to spot him.

Harry Whittington, an Austin attorney, was in stable condition late Sunday in the intensive care unit at a Corpus Christi hospital, where he was flown after the shooting late Saturday afternoon at the Armstrong Ranch.

Proving once again how forces beyond our ken have a wicked sense of humor. News of VP Cheney’s hunting accident over the weekend as the current VP injured a fellow hunter in a case of friendly fire (easily besting Dan Quayle in the foolish VP tricks department).

The incident could be viewed as an ironic metaphor for the current adminstrations’ worldview don’t you think?

Cheney shows the same level of deftness in hunting as the administration does in their approach to foreign policy which is scattershot at best, doing as much harm as good.

Sometimes, companies feel like just throttling people.

I haven’t jumped on the NetFlix bandwagon, although I have been sorely tempted. I did find this article interesting though and if you’re a Net Flix user you’ll want to check it out.

Netflix typically sends about 13 movies per month to Villanueva’s home in Warren, Mich. — down from the 18 to 22 DVDs he once received before the company’s automated system identified him as a heavy renter and began delaying his shipments to protect its profits.

The same Netflix formula also shoves Villanueva to the back of the line for the most-wanted DVDs, so the service can send those popular flicks to new subscribers and infrequent renters.

The little-known practice, called “throttling” by critics, means Netflix customers who pay the same price for the same service are often treated differently, depending on their rental patterns.

Bleeeechhh!

Sorry, I really do hate snow - photos to come.

Friday funnies.

I’ve been really enjoying some of the stuff that’s up on Google video lately. Yes, the world is going to hell in a pushcart, people are rioting over cartoons, there are terrorists everywhere, civil liberties are disappearing faster than Britney’s career but, there should always be time for laughter. So, in that spirit I bring to you the following:

A dramatic new take on the Back to the Future trilogy, titled Brokeback to the Future!

An cover version of a Kanye West hit the gives new meaning to the freshman fifteen.

A Mastercard commercial that really is priceless!

The car ad that should be running before screenings of Munich.

Another argument for birth control.

And finally, proof that you shouldn’t f*ck with old people.

The tit grab redux.

A few weeks back I posted quite a bit about the TGHRTW. I am somewhat impatient sometimes with some of the arguments offered up although I again reiterate my distaste for bad behavior. I came across this spec commercial though on the Google video site and I was curious. There’s an obvious appeal to men but, I was curious if in fact any women found it cute or entertaining... or just downright sexist. Comments are invited.

Look at the video here.

The MOL is high!

The Muslim Offense Level and you, click on the image below to find out more (scroll down too while you’re at it).

HIGH
Meaning - We are extremely offended by a particular individual or country
Non-Muslim response - That individual or country must apologize
Consequence of non-compliance - Individual; Fatwa, assassination, or both. Country; Boycott (unless you export things the Saudi Royal Family are consumers of), and Saudi newspapers write a long string of boring and repetitive articles that you will never read but will drive Saudi readers to distraction.

Kitty fun.

Came across these two videos on Google and thought I would share them with all the cat lovers out there:

This one is an actual commercial (and a pretty funny one at that).

This looks like it came off of AFV.

State of the Union?

I had several half composed entries from just after the State of the Union speech. As a work of fiction it’s a beautiful thing but, do we expect the State of the Union to be a work of fiction?

There was some talk about halving the budget deficit by ’09, by which time Junior will be just out of office and therefore hardly accountable for his promise so, I view the statement as somewhat empty. Besides, what would the alternative be, more time in office? The horror!

My one thought listening to the State of the Union was there should be some kind of broad urging up front for all the members of Congress to hold their applause to after the speech. If they did that, they could spare us all the onus of having to spend an hour on listening to a speech that would run about 20 minutes without the interruptions. 20 minutes was about all the speech was worth anyway, nothing new as much as more of the same. It was a speech of flavor but little substance leaving the listener hungry and unsatiated afterward.

I think the best measure of a man is his words and under the circumstances it is best to measure our current Chief Executive. If you would argue for or against his time in office, I would suggest taking the time out to read his previous State of the Union speeches and then using them as a measure for what he has in fact accomplished during his time in office. It makes for fascinating reading if you have the time and will give one a wealth of ammunition in any political discussion.

State of the Union 2001 here.

State of the Union 2002 here.

State of the Union 2003 here.

State of the Union 2004 here.

State of the Union 2005 here.

Picture this.



Just another shot from the World of PJ Flickr site. Some new stuff going up this week as I finally get around to getting the laptop back up and running. Plus many more new, earlier photos taken with the big camera.

Cartoon controversy.

Upon further thought, it occurred to me if such a big stink hadn’t been made about the Danish cartoons, I probably wouldn’t have ever known or seen them. The main thing the protests are accomplishing is managing to foster interest in the things. I was also kind of wondering if in fact the people who had participated in the buring of the Danish embassy had even seen the cartoons or if they were just going on the word of someone who had (or maybe someone who had spoken to someone who had - a kind of bizarre game of telephone).

Two out of three, ain’t bad.

From Erik Larsen’s column:

There was a time in comics when people used to say that in order to “make it in comics” you needed to possess two of the following qualities:

You had to be really good.

You had to be really fast.

You had to be really nice.

What is that scent you’re wearing?

Woman: Do you like the perfume I'm wearing?
Man: It smells like a sanitary napkin...Before it’s used, of course.

—Grand Central
Overheard by: Christina Rusnak

“Did he fire six shots or only five?”

Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Just a quick mention if you live in the New York area – Film Forum is doing a retrospective of the films of Don Siegel. Besides Dirty Harry, Seigel was also director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original with Kevin McCarthy) and also can claim to have directed Ronald Reagan in his last role on the big screen. Click on Detective Callahan below for more info.

That big sucking sound.

Last night on the way home from a lovely dinner with family I was trying to find something to listen to on the radio. After a few minutes it became very apparent, radio really sucks sometimes!

K-Rock had the Booker show on which is just horrible and in terms of music on other stations there wasn’t much to choose from. Lots of people on the radio nowadays are trying to be Stern (or to a lesser extent Imus). It’s soooo forced and soooo bad. Nevermind that they screw around with the board so much to make everyone’s voice sound so damn perfect. So perfect in fact, it sounds anything but. Booker’s show had the main guy (Booker, I imagine), some other guy and some women all working really, really hard to be funny. Lots of laughing at just bad, bad jokes. Ever listen to someone tell you a bad joke and laugh too long or too loud after it even though it wasn’t funny? That’s what it was like.

WCBS is gone now too so that big echoey FM sound with all those fifties/sixties/seventies pop is gone. I wasn’t in classical more either and listening to some rap just doesn’t seem like an after dinner kind of thing to do - I just can’t think that rap helps with the digestive process.

So, it’s pretty slim pickings.

AM had nothing but a couple of basketball or hockey games, the newsradio channels and I think there was some kind of health show on one of the stations.

I wasn’t in the God Power Hour mood either (not that I ever was a big fan of the whole Jeez-us radio).

Scary thing is, I’m in a large metro area - what is it like if you’re out in the sticks?!?

Further reading.

If you haven’t heard about the cartoon controversy and would like to read more look at the following places (you can even see the offending images):

The cartoon series appearing on this page that sparked a global controversy was commissioned and published by a Danish newspaper as a deliberate challenge to Muslim insistence that their religious feelings must be given special consideration.

“It’s important for our readers to see what the fuss is about and to make up their own minds. Ours is a secular society based on Western ideals of tolerance and open debate, even if that may occasionally offend.”

“We do not wish to be deliberately provocative but neither should we allow ourselves to be intimidated.”

“If we allow Christianity and more particularly the Catholic Church and the Pope to be satirised, and we do, should Islam be treated differently?”

“In its pure form Islam is a religion based on peace and tolerance. This is a test of that tolerance.”

Newspapers in France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Hungary have reprinted caricatures originally published in Denmark, arguing that press freedom is more important than the protests and boycotts they have provoked.

Up to 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage inside the lobby of a Jakarta building housing the Danish embassy yesterday in protest over cartoons that Muslims say insult Islam and the Prophet Mohammad.

Iraq’s top Shia Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani condemned the publication, but said militant Islamists were partly to blame for distorting the image of Islam

Newspapers across the globe debate the controversy over cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad, with Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten, which originally commissioned the drawings, blaming some Muslim religious leaders for spreading “lies and misinformation.”

Cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in several European newspapers have caused outrage among some Muslims. The BBC News website looks at the key questions behind the row.

There is no specific, or explicit ban on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad - be they carved, painted or drawn.

However, chapter 42, verse 11 of the Koran does say: “[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth... [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him.”

This is taken by Muslims to mean that Allah cannot be captured in an image by human hand, such is his beauty and grandeur. To attempt such a thing is seen as an insult to Allah.

The cartoons heard ’round the world.

Okay, I admit it. It’s nice to see them burning someone else’s flag for a change.



Is anyone really shocked by displays like this? I mean, really? How many times have you been watching the news only to see a bunch of people from the Middle East burning a flag. Wasn’t it the Palestinians who were out there shooting off guns, celebrating and burning American flags on September 11th?



I even came across a site which seems to be entirely devoted to all the flag burnings of the American flag (and there are many). So, the Muslim world is mad at the West - what else is new?

Like, the very people who are the most upset by this, your zealous Islamic fundamentalists, what, they were particularly enchanted with us to begin with? I mean, what are they going to do? Fly jet planes into buildings? Blow themselves up? Kill innocents? Destroy other religions’ sacred sites?

Oh, wait.

That’s right... they’ve done all those things.

So, excuse me if I am not impressed by their righteous outrage.

I probably would be more concerned if there was a long history of friendship and tolerance between our societies. Yet, it doesn’t seem as if that’s the case. If people are offended, that’s bad and unfortunate. In this instance they deserve at minimum an apology but, when you start threatening people with violence and death, well... to put it mildly, fuck you.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you.

Now, I’?m not talking about people who are adherents of Islam, people who find comfort and solace in their faith. I do however have an enormous problem with anyone who uses their religion to hold themselves out as better than the rest of us. Be they Muslim, Christian or Jewish (or whatever religion you want to choose). The thing I fail to understand, the thing that escapes me whenever I read or hear of something like this boils down to one simple fact: If these people are so holy, so devote, so pious, so humbled and in awe of their chosen deity, how could they possibly take it upon themselves to speak for such a divine entity?

You remember the old Ken-L-Ration commercials? My dog is better than your dog and all that went the tune. Just swipe out the word dog for the word God (cap "G", G) and it gives you a sense of where this whole argument stems from...

My God is better than your God,
My God’s better than yours...
My God’s better ’cause it’s my religion yeah,
My God’s better than yours!

It’s great when religion makes a person feel better about themselves, about their place in the world but, is it so necessary to feel better about yourself by feeling superior to everyone else who doesn’t share your beliefs? I guess, if I am going to speak about respecting others’ views, I should take into account how it really is sacriligeous to create images of the Prophet Mohammed. Under that measure I can understand why people are upset and acknowledge their right to be upset. Yet, there are a myriad number of ways for them to voice their displeasure.

Further, in some instances, what are probably considered the most profane of the cartoons have views which are only confirmed by the tenor of the demonstrations and the character of the rhetoric raised in opposition.

Like the old saw goes, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Maybe, I’m a bit obtuse about the whole thing. I just find it somehow interesting that the three western monotheastic religions all share common origins but, still use their differences as the excuse to belittle one and other instead of focusing on those things which join them to each other.

It’s just very, very sad. If anything it reinforces how far we have yet to go before obtaining any kind of divine wisdom and paradise for us all.

Don Rumsfeld, a regular guy?



I keep seeing these pictures of Donald Rumsfeld
our current Secretary of Defense...



...and every time I see the man’s picture...



...the thought that always occurs to me...



...is how different things might be...



...if poor ole Don could just take a decent dump.



Somebody, please get this man some fiber!

Nothing is more contemptuous.

Than people who post streaming audio files on their pages - whether it be MySpace or something else. I sit here quietly surfing away land on a page and all of a sudden find myself accosted by music with the volume on 11. Of course, this causes a start and very shortly after realizing what happened a closure of the offending page without taking the time out to read any of the content.

Singing the praises of the Scooter.

“Uh-oh, deep to left-center, nobody’s gonna get that one! Holy cow, somebody got it!”

“All right! Stay fair! No, it won’t stay fair. Good thing it didn’t stay fair, or I think he would’ve caught it!”

“Bouncer to third, they’ll never get him! No, why don’t I just shut up!”

“Oh, these Yankees can get the clutch hits, Murcer. I might have to go home early, I just got a cramp in my leg.”

“I’m very nervous here with this,” he said at the microphone.

He said he was “doing real good,” and one of his daughters said he still played golf, although no longer a full 18-hole round.

Few people hold as special a place in my heart as “The Scooter” does, before switching allegiances to the Mets, I was very much a Yankee fan and relished listening to Phil Rizzuto broadcast Yankee games.

I grew up in what I considered a golden age of broadcasting listening to Bill White, Frank Messer and Phil Rizzuto do the Yankee games. All this and Bob Murphy too (doing Mets games)! What incredible voices all these men had, a glorious age of summer afternoons, spent lounging away in the sun with a baseball game providing the perfect backdrop to the days activities.

The Scooter’s dulcet tones were comforting and heartwarming. His voice familiar and his humor took on an even greater aspect through the years - culiminating in the wondeful wordplay between him and Tom Seaver, his last partner in the booth.

There are so many funny moments in Phil Rizzuto’s life, moments of entirely accidental comedy which seemed to trail him. Scooter, who was honored with his own day at Yankee stadium, even did battle with a cow bought to the event because of his traedmark line. It was a pure Rizzuto moment as the sedate beast moved it’s lumbering girth closer to Rizzuto and the two got tangled up, causing momentary alarm over Scooter’s resultant pratfall. It was just another part of Rizzuto’s legacy.

Funny thing is, as the years mount up since he has done any broadcasting, his stature has only grown in my estimation. It’s always good to see mention of The Scooter, he’s a real Yankee treasure and the oldest living hall of famer out there.

Getting older.

Getting older means purchasing take out the night before, waking up the next morning only to find the bag the side came in lying on the kitchen counter and trying to remember if you refilled a prescription the day before. Until you go and feel the bag, realizing there are pieces of cornbread in it and not a prescription bottle.

Heartfelt condolences.



Seth Fisher
1972 - 2006

Comic Books
DC Comics: Green Lantern: Willworld, Flash: Time Flies, Doom Patrol (#13-14), Batman LotDK: Snow (#1-5) (not yet released)
DC Vertigo: Vertigo Pop Tokyo (#1-4)
Happydale: Devils in the Desert
Paradox Press: Big Book of Vice, Big book of Grimm ...more
Heavy Metal: Lift, Sacrific, Lifeblood ...more

CD Covers: SQUAREMEAT (Finland), Bank$ (Japan)

Video Game Design Presto Studios: Concept Design for Myst III

Illustration: Cricket Magazine, Cicada Magazine, Dentsu (Japanese Ad Agency), Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market, Penny Farthing Press (Comic Cover Illustration), Frank Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated (comic magazine), QuickJapan (magazine)

A wonderful talent taken far too soon, prayers go out to his loved ones.