Screwing with the baristas.

I hate tip jars. The f**king things are everywhere these days. Next time I go to the proctologist, I half expect to see a tip jar lying around (and if anyone would deserve it, it’s a guy who spends his day sticking his finger up people’s asses). Somehow, over the last ten years, tip jars just saturated our society.

Now, I don’t know about you but, for me I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to these things. Waiters, waitresses, cab drivers, bell captains, redcaps, maitre-ds are all people who get my tips. If you’re working the counter in a Baskin Robbins, a 7-11, a dry cleaner, etc. well... you’re just s*it out of luck in my book. It’s not up to me to make up for the fact you’re getting paid sh*tty wages. Hell, I worked a ton of sh*tty jobs myself in my time, suck it up.

You don’t tip the checkout person in a supermarket, you don’t tip a receptionist in a doctor’s office, it just isn’t done - throwing a plastic cup out in front of people, dumping your loose change into it and hoping for the best is nice enough but, don’t expect me to feel guilt.

Starbucks, is one of those places where you find the innocuous tip jar. It kind of makes me chuckle in some ways because I’ve read Howard Schultz’s book and seen him on TV speaking about creating a certain atmosphere in his stores. He goes on at length on how Starbucks was trying to copy the whole expresso bar experience he found in Italy but, funny enough I can’t seem to remember there being a single tip jar in any of the many expresso bars I visited in Rome.

Maybe I would be a lot less reluctant to tip if I wasn’t getting socked with a $3 plus charge for a cup of coffee. Chances are though, if all I’m buying is a cup of coffee and it’s costing that much I’m thinking about where I really should be spending money instead of pissing it away so cavalierly. Geez, somewhere there is some retired executive from the Chock Full of Nuts chain who is just banging his head against a wall watching what has been going on with Starbucks over the last decade.

So, part of the whole ‘experience’ in some of these Starbucks is being asked your name by the counter person when you place your order.

Now, maybe it’s me but, I don’t want to build a personal relationship with La Baristas. The coffee bar is not my modern day equivalent of Cheers and I am not f**kin Norm. So, it doesn’t happen often but, every once in awhile you hit one of these places where they do ask you for your name when you order your coffee.

And... I f**k with them.

Look, like I said I don’t want a personal relationship, just give me my damn overpriced coffee to go. I don’t want it to take a half hour - WHICH IT SOMETIMES DOES EVEN WITH THAT CRYPTIC STARBUCK SPEAK!

I’ve been in places where the cash register even prints out your order over by the expresso machine but that still doesn’t speed the process up - so asking me my name while I stand around like an idiot isn’t going to make me any happier. Today’s choice was Agamemnon, sometimes it’s been such jewels as Ulysses or Socrates. I just like giving them a mouthful or a real handful to write. It stops ’em dead in their tracks, like a deer caught in headlights, they don’t know what to do!

Sometimes it’s just fun to see if they can get a name like that out of their own mouths, ‘What was that?’

‘Agamemnon.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘C’mon that’s not really your name!’

‘Okay, Jason.’ (still not my name - thinking about Friday the 13th at this particular moment)

‘Okay. Jason. What was that name again... from before.’

‘Agammmennmmonn,’ I even have trouble getting it out of my mouth.

She chuckles, I chuckle and still shrouded in mystery go to the coffee bar to get my exorbitant drink. When La Barista asks, ‘Jason, do you want room for milk?’ It is all I can do to keep from totally losing it.

As I walk away, coffee in hand, I imagine one of the ladies hovering around the bar for their triple, nonfat, giganto, mocha, icerino with whipped cream saying to her friend, ‘He didn’t look like a Jason.’

And she’d be right.

He who smelt it, dealt it.

If you are in and around Manhattan today you may have noticed it:

Across the Hudson River, Jersey City, N.J., mayor’s spokeswoman Maria Pignataro said officials there were told the odor was due to a gas leak in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, just north of Greenwich Village.

It’s on all the news channels right now but, watching it the funny thing is watching all the companies and elected officials deny responsibility. Con Edison says they don’t have a leak (pushing the speculation the source is New Jersey) and the Jersey City mayor says her people have informed her the source was in Manhattan.

Numerous people have called 911 to report the odor. Con Edison, the Fire Department and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating. The Fire Department began getting calls about the odor around 9 a.m., said spokesman Tim Hinchey. PATH service has been suspended into the 33rd Street station, although the service was still running to the World Trade Center Station. F and V subway service has been suspended at 23rd Street.

It’s funny if only because you can imagine the localities as people in a room where someone has farted.

The odor of natural gas was reported across Midtown Manhattan, prompting hundreds of calls to emergency workers. Eyewitness News is told the smell was first reported in the vicinity of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. Earlier this morning around 9:00 a.m. hundreds of calls poured into city emergency officials. Apparently the calls are coming from Chelsea, Battery Park west, Madison Square Park, and there are also reports of the gas smell outside of our studio on 66th and Columbus. A very similar smell was also reported in Downtown Jersey City.

I just enjoy watching all these newscasters speak endlessly about the awful smell. If you view it in that context (someone farting) it’s really, really funny.

It’s a dirty job but, someone has to do it.

It takes a lot of practice to be a dick. I mean you have to spend veritable years deconstructing your personality to the point where you are so incredibly obnoxious and insensitive to the people around you that you can even be considered worthy of the title.

So, when you run across someone who is a genuine dick, you should show a little reverence for all the effort they’ve have put in to their art.

I’ve tried to tone down my the aspects of dickdom in my own personality through the years but, it still comes through from time to time. Maybe it will surface when I’m driving and there is a particularly oblivious clown in and around me, or maybe it will manifest in some other public setting. Thinking about it now, I realize it’s almost impossible to be a dick when you are by yourself. Can you truly be a dick when there is nobody about to be a dick to?

As a man, being called a dick doesn’t bother me the way it would bother a women when she is characterized by being called an offensive name for her privates. I don’t know too many men who have the violent, almost militant reaction women display when they are called the "c" word. Thinking about it, George Carlin used to go on at length about it - I think he was the one who observed the hard constanant sound of the "c" word is what gets your attention.

The ceeee word - roll that one over for a second if you will. It’s not like we call dick the "d" word.

Anyway, I have been pretty lucky of late because it seems my dick exposure these days has been incredibly low. Of course, I have spent much of the last few weeks enmeshed in a project where I have little time to spare and consequently am not out in public all that often.

New York can sometimes be the “dick” capital of the world. A lot of movies characterize the city that way, The Out of Towners immediately comes to mind but, the truth is really far different from that. Last week a guy threw himself down on the tracks in front of a moving subway train in order to save another persons’ life. Simply amazing.

A lot of people took notice of it and I was impressed as well. Then again, it’s really not a surprise. If you had been in New York in the months after September 11th, you would have seen the character of the people of this city. Even in the days immediately afterward, people where so amazingly polite to each other, so very considerate. It was beautiful. It makes me think of the place the world could be.

But then, my inner dick comes out.

Kal-El couldn’t have done better.


“I’m still saying I’m not a hero ... ’cause I believe all New Yorkers should get into that type of mode,” Wesley Autry said on CBS’ “The Early Show” Thursday. “You should do the right thing.”

Simple, eloquent and an example for us all - not much more to say than that.

Bad pdf! BAD!

You look at pdfs, you should be aware:

The flaw, first revealed at a hacker conference in Germany over the holidays, exists in a plug-in that enables Acrobat users to view PDF files within Web browsers.

By manipulating the Web links to those documents, hackers and online thieves are able to commandeer the Acrobat software and run malicious code when users attempt to open the files, according to Ken Dunham, director of the rapid response team at VeriSign’s iDefense Intelligence.

Denny Colt lives!

The new Spirit series from DC manages to do a great job of keeping Will Eisner’s signature character very much alive while doing it great justice and updating it for today.

And in keeping with one of the nice things about the Internet Age, you can look at a couple of preview pages and judge for yourself whether or not it’s worth checking out!

Find a few pages from The Spirit issue 1 here. and a few more from the current issue The Spirit issue 2 here.

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Starting ’07 off with a laugh.

I saw this and started chuckling. This is supposed to be a news story but, given what I have heard from friends and from what I read this comes as no surprise:

• 39 percent of workers said their supervisor failed to keep promises.


• 37 percent said their supervisor failed to give credit when due.


• 31 percent said their supervisor gave them the "silent treatment" in the past year.


• 27 percent said their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.


• 24 percent said their supervisor invaded their privacy.


• 23 percent said their supervisor blamed others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.

Celebration of life.

Rather than dwell on the man’s passing, why not listen to why he was so well regarded? NPR offers up this treat available for download:

Just a year before his death, the Godfather of Soul reached into his vast catalog of hit songs for a night of music, recorded live from the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. Hear the full performance, originally webcast live on NPR.org Dec. 28, 2005 as part of NPR Music’s live concert series from All Songs Considered. Previous shows are listed at right.

Clicking through takes you to the page detailing the info on the show and they also have a link so you can download the entire show or just listen via streaming audio.

A New Year’s tradition.

2006 is almost gone. It wasn’t a bad year, certainly not the greatest but, I’ve had significantly worse.

2006 started off rather inauspiciously as New Year’s Eve found me going up to a local hospital to sit with the EYOC who at the time was very, very ill.

I haven’t spoken so much of the EYOC this year. It’s because there really hasn’t been much to say at least in the way of news. The EYOC had a massive heart attack back in September of ’05 and pretty much all of my time over the next four months was devoted to the adventure and fallout resulting from the incident.

I’m not a pity junkie though, there’s just nothing to be gained by looking at the world that way or trying to elicit the pity of others, and it’s not as if anyone should feel bad for me. As tough a time it was for me and it was a lot tougher for the EYOC. Many things happened and truthfully, I found myself pleasantly surprised by some people and horribly disappointed in others. There was a lot of turmoil and chaos but, somehow both the EYOC and I navigated the treacherous waters.

That first day in the hospital, a doctor turned to me at one point and made it fairly clear I shouldn’t expect the EYOC to make it past that night but, even though I was scared (as scared as the EYOC was), I knew what a tough guy he is. Sure enough, he made it past that night and a whole bunch of others. Four months of trips to various facilities and quite a few scares but, he’s still here.

It’s been tough, he’s deteriorated but, given his heart functions only at 20% of capacity, his will to fight against the ravages of time is truly herculean. There have been good days and bad. I don’t think he ever appreciated just how vital and active he was until the last year and that’s assuming he is entirely aware of what he lost. Times are he seems very much like himself and other times he just seems to have taken a bit of a journey into his own past.

As scary as things were though for that four months, the year has been a relatively quiet one. He’s been cared for, looked after and very well-tended and I am thankful for that.

He’s been comfortable.

It’s been a change though, as I spent a lot of time over the last fifteen years taking care of him. It was a job which only grew tougher with the passage of time and suddenly one day I was done. Well, maybe not done but, all the brass tacks kind of daily care which took up a lot (if not all) of my time reduced significantly... it’s been strange.

Strange, if only because for the first time in a long time, I am forced to take stock of my own life and ask myself what I want. Though I am at a certain point in life, I still feel there is an abundance of opportunity out there for me to pursue. The interesting thing is the approach to the decision given my perspective and my experiences which shape the things I would seek out. Suffice to say, they are very different from what I would have set as goals as a younger man.

The moment of reflection though, of relative quiet, is broken. Reality intrudes and I find myself back at the hospital again - another New Year, another hospital stay.

Today when I saw him, he looked frail and withered. He wasn’t in pain (which I am thankful for) but, the toll the last fifteen months have taken on him is evident. Surprisingly he is more comfortable than during previous visits to the hospital. He labors more and seems more drained by the battle he has fought. Another heart attack has taken place and I wonder what the next few days will bring.

The thing I find eerie, the thing which scares me the most is the sense of calm around him, not agony, not pain, just serenity and acceptance.

He is sleeping when I come in but after a minute or so of prodding opens his eyes, recognizes me and smiles. I am good at this, pretending as if for all the world everything is normal and engaging him in banter asking when he is going to play handball again or teasing him just a bit. The conversation takes strange paths down impossible avenues where he talks about wanting to go for a drive and I allow myself to go with the flow.

He dozes off again and after a discussion with the doctor and a bath by the nurses he seems more alert and we resume the conversation once more. But, when he turns to me at one point and pointedly begins a statement with, ‘I don’t have a lot of time left...’ I find it is all I can do to maintain my composure.

While he is at the facility, I am able to feel at peace and not worry about him because I know he is looked after but, at the hospital I think the prospect of something bad happening increases exponentially. I’m not implying anything bad about the personnel at the hospital either because I see how hard their job is. It’s just the exposure to so many more things which can make the situation worse are evident. The slightest infection which a normal person would struggle with but ultimately fight off now becomes a dance with death.

It’s not like I had any big plans but, I have to say of all the places I would rather be on New Year’s Eve, a hospital isn’t one I would ever pick. It’s a lousy way to bookend a year, I can only hope for the best.

The poor taste moment.

Just proving once again there are no depths I will sink to, to achieve the height of bad taste. So, have you read the news? Funny how all I could think of when I heard it was this little ditty by LA Style. (You’ll need RealPlayer)

The dirty secret of Christmas.

Well, it’s been and gone another Christmas in the books. I had an entry a day or so back that just managed to float off into random bits as Safari went down with the entry unfinished and unsaved in a background tab. Maybe I’ll get back to it (probably not) if I can remember most of what I was trying to say.

Tonight as the family sat around the tree in the orgiastic frenzy of tearing open gifts, my cousin’s daughter spoke those nasty and sacrilegious words. She looked down at her Aunt‘s tree and took in the item sitting under it, still very much tightly wrapped in its plastic sheath and observed, “Oooo... that would make a good regift!”

Regift? Regift! REGIFT?!?!

Regifting is the act of taking a gift that has been received and giving it to somebody else in the guise of a new gift.

Finally, it was out in the open!

The fine art of regifting
Like Post (who is the granddaughter-in-law of etiquette czarina Emily), I have no qualms about regifting when done properly. Carried out carelessly, regifting is a recipe for public humiliation and long-held grudges. Done with finesse and tact, regifting can be a happy holiday experience for all — providing you follow these few do’s and don’ts. Starting with: DO take out the previous gift card. Duh.

So, this year I got a bunch of things I will probably regift, which is okay because it takes some pressure off me in other ways to go out and shop. I don’t know why but I got a bunch of food this year, big honking things with cheeses and dried sausage.

Truthfully though, it’s stuff I won’t eat so, it’s not like I can feel guilty about it. I never had a taste for the cured sausage thing and as time goes on I’m getting a lot more particular about what I put into my body. I have to be, high blood pressure and a lot of this really fatty, high nitrate stuff is a big time no-no for me. So, they’ll wind up being regifted. I’m ashamed to admit it because I know if it was coffee or chocolate I’d be greedily scarfing the stuff down - nothing like caffeine and sugar... yum, yum!

Call it tacky or call it rude, but the real name for this practice is regifting. Here are 5 tips in case you’re stuck with a recyclable gift this year...

It’s not any better for me than the fatty stuff or the sausage but since I pretty much stopped drinking and don’t smoke at all I figure I have to allow myself some guilty pleasures so, caffeine and sugar are it.

Hearing regifting mentioned openly made me feel less bad about regifting...

Before the holidays hit, let’s face facts: If one of the season’s joys is giving, then surely one of its hidden pleasures is “regifting.” Say you receive a gift — a nice gift, like a handsome travel clock — that you can’t use, don’t want or already own. You rewrap it and give it to someone else. You look generous. The recipient is appreciative. And your storage closet just got bigger. Mission accomplished.

Apparently it’s nothing new anyway and looking around I was able to find a bunch of interesting articles on the topic. I just can’t figure out why I get stuff like this (besides the fact I figure I am way too fat anyway and need to lose weight). Years ago (almost two decades now) when I was younger and didn’t know how to shop for people I was guilty of the ‘sausage’ gift pack – maybe it’s payback for those years I bought it for people.

I so much want to make it simpler for people anyway - a Starbucks card would be more than welcome.

Outside of the prospect of regifting though, I have to admit to being very happy and fortunate to be able to spend time with family. The more time passes, the more I appreciate those people who are family. The more I like them.

Just no more food, please. At least nothing though the mail.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

You know, I was just thinking about that Beatle test I took earlier in the week when it occured to me, does anyone want to be a Ringo?

I mean, I like Ringo and I also even have Blast From Your Past lying around here but, is Ringo the Beatle people aspire to be?

Thing is, he has always been the funniest, most low key guy of the group. He’s been in movies, tv and has had a bunch of hits. He’s traveled in some very interesting circles - if you look at the makeup of some his All-Starr bands you’ll see.

This musing on the man caused me to go to Ringo’s official site where he has a bunch of pretty cool videos (pretty cool? I imagine I’m dating myself). Ringo can still belt ’em out. Maybe aspiring to be a Ringo isn’t such a bad thing after all because through it all Ringo is the one who has managed to enjoy the ride the most it seems.

Not to be missed!



Jonathan Winters presents a distinctive reading of “A Christmas Carol,” using a special performing edition prepared by Dickens for his own presentations. Winters recreates Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley’s spirit and the three Christmas ghosts: Past, Present and Future.

If you aren’t in WNYC’s broadcast area, you can still listen to live audio feed via iTunes or Windows Media Player.

I continue to be amazed.

You know I’m not crazy about our current president and I think we could do a lot better but (and this is a big one), every time I see some ass blaming Bush for the attacks on September 11th and using it as an example of his ineptitude it just turns my stomach.

Fact - Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001 - the attack was on September 11th 2001. Any fool who runs around believing the diabolical plot came together in just under 8 months and it is the entire fault of GW Bush is really kidding themselves.

According to official U.S. government sources, the September 11th attacks were consistent with the mission statement of al-Qaeda. The overarching motivation for the present al-Qaeda campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa’i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, and Fazlur Rahman (Amir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh, Fazlur Rahman).

MMmmmm? 1998? Mmmmm? Who was in office then?

2000
In March 2000, while still in Germany, Atta contacted 31 different U.S. flight schools to discuss training to fly planes.
Atta traveled to Prague, stayed overnight, and then entered the U.S. on June 3. Atta and other hijackers who had arrived earlier opened bank accounts and continued to check on flight schools.
In July, Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi enrolled at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Florida. Atta claimed to be of royal Saudi descent and presented al-Shehhi as his bodyguard.
Both earned their instrument certificates from the FAA in November. On November 5th, Atta purchased flight deck videos for Boeing 747-200 and Boeing 757-200 models from Sporty’s Pilot Shop in Batavia, Ohio.
On December 11th, Atta purchased additional flight deck videos for Airbus A320 and Boeing 767-300ER models from the same store in Ohio. On December 21st, both Atta and Marwan were granted their pilot licenses. On the 26th or 27th, Atta and Marwan abandoned a Piper Cherokee that had stalled on the runway of Miami International Airport. On the 29th, Atta and Marwan went to the Opa-Locka Airport and practiced on a Boeing 727 simulator.

MMmmmm? 2000? Mmmmm? Who was in office then?

Point I’m trying to make is that there is plenty of blame to go around for what happened that day. Blame Bush for all the stupid policy decisions he has made in the years since September 11th, sure but, stop trying to hang the albatross of the attacks solely around the guy’s neck. Bill Clinton had 8 years to bring Osama Bin Laden to ground and didn’t or couldn’t do it. Even then, it wouldn’t have been a guarantee of the attacks never happening.

Just stop it. If you hate the guy because he’s a Republican, that’s your prerogative but, don’t make those attacks about partisan politics because that wasn’t what they were about. It’s disingenuous and disrespectful so just stop it.

Yes, I know it’s stupid...

...but when I saw the thing I couldn’t resist.

You scored 75 John, 28 George, 19 Ringo, and 35 Paul!

The Beatle with the highest score is where you rank! For example, if you have 50 John, 5 Paul, 10 George, and 29 Ringo, you’re most like John!

The test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 92% on John You scored higher than 14% on George You scored higher than 50% on Ringo You scored higher than 14% on Paul

Link: The Which Beatle are You Test

Looking at things with fresh eyes.


This weekend I had the opportunity to act as tour guide for a duo of visitors. I’ve lived in and around New York City for my entire life so, I am quite familiar with it. Problem with something like that is, like anything spectacular or wonderful, if you are around it every day or for a long period of time, you get a bit jaded and begin to take it for granted.

Tourists are a normal part of life in New York City, everyday New Yorkers do their level best to put up with them. We dodge them as they gawk at the sites, we give them directions when they’re lost and if they need some kind of help New Yorkers are actually a lot more big hearted than the clichéd image of New Yorkers and will rise to the occasion of a traveler in need.

We co-exist with tourists somewhat grudgingly though, as they are to us just another obstacle as we go about the running and dodging which is a part of the frenetic pace of life in and around the Big Apple. I love the city but, over the years, my view of it has changed. The city affords us all a wealth of excitement, opportunity and entertainment but, you have to seek it out and it can get very expensive very quickly. Broadway shows can cost as much as $100 per ticket and even though there are ways around that, when you are trying to pay your rent and all the other bills associated with living in the area, something like a Broadway ticket can be viewed as an onerous expense. So, the proximity a person has to one of the world’s most notable theater districts doesn’t necessarily infer one will be able to take advantage of it.

This weekend I was forced to look in and around the city for things to take guests to do, all the things I usually don’t do myself but, if I were a visitor these would be the things I would want to tell people I visited New York and did. I put together a bit of an itinerary and let the chips fall where they would. Surprisingly, I wound up enjoying the weekend as much if not more than my guests. It’s just a reminder of how my view of things can affect my enjoyment of them and how important the lesson is to keep in the forefront of my mind.

My Rodney Dangerfield moment.

My mind was wandering today as I was doing my chores and I thought of this joke Rodney Dangerfield might use if he were still around:

...yeah, I don’t get no respect!

I rented a car with a computer that gives you directions and the car told me to get lost!

No respect!

I am still trying to figure this one out.

So, admittedly I am a registered Republican, although I have never voted for either Bush. I don’t vote along party lines anyway and the only time I find myself getting drawn into the partisan web is when I am confronted by some idiot who wants to make blanket statements about either party (you know the ones that go, those -fill in the party- are all...).

I haven’t been too happy with the course our country has taken over the last bunch of years. The guy in office spends like a drunken sailor on leave (too concerned about spending all his money and then some), his priorities are totally askew (see response to the Terry Shiavo thing versus response to Katrina) and in general he has made a poor go of it. Still he amazingly won reelection somehow but, was it more a matter of people voting for him as much as it was people not being happy with the other guy?

So, there are a bunch of people already jockeying for position to run in ’08 knowing there won’t be an incumbent of any kind to face. I took a quick look over at this site which has the info from all the polls on potential democratic candidates. The thing I find amazing... no remarkable, is the one person I think could win isn’t considered a serious candidate at this point!

That person has been an elegant, vocal opponent of the current administration over the past two terms. The person’s stature has only managed to grow in the ensuing years. It is a person who gave a speech including these jewels:

But whether you agree with that conclusion or not, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican — or an Independent, a Libertarian, a Green or a Mugwump — you’ve got a big stake in making sure that Representative Democracy works the way it is supposed to. And today, it just isn’t working very well. We all need to figure out how to fix it because we simply cannot keep on making such bad decisions on the basis of false impressions and mistaken assumptions.

Earlier, I mentioned the feeling many have that something basic has gone wrong. Whatever it is, I think it has a lot to do with the way we seek the truth and try in good faith to use facts as the basis for debates about our future — allowing for the unavoidable tendency we all have to get swept up in our enthusiasms.

That last point is worth highlighting. Robust debate in a democracy will almost always involve occasional rhetorical excesses and leaps of faith, and we're all used to that. I’ve even been guilty of it myself on occasion. But there is a big difference between that and a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty.

This past week I managed to catch this movie and it only confirmed what I previously thought, this person should be considered as the lead candidate for ’08.

How a party can ignore a person who won the popular vote, has proven to be an intelligent and thoughtful speaker, shows dedication and commitment that transcends political party or interest is just astounding! Alright, if you clicked through on some of the links, you know I’m talking about Al Gore. Gore is untarnished by any association to the legacy of the Clinton years (in a way Hillary is not). He’s the kind of candidate who could seriously garner enough crossover votes to take the White House. Hell, the guy won once already! (I know some out there are going to go apoplectic over that one) So, why isn’t there some serious discussion about drafting him as candidate? I still don’t understand why he didn’t run in ’04 because I would’ve voted for him then.

Anyone care to explain that one?

The most wonderful performance.

A fellow from across the pond posted in the comments section and I meandered over and looked at his blog which I fonud incredible fun and intend to link to it in the blogroll (when I get around to setting the thing up). I can link to it here the name of his blog is YOU PISSED ME OFF, YOU BASTARD.

Later on in the day as I was running errands, in the car and listening to the radio, the cosmic synchronicity presented itself yet again and I got to hear this story on PRI’s The World:

“We always lose to Sweden in hockey and the Eurovision Song contest” they sing. They continue, “why does no-one agree with me and why does Tram number 3 smell of pee?”

Then I got a chance to watch the following short film later on and I defy you not to laugh, I know it had me chortling with glee:

SciFi hits another homerun.

I don’t know how they do it but, SciFi keeps managing to put on some great material (see Battlerstar Galactica, Eureka and the American broadcast of Doctor Who). Last night was the first episode of The Lost Room and did it ever smoke, they are rerunning the first episode at 7 tonight. I have to say, it didn’t disappoint.

Absolutely worth it.

I spend money on myself in a few ways - food/bills and the like (normal), if it’s something I need (clothing) but, every once in awhile if I see something I really want I’ll just get it. It’s not like I’ll make it into a big deal and I’m not so crazy, wasteful in my spending anyway.

So, this came today and I just took a cursory glance but, boy was it ever worth it! The thing has the heft of one of those old encyclopedia’s and the work looks just gorgeous on the glossy stock. Needless to say, I am currently in the ecstatic Gollum like mode (my precious!)

Is it possible to rely on Iran to help bring calm in Iraq?

Manouchehr Mohammadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for research, told Iran’s state-run news agency, IRNA, that Tehran’s leaders would accept that the Holocaust occurred if scholars attending the conference could prove that the Nazi regime exterminated 6 million Jews during World War II.

But Mohammadi said Iran does not deny the murders and damages caused by Hitler’s genocide, nor that 50 million people were the victims of his racism, according to IRNA...

...Mohammadi said if Iran accepts the validity of the Holocaust, the next question examined will be, “Why should the Palestinians pay for the Holocaust?”

As I was reading this today, I had to wonder what the reaction would be if Israel held a conference denying the existence of the Palestinians as a true ethnic group and in the process denying their validity of any claim to land within the confines of Judea.

Odd things which make me happy.

I got a new printer this past week (came yesterday actually). This makes me incredibly happy, how very strange.

When I first starting using a computer (many, many years ago), I had this zeal for the thing. I had to know all the little bells and whistles, all the little ins and outs of the computer and the operating system. The passion was very helpful in advancing my career without question but, like all great passions in life it burned hot for awhile but, couldn’t maintain the bright blaze I felt at its origins.

Now the computer sits on my desk, a squat gobbler of time and while I still enjoy being on the computer, I have come to approach it with a certain amount of trepidation as it has proven at times to be the same kind of idle distraction television can be. When I am writing or working out projects, it’s great to have a tool like the computer there but, if I am using it to avoid getting the things I need to get done to move forward in life, it becomes an enemy.

So, this week I got a new printer and am very happy for it.

It is the first time I have purchased a black and white printer since I got my old Apple Laserwriter IIf. I milk hardware, I use it as long as I possibly can in an effort to try and wring every last bit of usefulness out of it. Long ago, I stopped being seduced by the lure of the latest and the greatest and I managed to keep the Laserwriter going for a long, long time. I got a new board at one point on eBay for a song (so the thing became a IIg), I went out and got additional memory for the thing and installed it myself, I even had an external hard drive attached to the thing for awhile. Somewhere along the line though, the fuser went and even though I managed to pick up another one on eBay, even though I started the job of installing it, I never did finish it and the printer has sat around for quite a bit of time in pieces (the computer equivalent of a car up on blocks in front of a person’s house).

I’ve had other printers. Old equipment clients no longer had a use for, taken home and cannibalized. One huge monster of a printer just sat around for the longest time before it fell and broke. I never hooked the thing up and it just seemed to be too much to get the it fixed (although I did explore the option), another I used happily for awhile before selling it to a client who lacked an 11 X 17 printer.

There are a couple of inkjets around here as well but, I don’t really like inkjets all that much. They’re great for the occasional color piece you have to print and the color is wonderful but, if you’re printing anything long you can grow a beard waiting for the whole thing to print. So, I needed a new laser printer and had been putting off investing in one for three years at least.

Last week I took the plunge and Saturday the thing came and in a hour I had it hooked up, on the network and running. I am soooo happy! Really! I can run envelopes through the thing, and it prints large and I splurged and got the one with a few paper trays so I don’t even have to be involved removing paper. After everything is said and done too the oddest thing about the whole experience is the new printer, a printer that prints 11 x 17, letter and a whole bunch of other sizes - a printer with a good deal of memory (although I am already thinking of getting a couple of more chips and putting them in with a hard drive too) - a real workhorse of an animal turns out to have cost me about $300 less than what I paid for my old Laserwriter which I picked up over a decade ago. Even though it was a much beloved piece of equipment, it had a tenth of the memory, a serial connection and the largest size it could print was legal (8.5 x 14). $300 less, imagine that!

If only they applied the same kind of price logic to the other things in life, I’d be living it up right now! Then again, you’ve got to take these things as they come so, I’ll just go off and enjoy my printer now thank you and count my blessings.

I see a trailer park in your future...

Also of note this past couple of days was the email I got from someone who shared with me the rather graphic photos of Brtiney Spears.

Personally, I’ve never been much of a fan of Britney’s. She operates on some other world as far as I’m concerned (same planet Madonna is on). Sure I can’t help but know who she is and can’t help but see when her picture is in the paper or on TV, there is no avoiding it but, as far as the daily goings on in her life... feh.

The other thing I’ve never really quite understood was the whole fascination with her looks. I never thought she was a very good looking women or at least I didn’t find her attractive - something about her face just struck me as odd, I can’t quite put a finger on exactly what it was, maybe her chin or something but, it just didn’t do anything for me on that level.

Same thing with Paris Hilton, it’s like... huh?

Her face kind of reminds me of a dogs. I’m not trying to be nasty even though it’s probably sounding that way but the proportions and relationships between the girls’ eyes, nose, chin and mouth somehow makes me thing of a Saluki or some other kind of hound.

Anyway, there was the front page of the paper last week that had me laughing:


Then, just a day or two later I get pictures emailed to me of Bitney getting out of a car without any underpants.

At first, I honestly thought it was somebody’s idea of a joke, some quick kind of Photoshop doctoring someone had put together, something done by a guy with way too much time on his hands. Imagine my surprise when I found out the photos were the real thing! My first response to the photos had been, “Ewwwwww!” followed by thinking what a crappy job of retouching. Then, when I realized it hadn’t been retouching, well suffice to say that was an even bigger ‘Ewwwww!’ moment.

On people’s passing.

Over the last few weeks while I’ve been otherwise occupied some notable people have departed our mortal coil. In each instance I was inclined to write something to note the person’s passing but, stopped myself. Even the note about Ed Bradley a few weeks back was a slip of sorts.

It’s not that these people won’t be missed or don’t leave behind them something important in the way they affected the world around them. It’s not even so much a superstitious avoidance of the subject of death either. No, I actually saw a few people pass during the last year and so death has certainly reminded me of it’s powerful and inescapable grip.

Rather, I don’t want to spend time focusing on death itself. People die each and every day around us all - if I was so inclined I could probably just have the blog equivalent of an obit column and that isn’t what I want. The other thing is as I find myself at the middle portion of my journey (I hope) through the world, rather than fall into the trap which many do as they age, namely that of spending an inordinate amount of time looking back, glorifying the past, painting it in softer and rosy hues instead of embracing the future with a full heart full of eagerness and hope.

There is no such thing as the ‘Good Old Days.’ Those days are just days filtered through the barriers of memory with all the nasty bumps and scrapes edited out. The best days lie ahead of us and I want to believe they will be even better if we approach them with a hopeful outlook that is both positive and optimistic.

The great thing about the internet.

Is being able to read things sometimes so detached from themselves, you wind up having a physical reaction to them, they actually stir such a deep feeling within you. I read something the other week so dysfunctional, so out there but, it was a treatise masquerading under the guise of something else.

It comes from the same place all the religous fanatics who were their religion on their lapel and trot around with the sense of moral superiority, the place from where an oppressed minority can scream about never falling prey to bigoted behavior because of their experience and yet still embrace all the prejudices others can succumb to.

The particular passage has nothing to do with either of those topics but it resonates within me by echoing those same ironies mentioned above.

It moved me to look up a new word: Misandrist.

Maybe, I’m getting wiser though because rather than allow myself to become enmeshed in another’s stupidity, I’ve got my own things to deal with. I have to admit however to continually being amazed by the level of people’s self denial.

If you didn’t get the note...

It probably means I haven’t loaded your email address into the address book on Fat Man (I’m thinking of renaming the laptop Little Boy). I want to wish all my fellow countrymen a very Happy Thanksgiving! I’m looking forward to a wonderful meal, lots of catching up with family and then hiding while everyone goes into a frenzy the day after shopping until they drop!

Enjoy your holiday!

Best news of the day

Well, I guess this means we’ll never know... (cough, cough, bulls**t!)

After a firestorm of criticism, News. Corp. said Monday that it has canceled the O.J. Simpson book and TV special “If I Did It.”

“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman. “We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”

Makes you wonder after all this time if he wouldn’t have been better off confessing. Yeah, he won, he stayed out of jail but, he wasn’t and probably never will be forgiven. Interesting twist in a way as the crime will haunt him for the rest of his days. Thankfully and amazingly FOX has shown there are depths even they won’t sink to.

If he did it?

They’ll be a lot of press over the coming days about the OJ book. I’m avoiding the book and the press - actually I’m a little annoyed. The whole thing isn’t newsworthy, the press should boycott it but, I guess that wouldn’t happen. The disingenuous title is jut the start of the audacity of this latest escapade. If he did it?

Well, if he did it, here’s what he left behind:


Now, I ask you - if it was your wife (ex or no) murdered in such a violent manner and you had suffered through the indignity of being tried for her murder even though you were completely innocent would you go on to write a book about the ways you might have carried out the crime? Well, I think we all know the answer to that one. Funny how he isn’t coming out and saying he’s doing it so he can continue to fund the search for his wife’s killer(s). If I remember correctly before the trial, OJ had set up a fund to find the murdered of the mother of his children. Seems like that pretty much went away after his trial concluded - funny how that worked. Yeah, I know he can’t be tried again for the murders but, you’d think they would get a bit creative and take the damnable book, go digging around and see if they could get him for something obscure like violating the victims’ civil rights - just spit-balling here.

I was looking at the sales by rankings on Amazon and the book came up which is what had me thinking about it. The thing I was interested in though was in the tags people had given the book - take a look for yourself:

boycott / shameful / disgusting / murderer / pathetic / repulsive / scum / guilty / sick / evil / liar / controversial / sociopath / boycott regan books / delusions of grandeur / domestic violence / horrible / killer / narcissistic personality disorder / revolting / tasteless / wife killer / a good guide / a new low for a revolting bottom feeder… / acquitted / amazing / amazon / amazon dont sell this / amazon should be ashamed / amazon should be embarrassed / amazon shouldnt sell / amazon shouldnt sell this book / america killer / anything for money / authors who ought to be in prison / be better than this - boycott this book / bezos will do anything for a buck-can yo… / blood money / blood stained pages / bloodstained trash / boycott book and tv show / boycott harpercollins / boycott it / butcher / cant be happier for him / chutzpah / confess / confession / contemptible / criminal / criminal psychopath / curious / depressing / despicable / dirtbag / discusting / disgrace / disgraceful / disgusting trash / disrespectful / disturbing / double jeopardy / earned his money the hard way / egregious / enterprising murderer / entrepreneurial / exhibitionism / exploitative / f ked up / fallen hero / fantastic / football legend / for shame / foul / free citizen / free speech / ginsu knife / go away oj / good coverup / goodby / gross miscarriage of justice / gutsy / hang him / harper collins / he did it / hilarious / how can amazon sell this / i am the only white person in america wh… / i did it by oj / i got away with murder / i love me some oj / i will stop shopping at amazon / immune from justice / inappropriate / incompetent prosecution / incredible / innocent / innovative / irony / jarodpranno / jaw-dropping / killers shouldnt profit / legal genius / low life / lowest from of life / make money / makes mockery of law / matricia berg / memoir / merde / murderers cant profit from their crimes / narcissist / next time kill kfed / ngger / no conscience / no one was paying attention to him / obscene / outrage / pig / poor children / poor taste / problems of the world / profiting from murder / regan books / remember nicole was almost decapitated / replusive / revolting stain of humanity / rifftrax / right to leave his kids an inheritance / rip nicole simpson / rip ronald goldman / rock bottom / sad / score / scum bucket / shame on amazon / shame on bezos / shameless / shameless father / simpson / simpson insect / sleaze / sleazebag / sleeze / slime shameful pathetic boycott / slimeball / somebody shoot him / subhuman garbage / tasteless-whos got the knife / thought process disorder / totally guilty / trash / true confession / unbelievable / vile / vile and revolting / vomit-inducing / what about the victims / what laws would amazon be breaking if th… / why do you think we care / why not sell porn too / wife beater / will oj sell knives next / work of art / worst seller hopefully / wwwdontpayojcom / wwwmyspacecomvi ncepalamara

Cum Cum Disease and you.

I have trouble even believing this. I laughed out loud when I read it then, I thought most guys would welcome such a malady and after that I thought I wanted to find such a women and help her with her illness.

Growing numbers of Japanese women are afflicted with an illness that gives them orgasms virtually 24 hours a day. And with suggestions that it could be deadly, the women hardly know whether they're coming or going, according to Shukan Post (11/24).

“If a guy simply taps me on the shoulder, I just swoon. Even when I go to the toilet, my body reacts. I’m a little bit scared of myself,” one woman sufferer tells Shukan Post.

The way the city should feel.


Like it does in all those old movies.

Just when you think you know all there is to know about something!

It had been prearranged for this session to be filmed by NEMS Enterprises for use in a planned television special. However, the film was never released in its entirety, although portions of it can be seen in the “A Day In The Life” promotional film, including shots of studio guests like Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Donovan, Pattie Boyd and Michael Nesmith.

Today, as has been the practice over the last few weeks I had iTunes running and I decided to listen to Sgt. Peppers straight through. It’s still an amazing listen even after all this time, it stands up as one of the most spectacular albums of the last century. At the end is A Day in the Life, a song which I’ve loved for a long time now. When the Beatles released Sgt Peppers, I was just a kid so I can’t say it had much of an impact but, certainly it received lots of airplay over the next decade. A Day in the Life is unique because it did something a lot of rock music hadn’t done up to that point and it did it on such a grand scale.



Now the thing is with the internet youcan find all sorts of interesting things, things you’ve never seen perhaps or find out things you didn’t know and such is the case with A Day in the Life:

Musings on the English language.

If a person is either in the Artic or Antartica and they are stricken with a swollen vein in their butt - would you call the offending vein a polaroid?



You know instead of hemorrhoid.

Gives new meaning to the phrase, “Why don’t you take a picture?! It’ll last longer!”

Basking in the afterglow.

So, we’ve just passed through the glory of another election season which fortunately means an end to all sorts of nasty ads the American electorate is deluged with every time an election rolls around. Little did I know that there are several different levels of attack ad: heavy, middle and light. If you missed this recent episode of All Things Considered, you missed out on an interesting interview with some of the voices you may be surprisingly familiar with as Melissa Block spoke with two men who are known for their voice work on political campaign ads. Makes for interesting listening.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. He said he could put himself together again! But, after wasting thousands of our tax dollars... all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. He failed us! Humpty Dumpty, wrong on wall sitting!

Supporting the Union Man.

I grew up in a Union household which might strike some as strange I imagine given supposed political leanings. A big part of the whole cleanup process is sorting through things and figuring what needs to be tossed and what should be saved for posterity.

The EYOC was a Union big shot at one time. It was long ago, back when I was very young but, he was a pretty big deal. At one point he was in hiding because of a strike he called – if you can imagine something like that. Unions were never popular with a certain segment of the population, hell unions weren’t even popular with other unions when they called strikes and the members of other unions were obligated not to cross the picket line.

We forget about those days today I think.

Unions are painted in a negative light because of their sometime association with more notorious segments of the population but, even so Unions are responsible for a lot of good that happened in this country (a lot of which has gone away).

When we had the transit strike last year, the public wanted to hang the Union out to dry for going on strike but, nobody seemed to hold management in equally low regard for having negotiated in such bad faith. People forgot how the TA cried poverty at the end of one fiscal year, raised the fare, only to miraculously have a great surplus due to some magical bookkeeping (which was what the Union had been talking about all along). The TA played a game of brinksmanship forcing the Union to call a strike and at the end of the day the Union got the blame.

What I found ironic was how some of the professed liberal, democratic bloggers I read regularly railed against the transit workers when they were out on strike. Guess those principles are only good when you don’t find yourself inconvenienced?

Anyway, among all the flotsam and jetsam I continue to dig out from under I found a multitude of documents detailing negotiations with management and various docs with a certain historical significance. Now I’m just waiting to hear if the University I contacted wants them as part of their collection. It sure does make for some interesting reading though - you’d be surprised how little things have changed.

Another great voice silenced.

After graduating from the historically black Cheyney State College (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania), he launched his career as a jazz DJ — he was a lifelong jazz fan — and news reporter for a Philadelphia radio station in 1963. He moved to New York's WCBS radio four years later.

He joined CBS News as a stringer in the Paris bureau in 1971, transferring a year later to the Saigon bureau during the Vietnam War. He was wounded while on assignment in Cambodia. He was named a CBS News correspondent in early 1973 and moved to the Washington bureau in June 1974. He later returned to Vietnam, covering the fall of that country and Cambodia.

You can’t make stuff like this up:

A man was rushed to hospital in Britain with severe internal injuries after trying to launch a powerful firework from his bottom, an ambulance service spokesman said...He is now recovering in a Sunderland hospital after sustaining internal injuries including a scorched colon.

Where are we going.

My friend Sarah has been involved in interface design for over a decade. It’s always interesting to talk with her about what she does and today she forwarded this short film to me. See if you aren’t blown away by this demonstration:

Just for fun.

Every once in awhile I’ll just play around a bit to stretch the muscles so to speak. Sometiems, I’m not exactly sure if that’s a good thing (Jack of all trades and the like). Still, I see today how much things have changed and continue in graphics and comics over the last decade or so. I find it amazing how rapid and complete that change has been.

Way back when, I managed to do a few coloring jobs for Marvel but, it was long before the advent of Photoshop even (I think at the time Letraset hadn’t even released Colorstudio). Just me, a bunch of xeroxed pages, Dr. Martin’s dyes and that was it. Even getting additional copies was a bit of a chore.

In the back of my mind I always think about doing comics again some day so, when I saw this illo up on Mike Wieringo's blog I thought I would play around some and see how it came out:

What you say you want but, what you really choose.

I have always been amazed at the litany of complaints from some quarters in regard to the dearth of good men in the world. Do the ladies want good men? No! Good men are boring! They work, keep jobs, support their families... what’s interesting, exciting or sexy about that?

There always seems to be a constant parade on daytime TV of poor women being victimized by bad men. So much so, I think about half the current broadcast schedule would go away if bad men didn’t exist. Yes, it’s all about good women and bad choices (read men). Men who are dangerous, exciting, wild. Men who elicit passion in those of the fairer sex. Men who are fixer uppers, men with drinking problems, men who run from responsibility, bad boys, bad boys what you gonna do?

In another illustration of this, let’s just take the example of LOST shall we? Two handsome male leads on the show, Jack and Sawyer - the object of a great deal of female attention and in the press, much has been made of the love triangle between three leads Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Who would Kate decide on at the end of the day, who would she give her heart to?

Well, as of this writing, the show is in its third season, the Losties have been on an island for somewhere between two and three months and how does the old scorecard tally up?

Sawyer 2 • Jack 0

Ana Lucia threw herself at Sawyer last season and Kate finally made her decision in tonight’s episode for a cage match with the shady Sawyer. Meanwhile, intrepid Doctor Jack? Lots of flirting but, no payoff. Carlos Mencia did a bit about this recently too and I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right. Just curious is all.

Laughable.

Perhaps the funniest moment in the whole post-election glad handing is this snippet appearing today:

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told broadcaster TV2 he hoped that the president and the new Congress would find “common ground on questions about Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“The world needs a vigorous U.S.A.,” Fogh Rasmussen said.

Some also worried that Democrats, who have a reputation for being more protective of U.S. jobs going overseas, will make it harder to achieve a global free trade accord.

The accord, said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, “is very important for the future of trans-Atlantic relations.”

And in China, some feared the resurgence of the Democrats would increase tension over human rights and trade and labor issues. China’s surging economy has a massive trade surplus with the United States.

“The Democratic Party… will protect the interests of small and medium American enterprises and labor and that could produce an impact on China-U.S. trade relations,” Zhang Guoqing of the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a report on Sina.com, a popular Chinese Internet portal.

What does this illustrate?

Basically what it comes down to is we shouldn’t point to global public opinion as a factor in determining who we vote for. While it’s nice to be popular among the nations of the world at the end of the day our government and our nation’s people should be motivated first about making our own nation a better place. Our foreign policy should never be dictated by the whims of other nations.

The global community is not beholden to US laws and restrictions and while the US may be painted out to be some lumbering and clumsy giant, the world could in fact be a lot worse off without a strong United States. Listening to government officials in China, Pakistan or France go on about how our government needs to desperately reform is more than a little ironic.

People who point to world public opinion are näive at best, and blind to the realities on the ground in many other places around the world. The fact there are people in other nations hemming and hawing about the results of the midterm election and how it will negatively affect their dealings with our country should only illustrate how we cannot be swayed by public opinion which isn’t motivated by our own best interest.

Like the man in the song sang, “You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself.”

A quick aside.

Don’t be mistaken. I find the joke below funny but, I happen to think the ACLU does very, very good work and while that is used as a derogative in the joke, membership in the ACLU is something to be proud of at the very least.

An election day joke.

Passed along to me by Daniel but, which bought a chuckle:

United States Soldier was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you exactly 15 minutes.” The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am God. I’m still waiting.”

It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Soldier got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold. The Soldier went back to his seat and sat there, silently.

The other students were shocked and stunned and sat there looking on in silence.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Soldier and asked, “What the hell is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

The Soldier calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid shit and act like an asshole… So, He sent me.”

Just for fun.


Walking around the city last night feeling as if I was being watched.

A poem for a Monday morning.

I was doing the iTunes thing again and making my way through the buildup of podcasts I have subscribed to.

One of the things I have been enjoying is Garrison Keilor’s - The Writer’s Almanac. It’s something I enjoy when I catch it but, I am not quite sure when it is broadcast (turns out it is broadcast locally on WNYC-FM, 93.9 every weekday at 8:00 PM. If you want to find out when the show is broadcast in your area, look here.

The poem is also featured in Keilor’s book - Good Poems for Hard Times.

I thought I would pass the poem along “My Father Gets Up in the Middle of the Night to Watch an Old Movie” by Dennis Trudell from Marquees of Buffalo.

My Father Gets Up in the Middle of the Night to Watch an Old Movie.

On cable television. Because he can’t sleep.
My father gets up in the middle of the night
to watch an old movie on cable television—
because he can’t sleep. He has done this before.
He will do it again, and sometimes he eats
cookies. My father eating cookies and watching
an old movie again because he can’t sleep.
He is eighty-seven years old. He lives alone.
Because my mother died… and sometimes he looks
at her absence on the black sofa. My father
turning back to the movie on cable television,
eating another cookie. The movie has a name,
but he doesn’t know it. My mother died—
because this is not a movie with a happy
ending. Or any ending. My father returns
to bed and goes to sleep. Or does not,
and then later sleeps. The television reflects
the lamp he leaves on… the black sofa.
Reflects an old mirror behind the sofa—

In case you thought you were safe.

I came across this article which is a couple of months old but, still worth reading:

While Apple is pretty good at patching its systems—in fact, Apple has just released 20 new patches for OS X, including those exploited by the Leap.a virus—the latest patches do not completely address the concerns of one security researcher. By creating three proof-of-concept worms last week, Kevin Finisterre started a public dialogue over Mac OS X security. But he also opened a Pandora's box, giving script kiddies techniques that could be used in future Mac OS X viruses.

Still more discoveries.

No matter how long I live in and around New York, no matter how jaded I become thinking I’ve seen everything the city can offer up, I am still occasionally surprised and knocked for a loop by it.

Are you perfect?

Recently I was forwarded a film by a friend on Flickr. It was an interesting short film, played backwards it showed the person undergoing a transformation from a sparkly, glittery creature to a groggy, sleepy eyed one.

You can watch the film from my friend Sandra here.

I imagine I responded differently than most because the thing that appealed to me about the film more than anything else, was the creature at the end of the piece. This would probably contradict the idea most women would suppose the response of most men to be.

However, what occurred to me in that moment was the great joy I have derived from having the companionship of a women sharing my life with me. Honestly, I thought about my last companion who I thought was the most beautiful creature and how much I delighted in being ‘behind the curtain’ so to speak.

In other words, there was a great joy in being able to live a life with someone without them having on their mask.

Nobody is perfect, even the most beautiful among us and one of the great comforts of relationships is being able to allow yourself to be who you are without artifice. It made me think of that scene in the Wizard of Oz where the Wizard says, ‘DON’T PAY ANY MIND TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!’ Every one of us has that person behind the curtain, no matter what we may present to the world at large.

A few days later, I got a link to this short which you’ve probably seen it as it got a fairly decent amount of coverage in the news a few days after I received it. Part of a campaign for Dove (soap I believe), it shows just what has to happen for the ideal of beauty to be achieved and how that image is so very askew from the reality.

Watch it here: Campaign For Real Beauty.

There have been moments in the past where the ‘image of beauty’ has been taken out and exposed as the ugly lie it really is but, will it change things? I doubt it and that’s a bit of a shame.

Strange behavior.

What does it say a person will link to you but, not show the courtesy of responding to an email?

Friday cat blogging.


It doesn’t matter if I am surfing the net, writing, working on the computer or watching TV (or any combination of all three). Now that the cold weather has set in, nothing will stand in the way of Anna as she seeks out nice, warm spots to cozy up in and take a nap. Her utter lack of regard in this instance is one of the things I love about the little beastie!

I AM JUST SO MAD!

They killed off Mr. Eko! I had really grown to like his character.

Speaking of which Mike Wieringo does these great drawings each and every day up on his blog. They’re his warmup sketches (Man! I wish I could draw as good as his warmups are!).

He did Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Locke and of course the late Mr. Eko. Check ’em out!

It’s time to take up smoking.

So, I realize it finally is time to take up smoking again. I gave up cigarettes a long, long time ago but, over the last few years it has occurred to me taken up the filthy habit as it might not be so bad after all.

See, I’ve been working a little bit lately and there is nothing I love more than the smoker’s excuse of popping off to have a cigarette. How it possibly became socially acceptable for someone to get up from their work area and just disappear for 20 to 30 minutes at a time three to five times a day never ceases to amaze me. What I love about it, is the fact if you substituted any other drug for tobacco and in the context of this kind of behavior it would be grounds for getting your ass canned.

Think about it.

‘Hey, I’m going to go downstairs and down a fifth!’ or ‘Excuse me, I’ve just got to take a break so I can go and shoot up.’

Here’s the plain English for the situation (smoker speaking) - I have an addiction and bad impulse control, consequently I want the world to accommodate me while I indulge in my addiction. Also, even though my addiction takes me away from my responsibilities for a prolonged time each and every day, I feel it is my right to still be compensated for that time when I am away from my desk indulging in my addiction. I thoroughly expect those around me to pick up the slack for my absences while I am off indulging in my jones for tobacco.

I was a smoker so, it’s not like I don’t have some sympathy but, there comes a point when the whole ‘smoking break’ just becomes absolutely ridiculous. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it if it were also as socially acceptable for me to just get up and walk away for a big block of time several times throughout the course of a day and no one would even raise an eyebrow.

But then, that’s just me. What do you think?

Because it’s almost Halloween!

Even though it’s 20 years old, I have to admit to never seeing it before today - so I share with you:

BRING ME THE HEAD
OF CHARLIE BROWN!

Another favorite!

More from my iTunes music cue - loving every second of shuffle and the amazing segues it brings. Click for a sample.

Is this guy selling TVs?!?



Of course not!

He’s one of the most important animated characters to ever come down the road but, I imagine if you’re under the age of say about 25 (maybe even slightly older) you won’t know who this guy is and why he’s important. If you’re in my age bracket, you can probably smile inwardly because you can remember a stretch of time when this guy was inescapable. In some ways, I might even consider him to be the grandfather of Shreck and a whole bunch of other animated characters we are all so familiar with in movies today.

Fortunately.

I have my very own version of a space heater:

It’s starting.

To get cold again! I f**king hate the cold weather - life begins again when pitchers and catchers report.

Rediscovering past greatness.

I managed to finally break down and get myself an iPod. The thing tipped the balance was a long continuing project I have been working on of taking all my cds around here and selectively loading favored songs into iTunes. The more I do the more I enjoy it. The other thing is I sure as hell seem to be a lot more productive when music is on in the background than the tv or radio. I got out of the habit of listening to music - not so much when I accidently happen upon it (at work or running errands) but, purposefully just having music on.

I like a lot of music though and there’s a lot of stuff I hadn’t listened to in quite sometime. As I load songs into the iTunes library, it’s akin to rediscovering a part of myself I had put away. Anyhow, this is a snippet of lyrics from something I was listening to this morning as I loaded a bunch of songs from a box set I have into a library. Bonus points if you can name where it’s from (without clicking through that is - but, you can to see if you were right):

Her man’s been gone
For nearly a year
He was due home yesterday
But he ain’t here

Why can’t I see stuff like this being done on TV?

Came across this by way of Peter David’s blog (see link in sidebar). Simply hilarious and worth a watch!

Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV

Truer words have never been uttered.


I don’t really think there is anything else to say.

Words that hang in the air.

I write quite a bit, some things for the blog, others not. I have quite the slew of unfinished thoughts floating around in my drafts queue. Passages written about something when it was the topic of the moment but seemingly far less important looking back. I have to force myself to get around to these unfinished thoughts one day.

Last night we had another gloriously warm day here. Strangely, today may be the first day this week I don’t find myself in Manhattan and the last few days have been the most I’ve been in the city in months.

After work the other night, a rainy night, I wandered around the city a bit before heading home. I took a bus up Church so I could obtain a replacement item for the one that succumbed to the mighty tires of Houston Street. Fortunately, the store I had to return to was still open after 6pm even though it looked like every other store on Canal Street had already closed for the night.

Canal Street is a bit of an oddity in the city in that it is so overwhelmingly crowded and busy throughout the day. It doesn’t even look like New York at times, taken on the character of what I imagine some other city in Asia or Africa to be like. Streets packed with people, lots of makeshift displays set up along the curb hawking all manner of wares, many small stores with employees standing hawkishly out in front insuring merchandise doesn’t walk off of its own accord. Tons of traffic moving either towards Brooklyn (the Manhattan Bridge) or New Jersey (the Holland Tunnel). The strip that is Broadway always so crowded too. There is a level of activity in and around Canal which is very unique to the street alone.

In the rain the other night Canal Street was quite different. The street itself almost devoid of traffic - rush hour having died away, stores closed, the rain meant had chased away the street vendors who had packed up for the day and the sidewalks were virtually empty. A sudden and abrupt change for the street, so very remarkable.

Well, I got my replacement and then decided how I would like to get take out from a favorite restaurant as a treat so, I made my way eastward through the windswept streets. I took a bunch of pictures, some of a notable alley (seen in a couple of films and videos), a couple over by the tombs (the jail that squats between the government buildings and Chinatown proper) and a few more in Chinatown itself.

The restaurant was empty when I got there - whether it was because of it being a Tuesday night or if I had in fact hit that window between seatings I am not sure. I got on the subway and rode up afterward for the other train ride and the drive, it was nice.

Yesterday, the aforementioned warm spell hit and after Japanese class I wound up taking a nice walk from the environs where the class is given (over by the UN) down to the West Village. Walking through the city is such a great way to spend time, I had forgotten how much I loved the idleness of the long walk. I love the city so much at times - maybe I should be more specific in saying I love Manhattan so much because Manhattan lends itself to walking around it in a way the other boroughs do not.

It’s not a slight against those other four siblings of NYC as much as an observation. I will fully acknowledge each of Manhattans’ immediate family have qualities to be lauded in their own right, qualities which Manhattan doesn’t possess.

Just something about the roll of the landscape still apparent even through all the building. The rise over on 2nd and 44th street, the slowly descending hill down to the entrance to the Midtown tunnel, the ridge that makes up Murray Hill and the flat expanse that runs from Murray Hills’ base down to 14th street. I love to look at buildings or blocks and remember times when they were a daily part of my experience or look upon some often passed edifice and think back to the bit of history surrounding it (something which many people passing by each day fail to grasp).

There’s just so much to see and all of it wonderful.

Feet of clay.

Erik Larsen’s column One Fan’s Opinion this week is nothing short of incredible.

I didn’t go over. I didn’t introduce myself. And I’m a little sorry and a little not. In the end, I decided it would be better to think of him as that guy that wrote that humble letter in the X-Men all those years ago. I didn’t want to spoil it. I didn’t want to find out that he was any different than that. A friend came up to me and said that he just met Byrne and that he was a dick to him. I don’t know if John was a dick to him or not. He may have heard what he wanted to hear. I know plenty of people have come away from having had contact with me for a fraction of a minute and formed opinions based on a half dozen words spoken in between signatures that weren’t entirely flattering and I was willing to give John the benefit of the doubt.

You know, throughout the column he says how wonderful John Byrne’s artwork is and how much he would like to see Byrne at the top of his game once again.

I find myself in the category of those people who have really loved Byrne’s work through the years.

Still, it’s hard to disconnect the guy from the persona he projects online. While I haven’t had any run-ins with the guy, I personally know two professionals (one who really loved Byrne’s work) who were put off after having a bit of an incident with him.

For me, there’s this guy who draws these wonderful pictures, who is worlds apart from this ranting, vindicative and ill-mannered man who shows no impulse control. It’s too bad really because the whole thrust of the column makes you think Byrne has a lot more people rooting for him to succeed in life, if only he wouldn’t make it so very difficult a thing to do.

The long march.

October is here which means we’re winding down in terms of warm weather. Thus begins one of my least favorite parts of the year - the horrible period after the baseball season ends and the days get shorter and colder. Can’t say I ever had much use for the cold after the age of about fifteen (a little bit of a story in that) and it has only gotten something I’ve felt more acutely as I have aged.

Tonight, was an evening where the warm weather was trying desperately to maintain its grasp on us and I welcomed its tenacity.

As part of my celebration, I walked. Oh, how I walked. Today I worked and walked all of about four miles from below Wall Street up to Grand Central. If I am fortunate, I will not notice this when I try to get up tomorrow. I notice lately that while I don’t notice these things the day of, the day after is when I must pay freight.

I enjoyed my meandering stroll - quite a bit so whatever the price is it was more than worth it. I get the sense now I must force myself to do these things, take these long walks, if only to maintain the ability to walk like that. It was just over four miles. On the way I got to see how the city is changing.

I can’t walk in front of City Hall anymore - I can walk in the beautiful park but, I can’t walk in front of the building and look at the grandly ornate and majestic facade as I once was able to. We live in different times and there are all manner of security measures in place. Walking further up Broadway, I couldn’t help but take notice of all the cameras in and around Federal Plaza - the thick stanchions in place to prevent a truck from getting too close to the building and repeating Oklahoma City.

My thought about that as I walked past was that those measures are great for the building but, what about the people across the street who are afforded no such protection.

I don’t know, these things make sense in one way but, in another they speak about giving up some things which are very good about us. Things which make us lesser as a people.

Tower Records is going out of business too. They had a big sign in front of the store advertising a big sale, all sales final and all that. On the heels of the closing of CBGB this past weekend, it probably says something about New York.

Along the way I did a quick bit of shopping along Canal Street, picking up something for someone from very far away. A bit of a surprise, which was placed in a flimsy bag which broke as I tried to beat the light at Houston Street. I watched as the speeding cars danced around it until it finally succumbed to some unknown driver’s tires.

Ouch.

So, I guess it makes the walk sound a bit sad but, it wasn’t. It was glorious and beautiful and wonderful and all those things a walk through the city should be.

How could that be?

Well, while things may be closing and I may have watched something get crunched but there’s nothing bad about change. It’s not my enemy. I welcome it, just like I welcome the promise of each new day. Tomorrow is full of promise and if a infrequent crunch finds its way into my life I’ll try not to let it bother me more than it should and certainly not so much that it will ruin my walk and the many more walks I want to take in each of those new tomorrows because change is all around us and there is plenty to see.

Just a thought.

Friday cat blogging on a Saturday afternoon.

Oh, how she suffers!

Because it’s really in bad taste.

I’ve already started working on the Corey Lidle jokes.

The event in Asia that affected American policy in the Middle East.

The news just hit the wire a short time ago about the successful nuclear test by North Korea:

“The nuclear test was conducted by 100 percent of our wisdom and technology,” the agency said.

“Our science and research centre safely and successfully conducted an underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006.”

This is not a small event and the ramifications across the world will be significant. The best hope under the circumstances is that China would force a regime change in the North but at the moment that looks unlikely. Thing is, without strong action on the part of the Chinese now, it could make life more dangerous in the long run.

Chinese foreign ministry officials and the government’s North Korea watchers have discussed policy options in the wake of North Korea’s televised vow to conduct a nuclear test. The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations issued a pointed appeal for Pyongyang to desist.

“No one is going to protect” North Korea if it goes ahead with “bad behavior,” Wang Guangya said amid the heated diplomacy this past week over a statement criticizing Pyongyang. “I think if North Koreans do have the nuclear test, I think that they have to realize that they will face serious consequences.”

Thing is there’s a lot going on in that part of the world currently:

President Hu Jintao will be watched closely by China’s political elite for signs that he plans to further consolidate his power at an annual policy-making meeting following the ouster of a prominent Communist Party leader for corruption, analysts said.

Although the party has said its four-day Central Committee meeting starting Sunday will officially focus on helping the poor, it is often a time for high-level personnel changes.

and...

“That China and Japan came to an agreement at a summit never to accept a North Korean nuclear test is in itself a strong message to North Korea,” Abe told reporters.

“I think North Korea is closely watching this summit. It was meaningful that we were able to send the message that we won’t accept a nuclear test.”

The North Korean issue has cast a shadow over Abe’s visit to China, his first foreign trip since becoming prime minister two weeks ago. He is due to travel to Seoul on Monday for talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun.

meanwhile, things on the peninsula haven’t been quiet lately...

South Korean troops have fired warning shots at soldiers from the North amid rising tension over North Korean plans to test a nuclear weapon. Early reports suggest that about 40 shots were fired when soldiers crossed into the demilitarized zone.

What the consequences of this test will be, only the future can tell but there are several nations who could find themselves quickly members of the nuclear club as a result - Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Also what implications this will have on the situation regarding Iran and the enrichment of Uranium after the failed six party talks

.Any test would cause extreme concern in the region and might in due course propel both South Korea and Japan to go down the nuclear weapons route themselves.

This is going to be a big deal in the coming weeks. Hold your breath.

North Korea’s announcement that it has tested a nuclear bomb is set to push Japan to expand its own military and stir debate on what was once the ultimate taboo of developing atomic weapons itself.
The test comes as Japan gradually expands its defense posture, 60 years after it was defeated in World War II and forced by the United States to renounce the right to a military.

Way, way ahead of their time.

I came across this after a brief search. You know something.... I love this!

First off, I think it gives anything out there now a go for it’s money musically and imagery wise it holds up and is way entertaining. Amazing given the fact it’s 20 years old! Bonus points if you can name the film this was featured in:

What does it say?

Yesterday, there were three games on - St Louis vs San Diego, Yankees vs Detroit and then the Mets vs LA. All the games were exciting and truth be told I love having a ballgame on in the background - nothing beats a nice day and a game on to listen to. Three games in a row - it’s like heaven! Not only that - even though I hate the FOX broadcast (crappy booth) whenever I hear ESPN’s opening theme for baseball I just get that warm glow and ESPN was the one to lead off the day.

Big gaff moment of the day - the announcers on FOX having to apologize to a man they made fun of during the Mets Thursday broadcast. Yes, the director managed to scope in on a particular fan during the game who was wearing what looked like the equivalent of those night vision googles the troops wear during nighttime exercises. What followed was a bunch of jokes at the guys expense by the broadcasters on FOX. Turns out the guy has season tickets, is a longtime Mets fan and has only about 15% of his vision which is why he was wearing the gear so he could enjoy the game!