Flailing wildly.

I don’t know how much to read in the comments of HRC within the last 24 hours. I caught this excessive rant by Keith Olbermann last night and found myself smirking. Olbermann, who is the darling of the left when he’s ripping Georgie Jr. a new one, suddenly becomes a little less lovable when he turns his caustic comments on the Madonna of the Democratic party.

Asked if her continuing fight for the nomination against Senator Obama hurts the Democratic party, Sen. Hillary Clinton replied, “I don’t. Because again, I’ve been around long enough. You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just don’t understand it. You know, there’s lots of speculation about why it is.”

---

(you can watch the thing here)

I don’t know, is it shock and awe?

Shock, that the presumptive nominee is watching her campaign falter and trying to figure out just what the strategy is to save some face or awe, that she has actually been outplayed at the game she thought she was the master of.

There are a generation of HRC supporters who figured her reward for sticking by her man as he disrespected her with his extramarital activities would be to ultimately capture the presidency for herself. It was all part of that grand design that saw an eventual return to the White House after a brief sojourn gaining political cred as a Senator from New York.

So, the question is, will we one day be seeing HRC sporting a shirt stating, ‘I stuck it out with this cheater and all I got was a lousy Senate seat.’

HRC is unquestionably a force in American politics, she is not without support but something has happened along the way to her coronation and it is a bitter pill to swallow. Somehow, in some way her status as the ‘anointed one’ was usurped.

So, were her comments wishful thinking on her part?

No, I would say not but, her memory of her husband’s candidacy is certainly in error as Billy tied up the nomination well before June. Also, primaries have been moved much, much earlier this year than in elections past so, part of the fascination with her doggedness in continuing to campaign in June has something to do with many of the primaries having long since concluded.

In the meantime, John McCain sits back and takes potshots at Barack Obama knowing full well that’s who he’ll be facing in the general election come November.

Speaking of which, if John McCain had said the same thing that HRC had said would there be less outrage over the comments or more?

I think the worry here (and justifiably so) is that as forward thinking a nation we might picture ourselves as being, there are still large swatches of the population given over to baser impulses as prejudice. While Barack Obama’s ascendancy is a cause for celebration there is a very real fear that it all could be spoiled by an idiot with a gun, a grudge and good aim.

It’s a sobering thing and I shudder to think of the kind of statement it would make to our country and the kind of response it would engender.

Of all the things to bring up though – it’s amazingly stupid and insensitive so, the question remains - why did she do it?

Ah, the sweet if bitter irony of it all.

You know, there are times in life when you see things happen and it makes you smile inwardly. It’s because you’re not a part of what’s happening and because you saw it coming.

The topic I am dancing gingerly around is the flailing struggle called the race for the Democratic nomination.

It’s weird.

People are throwing accusations about, they’re name calling and what should be happening is they should be getting their act together for the November general election. If the Democrats through some incredible miscalculation lose the general election this coming November, they will have only themselves to blame.

Why?

The Republicans are in the most untenable position. They have a chief executive who has left a dubious legacy after his two terms in office. First by engaging in an increasingly unpopular ‘war’ over the last 7 years and second by spending the nation into oblivion.

I had a conversation a few weeks back with someone who supports Bush (they are out there). A basic argument Bush supporters at one time had was due to his family’s big oil connections, the price of a gallon of gasoline would remain low and Americans would be able to drive Hummers cheaply for decades to come.

Check the price of the pump lately?

I guess that advantage was put to rest by the Saudis recently when they told their lame duck friend to take a flying leap.

The other lovely thing about the increased energy costs is watching prices go up across the board while wages stay the same – let’s hear it for the global marketplace! Yes, the American worker now competes with workers on the other side of the world who are paid pennies on the dollar for their labor.

Wading into this morass is a Democratic party unable to capitalize on gains made in the last mid term election and consumed by in-fighting. So much so, there is actually a possibility they could lose!

Wow.

Even though I’m a registered Republican, I haven’t voted for the winner in any of the last three Presidential elections (that should tell you something). I did not pick the people who have been our chief executive. Whether it’s cynicism or just outright disdain for what the presidential race has become, I see our nation descending into a morass where out leaders are just not taking this country in a direction I would like to see it go.

Lately, a lot of people I ‘read,’ people whose opinions I respect have thrown down the gauntlet of sexism in regard to the continued campaign of HRC by suggesting that insults directed at her are too much wrapped around her gender.

Thing is, people have spent the last 8 years villifying the current administration and none of it has been that nice. So, is it okay when it’s not the person you support?

Are we being a little disingenuous here?

HRC is not my favorite person. I have a long memory and way, way back in ’92 I remember quite vividly the sales pitch I fell for.

Well, the old saw goes: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

16 years later, any kind of reform of our health care system is further off than it was back then and if anything things continue to grow worse.

Also, I’ve written elsewhere that I don’t agree with one of the basic premises of HRC’s candidacy, an assertion sharing a bed with someone conveys special powers. Bedroom osmosis making a person more capable than another. The whole, ‘ready on day one’ because I’ve lived in the White House doesn’t fly with me.

Woman or man, if I am looking for a surgeon, a pilot or a mechanic, I want to find the best person to perform that job. Their spouse is not who I am seek no matter how much shop talk goes on after the lights are turned off for the night.

The other thing is this, politics is a dirty business. People are nasty and insulting to the other guy’s candidate. It’s the way things have always been. Am I to believe there is some vast left-wing conspiracy afoot out to deny HRC the nomination?

Suck it up – you lost.

Forget about health care reform.

Why?

Because everything in a capitalistic society is for sale and that includes political representation.

“They’re shifting to the Democrats in large part because they understand the Democrats are going to have the majority in the next Congress and will be the party driving health policy and drug reimbursement policy,” Corrado said. “They want to position themselves to be able to defend against any regulatory efforts they believe are overly stringent.”

We talk about Republicans and Democrats, red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives but, at the end of the day it’s the green party that runs things.

Green as in the color of money.

We think new faces in our government will effect change but there is too much of an incentive to continue with business as usual. We see this not only in our health care system but also in our dependence on oil as an energy source.

There is simply too much money tied up in these institutions and far too much for powerful interests to lose, if there were actual change of any type.

Until we look at the underlying structures of our capitalistic society and admit to the contradictions inherent in building a society based upon capitalism we will fail to confront the schisms such a society produces.

We have been subjected as a nation to months and months of empty rhetoric. Candidates parade in front of cameras spouting falsehoods they themselves know to be untrue. Programs that are full of promise but highly unlikely to ever be put into force.

I may sound overly cynical but, it’s frustrating to see our nation distracted and polarized while the problems confronting us just worsen.

VIDEO VAULT THURSDAY!

This week’s video is from the music video equivalent of the Stone Age! Predating MTV by many years, I came across this while looking around for something to do with another post. What’s interesting is how the video itself is an example of the first baby steps marketing executives, records companies and artists themselves were taking towards the form of marrying music to pictures.

One of the treats about the thing (aside from being shot on film) is looking at the hairstyles and clothing that were current at the time the video was shot (around 1972)



The song is often mistakenly attributed to Bob Dylan, likely because Rafferty’s distinctive voice is similar to Dylan’s, as well as the acoustic folk/rock style the song employs.

“Stuck in the Middle with You” (also, in early references, “Stuck in the Middle”) is a song written and performed by Stealers Wheel which was composed of Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty, and an ever-changing cast of other musicians. The song was released on their 1972 self-titled debut album Stealers Wheel. The single sold over one million copies, climbing up to eventually the top 10 on both the US (in 1973) and UK pop charts.

The book I never got.



Oh, how life would have been different! (LOL)

Sorting and tossing a bunch of old magazines I came across this ad, pure 70s!

Best line of the ad: A discotheque where the girls are so liberated you can often sleep with them the same night you meet them!

Priceless!

A fading power?

I was talking to someone the other day and during the conversation I speculated the following:

If the 19th Century was Great Britain’s century, and the 20th Century was the century of the U.S., will the 21st Century be China’s century?

How will it affect our world and what will the world look like when it is through?

At least once.

...And, most important of all: “Wouldn’t it be nice if all those people who roam the streets of New York, talking to themselves, were paired off so that they could walk around in couples and look like they’re having a conversation?”

Lily Tomlin used that line in her act back in 1975, little did she know three decades later cell phones would be so ubiquitous pairing off people would be an unnecessary bother.

I have the cell phone but I try to use it sparingly, especially in public places. Others don’t seem to be restrained by good manners and having wonderfully quiet moments on the train or just around the city seem to be something relegated to the past.

So, when I came across this compilation of clips (some of which I had seen), I just had to share:

Video Vault Thursday!
(Because the exclamation point makes all the difference)

So, last week I obsessed over Shirley Manson. Not only is she incredible but, some of those Garbage tunes are just awesome. This week we’re going in a different direction.

This week’s video is fairly recent as videos go. Although it looks deceptively simple, it does have quite a bit going on if you look closely. Once again, it’s a great song that softens any problems a person might have with the video itself but it is an interesting marriage of music and image.



The track “E-Pro” was remixed by Paza Rahm and released on the Hell Yes EP as “Bad Cartridge.” The EP was released on vinyl, as an iTunes Music Store download, and in CD format for college radio. “E-Pro” was Beck’s first number 1 since his debut single “Loser.”

---

“E-Pro” is the opening track on Beck’s 2005 album Guero. It was released as the lead single from the album in March 2005. The underlying drum beat throughout most of the song is a sample from the Beastie Boys' 1992 smash hit “So What’cha Want.” The song was Beck’s second #1 on the Modern Rock chart and his first in eleven years.

The video for the song was created by Shynola. It is set in a computer-animated environment, where Beck rises from a grave, digs up a dog, and climbs buildings, among other things. It was nominated for “Best Music Video” in the 2005 Arias Awards.

Get this nation an enema.

So, I make no secret about the fact that I am a registered Republican. Most of the reason I aligned myself with the Republican party is because of their stance on foreign policy where I have always been a bit more hawkish than most. Sure, negotiation is a fine thing but, there are times when military might is a necessary component of foreign policy. Of course, I am presupposing that any application of military force is used judiciously - let’s just leave it at that without going into the actions of the current administration.

I read something earlier this evening though that got me to thinking...

It got me thinking about what I would like to see happen, going forward in our country. I find that I haven’t been happy with the choices offered up in the last few presidential elections. I don’t know when it happened, I think around 1980, but the nation seemed to have changed how it picked chief executives. Presidential races became more of a beauty contest than anything else.

I always remark to friends how men like Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry Truman could never get elected in a this day of television. They’re just not ‘pretty’ enough. Whenever we start talking about how telegenic candidates are, it’s a sure sign that as a nation we’ve lost our way.

So, back to the whole direction of the country thing...

I wonder if any of the three people who are currently in the running to become our nation’s leader have (to use some foreign slang) the ‘stones’ to really change the heading we’re on.

I looked back a little and I found something that I think should be a rough blueprint of the kind of change I am thinking we need. However, it is so far a field from anything I am hearing from the current candidates, I wonder if it is just wishful thinking on my part.

Gross National Product rose 10% in the first year of the tax cut, and economic growth averaged a rate of 4.5% from 1961 to 1968. Disposable personal income rose 15% in 1966 alone. Despite the drop in tax rates, federal revenues increased dramatically from $94 billion in 1961 to $150 billion in 1967. As the Baby Boom generation aged, two and a half times more Americans would enter the labor force between 1965 and 1980 than had between 1950 and 1965.

So, it sounds like all I’m talking about is a further cut in taxes but, it’s more than that, much more:

I have come today from the turmoil of your Capital to the tranquility of your campus to speak about the future of your country.

The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.

For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people.

The challenge of the next half-century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.

Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.

Thing is, even if it’s wishful thinking on my part, am I alone in this?

I find this strangely appealing.


So much so that it makes me want to take a trip as a pilgrimage of sorts because there are certain things in life you just have to see.

The in-joke.

I got this emailed to me awhile back by the very talented Gerry Acerno. I came across it as I was cleaning files off the computer and though I may as well post it. It’s a bit of an in-joke but, still an entertaining drawing:

Playin’ in the potty?

Back in 2000, BBC News ran the following article:

The shocking secrets of the life of grime beneath your fingers have been revealed. Computer keyboards are accumulating up to two grams of dirt every month, research conducted on behalf of AOL UK shows. The crumbs and dirt collect beneath the keys because users eat breakfast, snacks, and lunch over their computer terminals.

Today though, it gets even better by comparison due to a recent study:

Some computer keyboards harbour more harmful bacteria than a toilet seat, research has suggested. Consumer group Which? said tests at its London offices found equipment carrying bugs that could cause food poisoning. Out of 33 keyboards swabbed, four were regarded as a potential health hazard and one harboured five times more germs than one of the office’s toilet seats.

Time to stock up on finger cots?

Don’t %@#$ with Sue!

I love when stuff like this happens:

Just sayin’

You can put a rubber band around your stomach but it still won’t do anything for your fat head.

I think she would be happy.

So, there is a neighborhood cat here.

She’s an outdoor cat and I’ll see her roaming about from time to time. She’s not wild, she’s just someone’s cat who lives outdoors.

Living in the outer burbs it’s amazing just how much wildlife there is. It’s not rare to see deer in the field across the street from the house and you also sometimes have evidence of other varmints around the trashcans too.

Getting back to this cat though – she stands out a bit because she’s an all white cat.

I’ll see her across the street in the field, sometimes she seems nested up in the high grass and because she’s white you can see her from far away. She roams through the neighborhood and in the past I have managed to coax her over for a prolonged stroking and petting session.

My neighbor arrived home once and was amazed I was able to get the cat to come over to me; apparently he couldn’t get her to do that.

So, yesterday I though I saw a white shape in the neighbor’s driveway and then today when I got up I looked out the front window and noticed a small figure making it’s way hastily up the sidewalk across the street, I knew who it was.

I went downstairs and opened the front door and starting making those sounds cat owners know far to well. The little creature came quickly in response (to even my surprise) and it was in fact the same small friend from almost two years ago. Although I say small, she’s almost two times the size of my departed Anna but, I know it was the same cat as before because she has one green eye and one blue eye.

She cried and offered the side of her face up for stroking. She arched her back asking to be scratched and I could do nothing but oblige. I quickly ducked into the house and opened a can of food and bought it down to watch as my feline acquaintance happily chowed down on the surprise repast purring mightily throughout. A little skittish of her surroundings, I soothed her the way I would soothe Anna by talking to her throughout lauding her for her appetite.

Afterward, there was more stroking and petting until I went in to have my morning coffee. I thought about Anna and was a little sad but I was happy to have done something nice for another creature and felt rewarded if only by the grateful purring I received in response, I think Anna would have been happy (although if she was still around I think she would have been extremely jealous).

I guess I’ve officially become one of those people now but I don’t care and it will have to suffice until I’m over Anna.

VIDEO VAULT THURSDAY RETURNS!

Okay, so I’ve been incredibly lax.

It’s been a long time since Video Vault Thursdays has made an appearance around these parts. However, the advent of really, really nice weather has me listening to music again. The great thing is that I am having terrific fun doing it! I always enjoy getting back to that point where I listen to music more frequently because it always is a voyage of rediscovery.

This week, I was so jazzed about listening to this one particular band, I started to write a post about them, when I decided I might as well fold the entry into a Video Vault Thursday post. I don’t know if these videos really rank up there to warrant a Video Vault Thursday but, the thing is that the songs themselves are just so kick-ass I can’t resist.

This entry provides an overview of the band’s videos - you’ll see they get markedly better with each video:

I’m Only Happy When I Rains
(early video and it shows)


Stupid Girl
(looks like a thousand other videos you’ve seen but it’s saved by the song)


The World Is Not Enough.
(and now things start getting interesting)


Cherry Lips.
(look closely at the video, it’s actually pretty good)


Push It.
(shades of Grant Morrison and the Doom Patrol)


Finally, this is a life performance. It doesn’t really qualify as a Video Bault entry but I couldn’t resist including it because it is such a great song! Also, anyone who says life ends at 40, take a look at Shirley Manson because she’s 41 and hot as hell!

Temptation Waits


Since Garbage hasn’t done anything in recent years and is supposedly getting ready to release another album in the near future (or a Shirley Manson solo album). I throw this video in as an indication of what the beautiful SM has been up to in the ensuing period:

These Things.

Speaking of cleaning.

I use a webmail client.

Why?

Well, let’s just say I’ve had the misfortune to have OSX crap out on me a bunch of times. Every time it’s crapped out, it usually has meant going in and reinstalling everything. Suffice to say it’s a gigantic pain in the ass and the ancillary treat is that a lot of files are just lost in the process. I lost a ton of emails that way and to combat that, I’ve been using the web client for email.

So, over the last five days or so, I’ve taken it upon myself to get the thing straightened out.

Every time I send out an email, the thing is saving a copy of the email I sent out. So, the queue had gotten up to somewhere around 1200 emails. The incoming queue was up to somewhere around 600+.

Some of the stuff is important and then there’s a lot that isn’t.

Well, right now the sent queue is down around just over 400 and the incoming queue is at 370. I’m not there yet but, the end is in sight.

Oh, and why does OSX keep crapping out? Well, each time it’s happened, it was because I tried installing one of Apple’s stupid upgrades.

Phew!

A big part of how I spend my time when I’m not working is spent sorting things out (that and finding amazing ways to waste time). Right now I find myself ‘in-between’ gigs, which is a little worrisome although something is due to, come up in a week.

So, we have this great weather and I manage to find wonderful ways to idle away the day.

Monday, it was digging up an old stump and then filling in the resulting hole. Also, I was in the process of digging up some space curbside and then putting down stone. Some things I manage to do better than I did years ago, some things I don’t do as well.

Now, when I work, I’m much better about putting things back in their proper place. It’s mainly because I’m spending so much time cleaning up the thought of making more of a mess is anathema. I’m much worse at spending prolonged periods working. What I do now, I go out and work for a while, take a break. Go out and work some more, take a break. Go and keep plugging away, take a break.

Today, I put down the stone after finishing digging up the space along the curb and laying down the weed block. I know, I’m mister excitement. Still, I moved about 500 lbs. of stone over to the area and put it in and it still wasn’t enough. So, sometime over the next few days I have to go back and get more stone.

I also managed to cut up a branch the other day that had come down awhile back during a bad storm. I chopped it up into manageable small pieces that the wonderful garbage men would take away. Considering the branch in question would take three men to lift, I figure it was a good days work.

Thing is, I like doing this kind of stuff... a lot.

Little by little I start to see areas clear up and I start to see projects getting crossed off my list and I feel an incredible amount of satisfaction.

But it won’t pay my bills.

Too bad.

Just so you’re aware.

To make up for a profound lack of writing of late I am going to go through all the frigging drafts I have and clear them out. Hence some entries may not seem as topical as they might be. Nonetheless the page will still be full of incredible bloggy goodness.

Damnit!

So I missed the last three days of work and the week before I had missed two days. Basically, it turned the ten week assignment into a nine week assignment when you count the two days I lost that last week.

Damnit!

The funny thing though, I needed that time off. When I wrote this (early on Friday evening 4/11), I felt markedly better. While not 100% - more like 80% - it was far and away light years better than I had been the previous Wednesday.

My head felt almost clear, the running nose had stopped (though I was subject to blowing out a nice gob of something every now and again), I didn’t hear all kinds of internal noises whenever I swallow. I only took aspirin, some nasal decongestant, sucrets and the occasional gulp of cough syrup. It sounds like a lot more than it is, just various medications when the need arise and the symptoms are particularly acute.

It still took awhile to totally lick the thing. I had a bit of congestion still in the chest and some nasal stuff going on for at least two weeks afterward but I felt lucky the thing ran its course and I was able to see a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of getting through it. There had been a bunch of times over those days when I found myself crawling into bed and sleeping a bunch of hours. Even with all the wonderfully nice weather, aside from pulling the mail out of the box, I couldn’t tell you about it because I missed it all sleeping the hours away.

This all got me to thinking about something though...

See, money came right out of my pocket because I missed those days but, I get the sense come round the next Monday I’d be just about right again.

Now, if absolutely forced I probably could’ve gone into work. Honestly, I could’ve soldiered through if I had to. I would’ve been working a lot slower than I normally do, gotten a lot less done, felt generally crappy for the entirety of the day and been a bear to be around. Also, I would’ve exposed everybody I work with to whatever bug this is I’ve picked up.

But, the sleep really made all the difference in the world in giving my body the chance it needed to do the work of fighting this thing off.

And I was thinking how we just don’t do that much anymore.

I mean, given the pace of life and the demands of our jobs and everything else, we just don’t take the time off to be sick and get better.

It’s become so much of a problem they have actually started PSA campaigns about it:


I think it just says something about our society that we need a PSA to remind us of what in fact should be a matter of common sense.

A bit premature?

I’m not a big fan of Bill Clinton, I’m just not.

People look back at the Clinton years and paint this rosy picture of a guy who could do no wrong as president. They attribute all the glorious economic growth of the 90’s to Clinton’s stewardship of the executive office well forgetting the facts that there was a spanking new democracy in what had formerly been the USSR, a new premier in China and the explosive growth of this brand new thing called the World Wide Web.

Still, awhile back New York magazine had run this image on their cover and I’ll be damned if I thought it was a bit disrespectful for a person who had once been the nation’s president.

Now, it’s looking like it might have been a bit premature as well.

Life is good, but...

So, the past few days have been fine. What I mean to say is that there has been enough to focus on to take my mind off the events of last week.

Still, I have to catch myself now and again.

What do I mean?

Well, I’ll put it to you this way; Last night I was sitting at my computer and thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned half expecting to see kitty there stoically staring me down or, today I caught that odd rectangle of sunlight as the afternoon sun peeked out from behind the clouds and half expected to see kitty stretched out in all her glory just basking in the warmth of those golden rays. I looked at some pictures of her the other day thankfully I have a lot.

She was a good girl.

I’ve pulled out of all those cat-centered groups I was part of on Flickr. I’ve started putting away all the things around here that were specifically for her. I’m shelving all that stuff if only for a little while.

See, I kind of have made up my mind I’m going to get another kitty at some point (maybe two) but for now if only out of respect to her memory I’m going to let the wound heal over.

I had wanted to put this up sooner.

Last week before NYCC, I had gotten this via email from pal Gerry Acerno and it’s a really beautiful piece I wanted to share:



The week kind of got away from me though.

Oddities.

Yesterday was an interesting day. I go to have lunch with my cousin, anyone who knows me knows the one thing I have an abundance of is cousins. I have more cousins than you can shake a stick at. I’m lucky that I have them too because they are nice people and as I grow older I come to appreciate them ever more with each day.

One cousin though is probably the closest thing I have to a brother. Hell, we’re not even first cousins but, because of the way life works out we have a very strong bond with one and other.

There’s a restaurant locally that I frequent and as it turns out, this cousin was very good friends with the family way back when he was a teenager and first arrived in this country. So, a few weeks back I was in there picking up takeout and I happened to mention to one of the daughters who works with her parents how my cousin knew them from long ago.

She immediately knew who I was talking about and admonished me for never mentioning it before that day. Mind you, I’ve been going to this restaurant for a good decade now and they know me and treat me quite well. So, then and there the plan was sprung to surprise her brother who was a very close friend of my cousin.

Yesterday, was the day of the surprise.

It was warm and sunny, certainly a perfect day to have a nice lunch. We got down there and the two of them were very happy to see each other and get reacquainted. I felt really pleased if only because I did something that made my cousin happy and he’s done so much for me I can’t ever really do enough for him.

Afterward we stopped to have coffee and oddly enough while we were sitting in the local Starbucks, who should walk in but Anna’s vet. He said hello and I thanked him again for all his efforts in caring for her but I had to admit it was a little odd.

You are what you watch?

I’ve really been enjoying NetFlix, if you’re on the service drop me a line and we can do the ‘friend’ thing.

I was just going though my queue and it’s interesting if only to look back and see what I’ve watched over the last year:

Grindhouse: Death Proof: Bonus Material
Grindhouse: Death Proof
Grindhouse: Planet Terror
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 1 (7-Disc Series)
Threshold: The Complete Series: Disc 2 (4-Disc Series)
UFO: Vol. 6 (8-Disc Series)
UFO: Vol. 5 (8-Disc Series)
Heroes: Season 1: Disc 2 (7-Disc Series)
Threshold: The Complete Series: Disc 1 (4-Disc Series)
UFO: Vol. 4 (8-Disc Series)
The Invasion
30 Days of Night
Beowulf: Director's Cut
UFO: Vol. 3 (8-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4: Disc 6 (6-Disc Series)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5: Disc 2 (3-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4: Disc 5 (6-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4: Disc 3 (6-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4: Disc 4 (6-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4: Disc 2 (6-Disc Series)
UFO: Vol. 2 (8-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 4: Disc 1 (6-Disc Series)
UFO: Vol. 1 (8-Disc Series)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5: Disc 3 (3-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 3: Disc 7: Bonus Material (7-Disc Series)
Primer
Torchwood: Season 1: Disc 1 (7-Disc Series)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5: Disc 1 (3-Disc Series)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.0: Disc 2 (3-Disc Series)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.0: Disc 3 (3-Disc Series)
Resident Evil: Extinction
Torchwood: Season 1: Disc 6 (7-Disc Series)
Torchwood: Season 1: Disc 7 (7-Disc Series)
Torchwood: Season 1: Disc 5 (7-Disc Series)
Torchwood: Season 1: Disc 3 (7-Disc Series)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes / Dr. Phibes Rises Again
Torchwood: Season 1: Disc 4 (7-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
The Andromeda Strain
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 3 (4-Disc Series)
Torchwood: Season 1: Disc 2 (7-Disc Series)
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 4 (4-Disc Series)
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 1 (4-Disc Series)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.0: Disc 1 (3-Disc Series)
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 2 (4-Disc Series)
Them!
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Battlestar Galactica: Razor
Lost: Season 3: Disc 7: Bonus Material (7-Disc Series)
It Came From Outer Space
Lost: Season 3: Disc 6 (7-Disc Series)
Lost: Season 3: Disc 4 (7-Disc Series)
Lost: Season 3: Disc 5 (7-Disc Series)
Lost: Season 3: Disc 1 (7-Disc Series)
Lost: Season 3: Disc 2 (7-Disc Series)
Lost: Season 3: Disc 3 (7-Disc Series)
Fantastic Voyage
Soylent Green
Immortal
A Scanner Darkly
Blade Runner: The Director's Cut
Jekyll: Disc 1 (2-Disc Series)
Jekyll: Disc 2 (2-Disc Series)
Transformers
X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Angel-A
Doctor Who: Season 3: Disc 6 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 3: Disc 4 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 3: Disc 5 (6-Disc Series)
Kung Fu Hustle
Doctor Who: Season 3: Disc 2 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 3: Disc 3 (6-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 3: Disc 3 (7-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 3: Disc 6 (7-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2: Disc 3 (7-Disc Series)
Spider-Man 3: Bonus Material
Spider-Man 3
Doctor Who: Season 2: Disc 5 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 2: Disc 4 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 2: Disc 6 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 2: Disc 2 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 2: Disc 3 (6-Disc Series)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Doctor Who: Season 1: Disc 4 (5-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 2: Disc 1 (6-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 1: Disc 5 (5-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 1: Disc 2 (5-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 1: Disc 3 (5-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Season 1: Disc 1 (5-Disc Series)
Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks
Doctor Who: Robot
Doctor Who: Survival: Disc 1 (2-Disc Series)
Monk: Season 1: Disc 4 (4-Disc Series)
The Pretender: Season 1: Disc 1 (7-Disc Series)
Word Wars
Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 3: Disc 4 (7-Disc Series)
Monk: Season 1: Disc 2 (4-Disc Series)
The Hours
The Man Who Wasn't There
Matchstick Men
Click
Munich
High and Low
WTC: The First 24 Hours
Monk: Season 1: Disc 1 (4-Disc Series)
Smiley's People: Disc 3 (3-Disc Series)
How to Draw Comics from Script to Print
The Notorious Bettie Page
Smiley's People: Disc 2 (3-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 3: Disc 2 (7-Disc Series)
In Her Shoes
Smiley's People: Disc 1 (3-Disc Series)
Classic Albums: The Who: Who's Next
Kinsey
Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider: Bonus Material
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 3: Disc 1 (7-Disc Series)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Disc 3 (3-Disc Series)
Chicken Little
Defending Your Life
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2: Disc 7 (7-Disc Series)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Disc 2 (3-Disc Series)
Being There
Control Room
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog: Come Poop with Me
Inside Man
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2: Disc 6 (7-Disc Series)
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Pan's Labyrinth
Saved!
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: Disc 1 (3-Disc Series)
Ran
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2: Disc 5 (7-Disc Series)
I Heart Huckabees
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story
Rashomon
The Weather Underground
The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
The American President: Disc 5 (Episodes 9-10) (5-Disc Series)
King Kong
The Lost Room: Disc 2 (2-Disc Series)
The Lost Room: Disc 1 (2-Disc Series)
The Constant Gardener
Superfly
The American President: Disc 4 (Episodes 7-8) (5-Disc Series)
Sky High
Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector
A Prairie Home Companion
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2: Disc 2 (7-Disc Series)
The Who: The Kids Are Alright: Bonus Material
Strangers with Candy
The American President: Disc 3 (Episodes 5-6) (5-Disc Series)
The Who: The Kids Are Alright
Absolute Beginners
16 Blocks
Hard Eight
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 2: Disc 1 (7-Disc Series)
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Broadway Danny Rose
The American President: Disc 2 (Episodes 3-4) (5-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1: Disc 7 (7-Disc Series)
The Hills Have Eyes
The Aristocrats
Shaun of the Dead
The American President: Disc 1 (Episodes 1-2) (5-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1: Disc 6 (7-Disc Series)
Jackass: Number Two
Slums of Beverly Hills
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Dilbert: The Complete Series: Disc 4 (4-Disc Series)
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Mallrats
Life and Debt
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1: Disc 5 (7-Disc Series)
The Corporation
Dilbert: The Complete Series: Disc 3 (4-Disc Series)
Syriana
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
The Forgotten
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1: Disc 4 (7-Disc Series)
Capote
Dilbert: The Complete Series: Disc 2 (4-Disc Series)
Art School Confidential
An Inconvenient Truth
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1: Disc 3 (7-Disc Series)
Dilbert: The Complete Series: Disc 1 (4-Disc Series)
The Island
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Boogie Nights
National Geographic: Inside the Vatican
Six Feet Under: Season 5: Disc 5 (5-Disc Series)
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1: Disc 2 (7-Disc Series)
The World's Fastest Indian
Star Trek: Enterprise: Season 1: Disc 1 (7-Disc Series)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
Six Feet Under: Season 5: Disc 4 (5-Disc Series)
Monster
The Final Cut
Six Feet Under: Season 5: Disc 3 (5-Disc Series)
Vampirella
Murderball
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Six Feet Under: Season 5: Disc 2 (5-Disc Series)
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
Thunderbirds
The Fog of War
National Treasure
Six Feet Under: Season 5: Disc 1 (5-Disc Series)
House of Sand and Fog
Six Feet Under: Season 4: Disc 5 (5-Disc Series)
Good Night, and Good Luck
Match Point
Six Feet Under: Season 4: Disc 4 (5-Disc Series)
Rumor Has It
Aeon Flux
Six Feet Under: Season 4: Disc 3 (5-Disc Series)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Man-Thing
Bubba Ho-Tep
Six Feet Under: Season 4: Disc 2 (5-Disc Series)
Spanglish
The Brothers Grimm
Hotel Rwanda
Six Feet Under: Season 4: Disc 1 (5-Disc Series)
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Kamikaze Girls
Six Feet Under: Season 3: Disc 5 (5-Disc Series)
The Matador
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Elizabethtown
Six Feet Under: Season 3: Disc 4 (5-Disc Series)
Six Feet Under: Season 3: Disc 3 (5-Disc Series)
Dark Water
Six Feet Under: Season 3: Disc 2 (5-Disc Series)
Transamerica
Flightplan
Six Feet Under: Season 3: Disc 1 (5-Disc Series)
The Weather Man
Domino
Crash

She’s gone.



I took this photo this morning, you can see her ribs poking through her side.

I’m going to indulge myself this last time on this subject and then I’ll let it drop.

So, today was the day. After watching her stumble around the house and knowing it was going to get even worse I took it upon myseelf to end her suffering. This morning I got up and she was lying down on one of her pillows (which I had placed strategically throughout the house so she would always have a comfy place to lie). When she saw me she got up and made to come over. You have to picture this little thing that is barely skin and bones weakly getting up and staggering towards me, my heart just broke.

So, I gave her water and held her. I stroked her and made her purr. I even gave her more whip cream and listened to her purr loudly and she tried to get as much down as she could. I called the vet and asked what time I could bring her in. A mere hour and a half left to her all too short life. I held her some more and stroked her some more because every precious moment she had left should be filled with contentedness.

Then, I put her on the pillow for a little while. Even though her energy was all but spent there was always something so comforting in just her presence. I took the last photos I will ever take of her. Morbid? I’m not sure but, I wanted to remember every moment I had with her. She really was my precious little jewel.

Some people would say why are you getting upset, it’s just a cat and admittedly I feel a little embarassed. This little creature that took up so much of my heart, that made me smile and usually was the best part of my day.

Anyway, I wrapped her in a towel and spoke softly to her. One arm had her cradled while the other I used to steer the car and we made our way down to the Vets. The window in the waiting area was open and I held her by it as she caught a whiff of the fresh air and I scratched her neck and she was happy.

We went in one of the exam rooms, placing that little bag of bones on the table and like that it was done. It was unnaturally quick and the moment the life had gone from her small body it was apparent and the shift was made from beloved friend to lifeless thing.

I’m sad. I know eventually I’ll get myself another pet but, there will only be one Anna. She was a wonderful little old lady, my special girl and I have been blessed by every moment I had her brightening my life.

Today, I will kill my cat.



So, I’m trying to get my head around this. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing or not. I actually sent off a note to someone and told them about my crisis, basically is it ever right to end a life? I love my cat, I really, really do and over the last bunch of days I have watched as my poor little kitty has withered.

She was a small creature to begin with weighing in at just over five pounds but now I would think she is maybe only two.

I pick her up and she is so frail I think she might come apart in my hands. I can feel her bones. I have given her intravenous fluids every day, I have feed her as much as she would eat but, there is no avoiding the ineveitable. She is withering before my eyes.

It’s sad to watch because she is still in there.

By in there, I mean she is still that wonderful companion that owns my heart. I come up in the morning and she comes out and walks around gingerly awaiting to be fed. After chowing down she comes back out as she has grown accustomed to me picking her up, cradling her in my arms and giving her water through an eyedropper. Then I’ll take some time to clean off her face before she drops down exhausted from the effort.

And over the last few days, since last Friday, each day she has gotten a little worse. When she walks, her rear legs almost give out on her and she has to catch herself but still if I am sitting at the computer she comes into the room and takes up residence on the pillow near me just to be close.

Tonight I held her and gave her the good scratching she deserved making sure I hit all the special spots she loves, behind her ears, under her chin. She stretched her paw out and put her head back and purred away.

The question becomes is it right just to wait for her to whither away completely and the answer is no. The heat has been getting to her too and just making her already dehydrated state even worse.

She got her treat of whip cream this evening and I loved hearing her purr as she tried her best to lap up what she could.

I’m cried out, or at least I think I am but then I can still find some tears left within me. I know it’s time, it’s just so very hard to say goodbye to her, she has been such a lovely addition and I truly feel I have been blessed to have her in my life. She has bought joy and happiness not just to me but also to the EYOC especially in his waning days and Madame X as well. She was the glue that held a discordant household together. You wouldn’t think such a small thing would have such great power but it was true.

Anyway, I know it’s time and there is still a part of me that wants another day but the truth is it’s not fair to her.

All I know is how much I will miss her.

Greeeaaattttt.

So, I bust my ass to write an article for Comicon’s The Pulse and I even get it off to them:



...and the good part was I even got the damn thing done before Newsrama had posted anything on the panel I was writing about but, wouldn’t you know it that the site has been down for the entire day.

If this doesn’t say it all.

I was thumbing through this week’s Village Voice and came across this cartoon by Tom Tomorrow. It elicited quite the belly laugh and if it doesn’t sum things up about or nation’s current situation I don’t know what does:


Click through to read the thing full size at Salon.com

Winding down.

So, we’re back at the vet’s today. The visit being a follow up visit to Tuesday’s visit.

The specter of going to the vet now takes on foreboding proportions because I’m not sure if the vet will say it’s time to put Anna down. I’m dreading it but I know it is soon to come. Sometimes, I can be entirely normal about the world around me and other times I can find myself crying like a baby, just being entirely consumed by sadness over her loss of my little companion.

For her part, Anna wanders around the house. She sleeps but then that’s what cats do anyway. She walks gingerly, frailly, unsure of her own steps and very uncatlike. But she does manage to make her way around the house and still manages to get up onto some of her favorite spots to lounge about.

This morning I came upstairs and immediately went over to her in the bathroom (she’s confined at night for her own good as I have images of her falling down the stairs) and began to stroke her. She was genuinely happy and purred away lavishing in the attention. She had a nice breakfast and even though she isn’t drinking as much as I would like her too she has some appetite. Now she gets wet food twice a day because there really isn’t a need to worry about her overeating especially since she lost so much weight.

But there are times when her little mouth begins to shudder and she seems stricken by a wave of tremors causing her lower jaw to vibrate like an old person’s. It’s hard to watch.

Still as I was getting ready to take her over to the vet, she followed me all around the house in a surprising burst of energy (considering her weakened state). It was almost as if she knew what was on the agenda and wanted to make sure I knew she wasn’t ready to check out quite yet.

Still watching her and then thinking about the inevitable is overwhelming to say the least.

So, we made our way down to the vet’s and I actually wondered if this would be ‘IT.’ Would this be the last morning I had with her? What would the doctor say?

And it turned out she had gained a little weight but she was still dehydrated and needed more fluids. So she got poked and then we came home and she wandered around the house taking naps in various special spots.

Here it is beautiful outside, I mean the weather is just gorgeous and I find I can’t bring myself to leave her.

There’s lots to do and there was a lot scheduled for today but, in the end I wound up feeding her with an eyedropper and making sure she was comfortable. I’m just trying to get water into her anyway I can and the eyedropper seems the least intrusive way even though I can tell it is probably giving her gas as I can hear her stomach gurgling away but she seems to be parched.

Tonight I popped out just to get some dinner and while I was out I even managed to get her a little treat.

In the past, one of the great joys we shared was me putting a dollop of whip cream on a finger and she would stand up and greedily lick it off, delighting in the flavor. I know on some level it wasn’t the best thing but boy how she enjoyed it and once in awhile didn’t hurt.

Tonight when I got home I cracked open the whip cream and sprayed a bunch into a spoon for her. She only took some half hearted attempts at eating it and even then she was stricken with a good case of the shakes again.

So, I know it won’t be long.

But, I am trying to make sure it’s nice and like I said there are moments when I am fine and other moments when I am reduced to a blubbering mass of tears and sniffles.

It’s supposed to be a busy weekend and I’ll be spending the next few days away from the house, I can only hope she’ll be alright and not too lonely while I’m gone. When the time comes I don’t want her to be alone.

My first golden shower.



I’ve never been a big one for that kind of kink but I broke new ground last night.

I have cried and cried and cried beyond the point where logic says there should be anything left in my tear ducts. Right now someone is curled up on my lap with her head down sleeping. I go back and forth, really. One minute life is pretty normal and then another I am simply beside myself.

After a day at the vet getting fluids Anna was doing much better. Not great, just better.

As I said on Monday I kind of knew she was going downhill but it’s been a very rapid descent. The doctor showed me how I could administer fluids myself and then I bought her home and spent time cleaning her face (eyes, chin and crusted over nose) as well as her paws.

I managed to get her set up on a pillow on a chair in a favorite spot where she could lie in the sun and be warm and content. She purred away as I stroked her. Later on I bought her downstairs with me to bed. She‘s been sick awhile and confined to one room in the house and I had forgotten how much I loved having her curl up next to me at night. I put her under the covers and she immediately drifted off, purring herself to sleep.

An hour or two later she made a half hearted attempt to get out of bed and suddenly there was something warm happening. So, I got my first golden shower via my kitty. I stripped the bed down and bought her back upstairs, put her on her pillow and made sure she was comfortable. If you think I was at all upset, well I wasn’t upset at all because right now it’s all about her and her comfort.

Yeah, the mattress pad is getting thrown out but I don’t care. I just want her to be happy and enjoy what little time she has left to her. She is staggering around the house, she’s fallen over her back a few times (not from a height just trying to make her way around). It’s horrible but, there are moments when she is one my lap nice and warm and I am petting her and she is genuinely happy. I was going to go out today and when I started to make preparations to get ready she was all on top of me, standing on her back legs, demanding to be petted and wanting to be picked up.

And really... my heart is breaking and I cry some more. I am this brutish guy and this fuzzy little animal (the furthest thing away from what would be considered a man‘s pet) is my world. She has been the most wonderful companion and I hate having to face something like this again. I went through this when I had a cat as a teenager (she passed when I was in my early 20s) and I didn’t have another pet until Madame X bought little Anna into my life.

Who knew she would be able to make her way so deeply into my heart.

This sucks!



Sometimes you know something but, you just want to pretend you don’t. I kind of knew something yesterday (for the last bunch of days actually) but it was just confirmed this morning. I took my little pal to the vet and sure enough she is very close to the end. I was given the option of having her put down today or opting to try and get her more comfortable if only to stave off the inevitable for a brief time and to ease her pain. I chose the latter (though I have to wonder whether I did the right thing and whether it was in her best interests or guiltily mine).

Suffice to say it is a hard thing to contemplate a world without such a wonderfully small ball of fluff. Perhaps the most terrible thing was cradling her in my arms in the vets office, stroking her and having her purr away contentedly. I love that little creature and my heart breaks knowing she will soon not be a part of my life.

Funny accidents.

I came across this page quite by accident but the rant had me laughing out loud and it’s worth a gander:

Anyone who has an emotional bond with McDonald’s, or anyone who can relate anything they love about life to a company that sells deep fried processed chicken meat should be stabbed in the face. The only bond this campaign is rekindling is that of my ass to the toilet. I’d rather have my skin sand blasted off than eat another pig rectum sandwich from McDonald’s.

Awesome!

So, my big treat to myself for being sick was to go out and get Mountain Battles (iTunes) the new album from The Breeders.

JUST TERRIFIC!!!!!

I had already heard We’re Gonna Rise but, Overglazed, Bang On and Regalame Esta Noche are kick ass too!

Check out The Breeders My Space page and you can listen to the tracks for free!

I hate f*@#in’ being sick!

So, I’m coming into the last two weeks of the ten week gig and I missed two days last week and then two days this week, depriving myself of hours and money. Being sick is never fun but, it doubly sucks when I have work booked and it just doesn’t make a helluva lot of sense to work through being sick.

A couple of years back I made the mistake of working while I was sick and wound up paying the price by really damaging my hearing and winding up in the emergency room. Since then I vowed not to let work come before my health ever again.

So, the last couple of weeks have been crappy if only because various maladies have caught up with me.

A few weeks back, I thought something had gotten caught in my eye. Really! I had the kind of gritty feeling you sometimes get when something gets in under a lid and it is a b*tch to try and get it out. That went on for a few days as it seemed whatever was caught in the eye made it’s way from the corner around the back and the top of the eye. By the end of that week, I had a fairly intense headache thing going on on one side of my head (the side with the eye that had something stuck in it). I showed it to a co-worker discretely and they said it looked like pink eye.

For some reason I always think of kids getting pink eye though.

Anyway, over the course of the weekend it seemed to get worse and the eye was really hurting and finally I just took a day and decided I would get in to see the primary care physician. He took one look at it and sent me over to an eye doctor and it turned out there was something going on INSIDE the eye itself. Pink eye is inflammation around the eye and this was in the actual eye itself so, over the last week or so it’s been eye drops and a few more visits back to the eye doctor to keep up on the progress.

I took another day off just to rest and wound up back at work on Wednesday feeling if not 100% - much, much better than I had in two weeks.

Funny thing about eye drops (the thing that you wouldn’t know unless you use them quite a bit) is that you wind up tasting the damn things in your throat after you use them.

So, I had been using the things and the eye seemed to be clearing up nicely with the doctor pulling me back a little on my dosage and the eye started to get a little bad again and I increased the frequency of using the drops. Now though, I noticed my throat was bothering me and I wrote that off to just the drops irritating the throat.

But, no that wasn’t it.

Someone at work had been out with a really bad strep throat, something that had been running around the office and I think I managed to pick that up as well. So, even though I was in Monday and Tuesday, I noticed I started sneezing quite a bit and the nose was running and sure enough when I got up today I had a full blown cold.

Bleh.

So, the upshot is I hate being sick.

In the meantime though, during one of the sojourns between naps (sleep, up for awhile, sleep, up for awhile... you know the drill), I got to thinking about music. Specifically, I keep loading more and more into iTunes and I’ve been amazed rediscovering some lost loves of music so to speak. One of my long term goals is to go back and take all that vinyl and digitize it, I even got the hardware to do it but, it’s a big job and there’s a lot ahead of it on the list.

Ah yes, i remember it well...

Shea Stadium has been the site of some legendary concerts and this two-night stint by two major bands makes the list. The concerts were part of The Who’s first “farewell” tour, and it was the first concert in six years at Shea. The shows sold out in hours and the crowds were estimated around 70,000 because there was festival seating on the infield for the first time at Shea.

I can’t remember which of the two shows I was at but, i can very vividly remember where I sat (behind home plate on the mezzanine level). I also remember that it was the third time I saw The Clash and because they weren’t really a stadium band probably their weakest performance. Still a great, great show!

Bored with the internet.

So, i am finding myself increasingly bored with the internet of late. I don’t know why but, the usual haunts just have lost their luster. I’ve become much more aware of just how much time I spend either on the internet or watching TV or some combination of the two and it horrifies me.

Today, I have a few moments to spare while I’m waiting for something and I’m on the internet. And... it’s just a waste of time.

I love the internet, don’t get me wrong... well what I should say is that I love the web. We talk about ‘THE INTERNET’ and really what we are talking about is the web. I like having all that information at my fingertips. The big problem though is that I can find ways to idle away hours just on the kind of vague rollercoaster my interests will take me on.

So, I have to stop this... especially now that the weather is starting to get nice. I just don’t want to waste another summer stuck inside on the computer!

Breaking 60°!

Well, even though I wasn’t able to enjoy it, today’s temperature broke the 60° mark I think for the first time this year. I wasn’t able to enjoy it because of an ‘eye’ thing that has made me miss two days of work and had me sleeping away most of the day. Still, just the fact that the temps are climbing back upward again is enough to make me happy and means that idle afternoons of scooter rides are not far off.

Also, the other great thing about the warmer temps is that it means I won’t have to shovel snow again this year (hopefully at all). I really hate winter not just because of the cold but also because of the extra work whenever we get precipitation. To illustrate that, I give you a series of before and after photos from the last snowstorm:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I am waaayyyyyy happy today!

Why?

Well, at this moment I have the ESPN on and am watching the start of ’08 baseball season. The Braves are playing The Nationals in the Nationals brand spanking new park.

Now if you’ve really been paying attention, the season actually opened earlier this week when the Red Sox played the A’s in Japan. There is something very cool about that. Tonight though is the first night game of the season on the continental United States and tomorrow the Mets and Yankees will be playing their first games of the season.

I’m a big baseball fan.

Last year even though I am a tremendous Mets fan, I didn’t get to a single game. This year is the last year for Yankee stadium and Shea stadium so I’ll have to make it a point to at least get to one game in each park before they’re gone.

I have to start taking baseball trips again.

I got out of the habit of taking baseball trips over the last decade or so but, I have in the past enjoyed seeing quite a few major league parks and I can’t say I’ve ever had a bad time on one of those trips (at least not where the game is concerned).

These are stadiums I’ve been to that are no longer around!

Milwaukee County Stadium (locally known as just County Stadium) was a ballpark in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1953 to 2000. It was primarily used as a baseball stadium for the Milwaukee Braves and Brewers, but was also utilized for football games, ice skating, religious services, concerts and other large events. It was replaced by Miller Park. County Stadium was demolished on February 21, 2001.

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The Olympic Stadium [1] (French: Stade olympique) is a stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada built as the main venue for the 1976 Summer Olympics. It subsequently became the home of Montreal’s professional baseball and Canadian football teams. Since the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, D.C. in 2004, the stadium has had no main tenant, and with a history of financial and structural problems, is largely seen as a white elephant.

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Philadelphia Veterans Stadium (informally called “The Vet”) was a professional sports facility located at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It housed the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League from 1971 through 2002 and the National League’s Philadelphia Phillies from 1971 through 2003. The final game ever played at the stadium was on September 28, 2003. The ultimate end came when the 33-year old stadium was imploded on March 21, 2004.

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Busch Memorial Stadium, or Busch Stadium was the home of the St. Louis Cardinals National League baseball team from May 12, 1966 to October 19, 2005. It opened four days after the last game was played in their old home, Sportsman’s Park (which had also been known since 1953 as Busch Stadium). The stadium was destroyed by wrecking ball in late 2005, and part of its former footprint is used by its replacement stadium of the same name.

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Jack Murphy Stadium, is a multiple-use stadium in San Diego, California. It is the current home of the San Diego Chargers of the NFL and of the San Diego State University Aztecs college football team. It hosts the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl and the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl college football games every December. Until 2003, it served as the home of the San Diego Padres in baseball’s National League. lso in 1997, the facility was renamed QUALCOMM Stadium after QUALCOMM Corporation paid $18 million for the naming rights. The naming rights will belong to QUALCOMM until 2017.

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Candlestick, after its original as well as future name of Candlestick Park, and sometimes just simply The Stick) is an outdoor sports and entertainment stadium located in San Francisco, California. On September 28, 2004, a new naming rights deal was signed with Monster Cable, a maker of cables for electronic equipment, and the stadium was renamed Monster Park.

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The Kingdome was an indoor sports and entertainment arena owned and operated by King County, Washington. The Kingdome was demolished by implosion on March 26, 2000 and the footprint is now occupied by Qwest Field.

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Riverfront Stadium, later known as Cinergy Field, (1970-2002) was the home of the Cincinnati Reds National League baseball team and the Cincinnati Bengals National Football League team. The stadium was demolished by implosion on December 29, 2002. Video clips of its demolition were featured in the music video for the song MakeDamnSure by Taking Back Sunday.

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Comiskey Park (35th Street & Shields Avenue, Chicago, Illinois) was the ballpark in which the Chicago White Sox played from 1910 to 1990. It was built by Charles Comiskey after a design by Zachary Taylor Davis, and was the site of four World Series (one of which was played by the Chicago Cubs due to lack of seating at Wrigley Field) and more than 6,000 major league games. Comiskey Park was demolished in 1991, a process that started from behind the right field corner, and took all summer. The last portion to come down was the center field bleachers and the “exploding” scoreboard.

That’s 9 whole trips I have to take all over again! In the meantime, these are the stadiums that I’ve visited that are still in use:

Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a ballpark located in Baltimore, Maryland, which was completed in 1992 to replace the aging Memorial Stadium. It is the home field of the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball. It was the first of the “retro” major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early 2000s, and remains one of the most highly praised.

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Fenway Park is the home ballpark of the Boston Red Sox baseball club. The park, the oldest of all current Major League Baseball stadiums, opened in 1912. Fenway hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1946, 1961, and 1999, and has played host to ten World Series.

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Wrigley Field is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois, United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales. It was also the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League from 1921-1970. It was also called Cubs Park from 1920 to 1926 before finally being renamed for then Cubs team owner and chewing gum industrialist William Wrigley Jr..

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Ewing M. Kauffman Stadium (formerly Royals Stadium) is a Major League Baseball stadium located in Kansas City, Missouri, and home to the Kansas City Royals of the American League. Together with Arrowhead Stadium, home of the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs, it is a part of the Truman Sports Complex.

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Angel Stadium of Anaheim (originally Anaheim Stadium and later Edison International Field of Anaheim) is a ballpark located in Anaheim, California. It is the home ballpark to Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of the American League, and was previously home to the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams (now St. Louis Rams). The stadium is often referred to by its unofficial nickname The Big A.

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Dodger Stadium is a large outdoor ballpark in Los Angeles, California at Chávez Ravine. It is located adjacent to Downtown Los Angeles. Dodger Stadium was privately financed at a cost of $23 million in 1962.

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William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium, is an American ballpark in New York City. It is the longtime home of the New York Metropolitans Major League Baseball club, and one of the oldest ballparks in the National League, serving as home of the Mets for 44 years. It is located in the Flushing section of the borough of Queens.

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Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium in New York City that is the home of the New York Yankees, a Major League baseball team. Located at East 161st Street and River Avenue in The Bronx, it has hosted Yankees home games since 1923 and has a capacity of 57,545. It was formerly the home of the New York Giants football team, and once hosted dozens of boxing's most famous fights.

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Commonly referred to as The Oakland Coliseum, or simply The Coliseum. It was formerly known as Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and Network Associates Coliseum.

And to think, Yankee and Shea stadium will be off that list after this year! That will bring my total to 11 stadiums that are no longer in use and only 7 active stadiums. If that isn’t a good excuse to travel, I don’t know what is!

Devoid.

Or, Da Void depending upon where you were raised.

Right now, things have been generally quiet around here and on the Flickr stream of late. The simple reason for that is that I find my energy being directed towards the daily grind of getting in and doing my work on the gig I’m currently on. Right now, I’m on week 8 of the 10 week gig so there is definitely an end in site. It may run a few days over but, I’ve already started casting about to see if I can make the whole downtime thing a relatively short period.

Freelancing is funny in that you have to be like a shark in the sense you are always swimming about looking for your next meal. Sharks that get lazy and stop swimming don’t last very long in the ocean.

Truthfully, this sojourn into regular hours and office life has been fairly painless. Not perfect, just painless for the most part. I recognize my energy level (something I could never boast of being great) is diminishing with the passage of time. Consequently, I have little drive to do much else when I am focused on working.

Case in point, the day starts for me sometime between 4:30 and 6 am. Last week I was indulging and not getting up until seven am and was paying the price by getting into the office by ten. No one gives me a hard time about it, it’s just that I’m trying to establish good habits and get to work earlier rather than later. Any day I can walk into the office before 9am, I feel as if I started off the day right and accomplished something of a small victory.

It sounds a bit inane - either that or highly self indulgent. Like getting to work before 9 am should even be such a big deal but, the commute for me varies most days anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours so walking in the door before 9 am means I managed to get myself out of the house before 7:30.

Also true, is that if I wind up at work until 7:30 or 8 pm, I often don’t wind up walking in the door at home until sometime around 10. When you start crunching the numbers in terms of how the days fall out, it winds up being that there is very little time for me to do anything besides going to work and coming home.

Still, like I said I really can’t complain. I’ve gotten to a certain point now in my career where I’m just not thrown for a curve as much as I might’ve been earlier on and that means any potential disasters can be anticipated and dealt with well before they explode like the ticking time bombs they can be.

I still might dread having to drag myself in but, the truth is once I’m in the office I find myself having a pretty decent go of it. A lot of that has to do with the people I’m around but, as much as they may or may affect things the big determining factor is my own attitude. It’s something I’ve come to realize more and more - the simple lesson of how important it is to have a positive attitude and outlook on things.

Sounds simplistic?

I’m not saying I’m getting to the point where I put my head in the sand, just trying to manage a more even tone throughout the day and not let things bother me.

Case in point - Friday evening when I returned from work, I got to the garage where the car was park only to find my car had been keyed. Keyed!

Well, I walked up to the passenger door and noticed the kind of Jesus fish pattern in the side of the car and just thought someone was being a jerk. Then I saw that the same pattern had been carved into the driver’s side door as well. I imagine if the car was newer or something I might’ve been more bothered by it, as it was I wound up waiting for a policeman and filing a police report on the whole thing. I’m still not sure how I’ll handle it but, it didn’t ruin my weekend.

In the past I might‘ve walked around for a bit and held a certain amount of anger or rage about the whole thing within me but, something is happening in that I found it all together easy to let it go.

Like I said though, I’ve got to keep swimming around looking for the next meal so, I imagine there are more pressing concerns that are in the forefront of my mind currently.

What day is it?

The problem with working regular more than anything is that the days seem to pass by like mileposts on the highway when you’re doing 80. Today is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter! While the holiday moved up on the calendar for this year, it’s also just about April! How did that happen so fast!?

Well, I am fairly happy because it means the winter is over and the warmer weather is on the way. This bodes well as I can’t wait to get back out on the road again and run around a little bit more on my Vespa! I certainly want to start taking some longer road trips.

Work proceeds apace... that means I have given myself over to something of a routine and while there are days I still feel like I would rather stay home and putter, I manage to soldier through. I’m coming to realize a big part of that has to do quite a bit with my own attitude. That may strike many as one of those D’uh! moments but, there is a lot to be said for it and it sounds infinitely easier than one would imagine.

I was reading a column the other day that summed it up all quite well, much better than I might in my limited scope:

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” - Buddha

Simplicity? Easy to execute? Maybe you think so but, if anything you couldn’t be further from the truth.

Anyway, since it’s a quiet day at work, I think I will be happy and idle away the day anticipating leaving at a reasonable hour and enjoying the sun!

Hey! What happened!

My blogoversary passed on Saturday and I didn’t even get one note of congratulations (never mind the fact I got nary a gift).

Heck! I didn’t even notice it but, then again I’ve got a bit of an excuse as I spent Friday night wandering around the city.

So, if you want to find out about my adventures, click on the map below and be sure to zoom in way close so you can get a good view!


View Larger Map

Of crusading and disgraced governors.

Well, c’mon... with a name like Spitzer that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about what the man was up to behind closed doors!

Thought for the day.

So, you’d have to be locked away somewhere not to know about the rising cost of a barrel of oil. I was reading in the paper the other day where oil topped $108 a barrel... you know gasoline is going up, natural gas is going up but, no matter how much I fart I still can’t get rich.

It seems.

I should be doing something special to celebrate my upcoming blogoversary but, life has been so very hectic of late, I have had little time of late being concerned at all about the blog in the slightest. It’s just the way things work sometimes I imagine. Thinking about it though, makes me realize now is probably a great time to run through the draft queue and just finish and put out there all those unvoiced thoughts so the new year will start with a fresh slate.

Unnerving.

In just under two weeks I will mark my fifth blogoversary:



Of course, I will be accepting gifts of Wood or Silverware? (feh)

Not from around here.

So, I’ve been very busy of late. The schlep to work is time-consuming but bearable. One part of that schlep is the subway ride downtown from Grand Central.

Riding the subway is an experience in and of itself but, living in New York for most of my life I have become inured to it. It just has become one of those necessities of the day, some days being better than others depending on whether the trains are bunched up or not. Last week I had one day where I rode the express (which was a bit misleading because the thing crawled downtown) only to get to my stop when something happened and the train just died a car short of being totally in the station. So, there we sat with the doors closed for a good bit of time while the maddening if vague announcements about there being a problem with the train were repeated every five minutes or so.

One thing I notice now is that there is this big campaign about security down in the subways. They make it all well and clear that just by riding the train you are subject to random searches of your person (or bag) and there is a pronounced presence of police underground. It’s all very ironic in a way to someone who has lived here in New York from the seventies and who can well remember the wild west kind of atmosphere that at one time existed. Those days where riding the train was really a little unsafe, graffiti was everywhere and you just made sure to always be aware of the people around you.

Nowadays they have this ubiquitous campaign to heighten riders who may have been lulled into a false sense of security. I’m sure you’ve seen the signs if you been down in the subway... the campaign is ‘If you see something...’ well if you’ve seen it you know the rest.

Just reading it though, I know it’s one of those things that wasn’t thought up by a true New Yorker. True New Yorkers are a different breed and I’m not saying we’re a heartless bunch, just maybe a little more realistic where the world is concerned. So, taking that campaign I thought I would give it the true New Yawk slant it deserves. Just remember if you see it anywhere else, you saw it here first:

Two months and counting.

This year one (perhaps my only) New Year’s resolution was a simple one - it was to kick the weekly comic book habit. Two months in it seems I am having little problem keeping to it.

There are a few reasons for the decision I took.

Oddly enough, comics have never been more mainstream than they are now in perhaps the past 40 years. If you look at Hollywood fare, we are regularly treated today to comic originated properties being bought to the big or small screen. Comics has proven to be a very fertile ground for the medium of film and TV and reaches a broader audience than ever before because of it.

Still, there is a certain stigma to the image of the comic book reader or store proprietor that remains firmly etched in the minds of most people.

So, there’s that.

Second, the monthly book is becoming prohibitively expensive in comparison to what is was when I started out buying the damn things. While I date myself by saying that I started buying comics just at the tail end of the 10¢ cover price period, today the things cost at a minimum $2.99. That $3 proportionally puts a bigger dent in the wallet than 10¢ ever did.

Comics. at the price point they are at today, are just getting way too expensive!

Well, at least they are getting too expensive for me.

So there’s that too.

But, that’s not all there was into the decision.

Another thing very prevalent in the industry today are ‘event’ comics. Event comics are these big publisher-wide story arcs that have chapters across many titles and issues. I suppose it makes some business sense in promoting readers to go out and buy titles they wouldn’t ordinarily follow to keep up on all the chapters of the story but, if you are a regular reader of title ‘A’ and don’t have a great deal of interest in title ‘B’ (or spare cash lying around) you wind up in the unsatisfying position of missing a chapter (think of reading a paperback where pages have just been held back or cut out entirely).

Then, finally there is the style of writing today.

Well... maybe I should qualify that.

There are a lot of good writers out in comic book land today but for every good writer there are five times as many copycats or lesser imitations of those writers. Where a writer might use something as a plot device and may do so eloquently and deftly not all the writers the industry today have the same skill and there is a certain ham handedness in plots or dialog that is painful to read.

Finally, there is the art.

Look, I understand everyone wants to contribute when they work on a project but modeling a frame that will ultimately be 1.25" X 2" in Photoshop over already dark pencils and inks just makes for a muddy mess. Surprisingly enough I have a bunch of people I know in the industry who are pencilers and inkers and it’s something they are aware of too. These are the days when I desperately miss Glynis Oliver and Christie Sheele (among others), people who understood the limitations of the medium and who didn’t try to be DaVinci on a pinhead.

So, like I said, two months into the new year and you know what?

I’m not missing them at all.

Now to get about selling the oh too many boxes of the things I have lying around here and getting some coin for the effort.

Meantime, if you think I’m off the medium as a whole, you would be mistaken. I just find that hardcovers and trades are more of a way to go and I’m being much more selective in what, and when, I get something. I don’t know about other fans but, I have to say if I was a shop owner I would begin to worry.