Heh, heh, heh, heh...

Ned considers faking a form of generosity; he knows the orgasm matters to the woman but is bright enough not to blame her for the problem. “Some guys don’t have the presence of mind to fake it...”

Usually in the past Fridays had been one of my more productive nights when it comes to entries - I’ve been out of practice of late so, maybe I can start a roll here.

Hmmmm. So where to begin, where to begin...

I’m almost tempted to do the things I give a crap about versus things I don’t give a crap about. Deluged by the stories of the moment, what matters and what doesn’t?

Anything related to Martha Stewart, her trial, what star is sleeping with what other star, the Oscars. All that sh*t just rates really low on the radar - actually I find myself slightly offended by just how much it occupies the public focus.

It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, it’s just each time I get to writing about something the app crashes or it’s a long entry and my train of thought gets derailed.

It’s not like I’ve stopped writing either - I’ve just gotten to the point where I’ve od’d on the whole computer/web surfing thing and if I’m going to get things done I have to spend less time on the computer and more time actually finishing stuff.

Baseball’s Most Valuable Packages

Package Value	Contract Period	Player	Team
$252,000,000	2001-2010	Alex Rodriguez	Texas Rangers
$189,000,000	2001-2010	Derek Jeter	N.Y. Yankees
$160,000,000	2001-2008	Manny Ramirez	Boston Red Sox
$141,500,000	2003-2011	Todd Helton	Colorado Rockies
$123,800,000	2001-2008	Mike Hampton	Colorado Rockies
$120,000,000	2001-2008	Chipper Jones	Atlanta Braves
$120,000,000	2002-2008	Jason Giambi	N.Y. Yankees
$116,500,000	2000-2008	Ken Griffey Jr.	Cincinnati Reds
$105,000,000	1999-2005	Kevin Brown	L.A. Dodgers
$91,000,000	1999-2005	Mike Piazza	N.Y. Mets
$90,000,000	2002-2006	Barry Bonds	S.F. Giants
$88,500,000	2001-2006	Mike Mussina	N.Y. Yankees
$87,500,000	1999-2005	Bernie Williams	N.Y. Yankees
$85,000,000	2002-2006	Jeff Bagwell	Houston Astros
$84,000,000	2000-2005	Shawn Green	L.A. Dodgers
$80,000,000	1999-2004	Mo Vaughn	Anaheim Angels
$75,000,000	1998-2003	Pedro Martinez	Boston Red Sox
$75,000,000	2000-2005	Larry Walker	Colorado Rockies
$72,000,000	2002-2005	Sammy Sosa	Chicago Cubs
$68,000,000	2001-2004	Carlos Delgado	Toronto Blue Jays
$68,500,000	1998-2003	Gary Sheffield	L.A. Dodgers
$65,000,000	1999-2003	Albert Belle	Baltimore Orioles
$57,500,000	1998-2002	Greg Maddux	Atlanta Braves

I just realized, I’m a member of the Pepcid generation.

How do you say Mocha Frappacino in Chinese?

SHANGHAI -(Dow Jones)- U.S. coffee giant Starbucks Corp. (NasdaqNM:SBUX - News) said Thursday it has sued a chain of coffee houses in Shanghai for copying the Starbucks name in Chinese.

September 9, 1993...
...The PLO considers that the signing of the Declaration of Principles constitutes a historic event, inaugurating a new epoch of peaceful coexistence, free from violence and all other acts which endanger peace and stability. Accordingly, the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators...

Sincerely, Yasser Arafat
Chairman, The Palestine Liberation Organization



Thu Jan 29, 7:44 AM ET
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) - The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for Thursday's suicide bus bombing in a phone call to AFP.

Tadano added: “I'm not gay. I’d like to clear that fact up right now.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with it...

“You could tell he was nervous,” said Sizemore, a top prospect who lived with Tadano this winter. “But I don't think it changed anybody’s opinion of him. After it was said and done, nobody thought anything more of it. He’s a great guy and a great pitcher.”

...must fight ...urge ...to make ...really ...really ...bad joke. ...must ...keep from ...putting foot ...in mouth.

Tadano knows he may face fan abuse in major league parks such as Yankee Stadium, where heckling the visitors is part of the pageantry.

He joked that he's ready for it.

“I don't understand English, so it doesn't really matter,” he said.

More baseball fun from the people who gave you Chief Wahoo.

Captain, My Captain...

Keeshan's "Captain Kangaroo" premiered on CBS in 1955 and ran for 30 years before moving to public television for six more. It was wildly popular among children and won six Emmy Awards, three Gabriels and three Peabody Awards.

Back in the good ’ole days when I first started using the computer, I used to do things like make sound files for system sounds, make custom startup screens, custom desktop pictures and the like. At some point a few years ago (sometime right around system 8 I think) I just stopped doing stuff like that.

I think a lot of people did, you used to be able to go to the MacWorld website and download sounds and things, I don’t know if people are really doing that kind of thing anymore - there’s all the multimedia for the web, mp3s all kinds of things now that make the fun things I used to do seem so simplistic.

The other day though, I heard something that I thought would make a really good alert sound, it was the spastic yell that emitted from Howard Dean at the end of his speech after the Iowa caucuses. I don’t think I’ve witnessed anything as ugly from a politician since seeing GW’s brutalization of the english language. GW speaks english as if its his second language.

As far as the Howard Dean spastic war cry, I can’t find it and believe me I looked - watching him give that speech was like watching a bad car wreck.

Me? Which I'd rather be ? You know what I'd rather do? If I thought, had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun and just end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog.

Fountain Hughes interviewed by Hermond Norwood in Baltimore on 06/11/49 at the age of 101 talking about growing up as a slave in these United States.

Voices from the Days of Slavery. Library of Congress site on American Memory provided via blog sensei.

Last week Ted Koppel and Nightline did a series of shows from Baghdad.

The author of the Dear Raed Weblog took Koppel on a tour of Baghdad and it was fascinating. While we attempt in the west to paint the region with a broad brush to justify our nation’s actions, it’s interesting to see there are other perspectives to the situation.

It’s also an interesting read (the weblog that is) - the stories up on the Nightline site are fairly interesting too.

Blog Sensei put a link to a metrosexual quiz up. I scored an 8, slovenlynous always wins out in the end.

Comedy Central is running this show called the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. The last comedian up is this guy called ‘Larry the Cable Guy.’ The guy has a great act and it’s worth checking out - he’s the first white trash comic I think I’ve seen.

It’s on Monday night at 7:30 but again the guy is up last so, you probably won’t need to watch the whole thing unless you like Jeff Foxworthy.

So, I’m watching TV the other day. This commercial comes on, there’s a couple in a row boat. The row boat is taking on water due to a leak in the bottom of the boat. The guy (the one with the oars) is looking around frantically to figure out a way to stop the boat from sinking. His companion, a shapely young woman, reaches into her purse and violá! She takes out a tampon and gingerly inserts it into the hole with the leak solving the problem.

I’m a guy.

I know from experience none of the ladies I’ve known relishes ‘the curse’ but, am I missing something here? What’s the inference of this spot? Is this woman supposed to be the McGyver of tampons? I’m thinking this spot was written by some dopey guy but, I could be wrong. I’m curious to know what women think when they see something like this — as a guy all I can say is that it would probably make for one truly bizarre date.

Then I did some searching:

It's not about how old you are.
It's not about what you do for a living.
It's not about being a mom or a career woman.

It's a way of being - a state of mind.

Pearl Girl - a woman who's sensual, confident and comfortable in her own skin.

Tampax celebrates a Pearl Girl's true essence and active lifestyle with Tampax Pearl Plastic - the innovative tampon that's ALL about keeping you out there, feeling fresh and feminine EVERY day of the month. With the incredible comfort and extraordinary protection of Tampax Pearl, the days of your period become like any other day.

Who writes this stuff?! Apparently this is supposed to be the ‘Pearl Girl’s’ buzz.

Then I look further and it appears that there’s some sort of faux email campaign about the damn things.

The things you miss out on being a guy.

Today, I got to shovel again. Whoopee! So, we get a glimpse into daily life around the ole F.O.S.

Actually it wasn’t that bad and I don’t mind getting the exercise. The last snow we had last week we got quite a bit but all the gook I threw down took pretty good care of it.

I wasn’t sure we were going to get a lot of snow. I kept watching the TV yesterday into the night somehow hoping the forecast would change. I just hated last week with the cold weather and I was really hoping it would get just warm enough we would have rain. I can’t complain too much about the cold though, I just play hermit and avoid going out.

So, I got the driveway shoveled and then I threw down the last of the stuff I had gotten since it was still snowing. It was good since it meant that I wouldn’t have to go out again. I even did part of the neighbor’s driveway — the bottom part, the hard part where the plow kicks back all the snow from the street. It was a matter of self-interest in a way since we’re downhill from those neighbors and I was insuring the next time the plow came through I didn’t just kick a bunch of snow back into the driveway.

I was also hoping my neighbor would ‘get it’ and the next time we had snow, shovel the way I did since I went up the street in front of his house and took a lot of the snow and just shoveled it back up out of the street. This way the next time the plow came through he didn’t wind up with ‘plow mess.’

Afterward I went in and told the EYOC (that’s Eighty Year Old Child for the uninitiated) that the ‘guys’ had come to shovel and asked how much I should tip them. He got all up in arms about tipping anyone who shoveled the driveway. Then, to add fuel to the fire, I said it had cost $30 to shovel the driveway.

Well that hit a nerve, last time we had a heavy snow though the guys knocking on the door actually wanted a bit more than that (and I couldn’t blame them - it is a bit of work). I wanted to make a point.

So, he turned and said, “Didn’t you shovel it? I saw you outside I thought you were taking the snow off?”

The EYOC hasn’t shoveled in years, not since he was the SFYOC (Sixty Five Year Old Child) or even before, I always had those images of seeing him keeled over in the driveway. As much as I may not get along with him at times, I wouldn’t let that happen.

Anyway, I said to him, “Yeah, the snow crew came and shoveled the driveway for you.”

He was mumbling and grumbling when I just turned around and said finally that I had in fact shoveled but, maybe he should think about paying me for it. I didn’t want money from him and I said that. What I did want is to be able to stop hearing him complain about me on the phone all the time and that’s what I said.

This caused him great consternation. His first response was to yell on how we should just have the phone taken out of the house because he can’t have a private conversation - this is from the guy who has the door closed but, whose hearing is so incredibly bad the level of his voice can be heard rather clearly in the basement.

On the subject of his hearing, when he pulls into the driveway you can hear (I mean, you actually know) what radio station he has on. When he has the TV on sometimes, you can actually watch the same channel in another part of the house without the sound on and follow everything rather well (I have confronted him at times about this by knocking on his door and telling him the neighbors called and asked if he would turn his TV up because they can’t quite hear it clearly).

He has every right to complain as much as he wants, I just don’t want to hear it. It gets a little much at times. After washing his dishes, taking out his trash, cooking for him, fixing everything around the house that breaks (which is how I spent a better part of Saturday - fixing the exercise bike I gave him because he broke the thing) you grow tired of hearing someone complain about you instead of at least appreciating the efforts you put in on their behalf.

I’m not alone in this, I know other people dealing with older family members going through much the same thing but, I have been doing a lot longer than a lot of people realize.

Anyway, the snow got shoveled and I gave him a bit of grief. He actually had been invited to go out with a lady friend but as he put it ‘he doesn’t want her to get the wrong idea.’ This translates into, ‘if I let her get too close she’ll come to rely on me and I don’t want to feel responsible to anyone.’

This is a lifelong trait.

So, that got done and the bike got fixed and I managed to get some things around here cleaned up reclaiming more open floor. My life has become a quest to throw things out and reclaim floor space - what does that say about me.

I’m never sure who reads so, I’m sorry to bore. I had meant to write the other day about Bush’s announcement regarding the space program, about watching Dick Gephardt speak and also about MLK’s birthday which was this past Thursday but, in each instance I crashed when trying to upload the entries so, it’s just more mundane stuff — if I’m motivated later maybe I can come up with something more entertaining.

I write these long entries, incomplete. I try to save them as drafts and whammo! App crashes. Crap!

The new tool for voters in the New Millenium:

FactCheck.org

It’s snowing again and I’ve already spoken to how much I love the winter’s answer to precipitation. I threw salt and ice melt down on the driveway earlier so every 45 minutes or so, I go to the window and look out to see the black pavement of the driveway with a glee akin to a kid at Christmas.

Earlier this winter, I shoveled after a particularly heavy snow. I was pleased with two things: I got it down quickly for the amount of snow and I didn’t wind up with a sore back the next day.

Monday we had a little bit of snow and I went out to clear it from the driveway. Nothing big really, just pushing the stuff of to the side. While I was doing it, the lip of the shovel caught on part of the concrete of the driveway, a small rise of a sort. Of course when this happened, I got twisted up because I was pushing forward and the shovel refused to move past the rise.

I wound up hurting my back.

So, today is probably the first day it doesn’t hurt as much (or at least I didn’t notice it as much as I did Monday night and Tuesday) and I’m throwing gook on the driveway to make life easier in the morning (and also not to spend as much time in the bone-numbing cold).

That’s the way things work sometimes, big, big things (8 inches of snow), no problem — little thing (small dusting) and I wind up hurt.

Go figure.

The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission can revoke the license of a cab driver who refuses to pick up a customer even if the driver has no prior violations, an appeals court in Manhattan ruled Tuesday.

The unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, 1st Department, reversed a lower court ruling that said the penalty was too stiff for a first infraction and violated the city's Administrative Code, which sets guidelines for punishing drivers.

I saw this in the paper today and just had to weigh in...

There is a unfair standard being applied here which no one seems interested in addressing. The enforcement of this rule is as it applies to ‘yellow, medallion cab drivers.’ Some of you might ask whatever do you mean?

Well, New York is served by loads and loads of cabs. There are just below 13,000 medallion, yellow taxis. These are the cabs most identified with New York city. They are the cabs which are legally allowed to acknowledge street hails and to service the airports and such.

However, there are fleets upon fleets of taxis serving New York. There are the livery (gypsy) cabs seen in so many neighborhoods of the outer boroughs (sometimes with radios and often accepting street hails), radio car services (which employers use to take workers home after a late night and to the airport prior to business trips) and simple radio taxis (fleets of cabs which are base in the outer boroughs and take radio calls only serving local neighborhoods in which they are based).

Everybody has taxi horror stories (I’ve been on both ends of the coin) but, bear in mind the rules which are being applied are almost exclusively being applied to yellow, medallion taxis only!

Radio cars (black cars as they are known throughout the industry) deal in corporate (read clean) work. The radio groups are self-regulating, don’t deal with cash calls often and get a minimum every time someone sits in the back seat of their car (the drop is around $8 now I believe). Radio drivers don’t need to discriminate between riders because most of their work is paid in advance via credit card. It’s not a cash business, they don’t carry excess amounts of cash and their clientele is for the most part pre-screened. Also, as a driver for a radio group, they get benefits, spend much of their day waiting (parked) for a call and aren’t in a position where they would have to refuse a fare.

Livery cars often work the outer boroughs. The taxi and limousine commission focuses the lion’s share of it’s enforcement efforts in Manhattan and at the airports. While livery cab drivers are still subject to enforcement of TLC equipment violations (whether ticketed by TLC inspectors or NYPD) the enforcement is sporadic at best. Consequently, this is one of the reasons you can see a ‘gypsy’ cab that looks as if it’s being held together by string. It’s also why you hear those horror stories every once and awhile of somebody getting into a ‘gypsy’ cab, going to the airport and paying a ridiculous sum. Gypsy cabs usually don’t have meters and the driver can get away with charging a fee at his discretion (depending on whether or not he thinks he’ll get caught). Maybe he doesn’t have insurance, maybe he doesn’t even have a license. It’s not an easy job and usually the gypsy cab driver is desperate to make money (could be an illegal alien) but, there is after all a gyp in gypsy. If a livery cab driver refuses a fare in the outer boroughs, chances are more than likely nobody will know or complain (no handy dandy medallion number to lodge a formal complaint against).

Radio groups in the outer boroughs also screen their clientele to a certain extent. Drivers are ‘employees’ and they usually don’t accept street hails unless they want to make some extra money without the boss knowing about it.

Now, we get to the yellow cab drivers.

Most yellow cab drivers are independent contractors meaning they rent the car and medallion per shift (it’s actually called leasing). In the old days (right around the time I was starting) there was a union and to be a yellow cab driver you had to join. You paid union dues but, got the benefits of union representation in any dispute with the cab company you worked for. Also, you and the company were partners. The cab company got a percentage of the meter receipts each shift and you got a percentage of the receipts plus your tips. The company paid for gas and upkeep on the cab. If you broke down, driver and company bore the loss of time due to breakdown equally. Also, at this time radios were still in medallion cabs meaning if there wasn’t any street business, you could work the radio and vice a versa (round about ’84 then Mayor Koch outlawed radios in yellow cabs which started the ‘black car’ business). The nice thing about the radios is, help was only a radio call away.

Again, nowadays drivers are on their own. If the car breaks down, they might get a credit on some of their lease monies but, it’s up to the discretion of the owner. When the fare goes up, so too do the lease rates meaning any increase doesn’t benefit the driver as much as it does the cab owner. There are no benefits (health or otherwise), if you don’t work, you don’t make money. You have to make back your lease money and the money you’ll spend on gas before you even begin to earn money for yourself. Lease rates can run anywhere from $85 to $120 per 12 hour shift - if you think the streets are brimming with fares at 3:30 in the morning, you’re sadly mistaken.

And if someone winds up taking you to a remote area to rob you and you wind up shot, too bad. There’s no pension (as there is for a city employee), no medical benefits and if you survive you can be sure there won’t be the kind of manhunt there is when a cop or a city bus driver is shot. There is no hue and cry of outrage from the general populace when a yellow cab driver gets shot as much as a byline buried somewhere in the interior of the paper. Of course, while you’re recovering from your injuries, you’ll be unemployed without any income.

Yellow taxis aren’t a right. They aren’t public transportation in the same sense the subway or bus is. The only thing a driver has to protect himself are his own wits, abilities and street savvy. The old saw goes ‘walk a mile in his shoes’ and anyone who gets their back up about cab drivers with righteous indignation should spend a couple of shifts in the drivers’ seat before opening their big mouth. After a couple of days bouncing your kidneys around for 14 hours and dealing with the public I think you’ll have a higher opinion of taxi drivers.