More humor from the Onion:

Alabama Environmentalists Lobbies For Solar-Power Electric Chair.

The angry blogger.

Blogging is fun and all that but, I mainly feel that it’s a means to an end. Specifically, the reason I’ve been doing it is to get in the habit of writing regularly and to prepare myself for writing longer pieces of both fiction and non-fiction. It’s like a lot of things I do in that it may not pay of immediate dividends but, there is a goal at some unseen point somewhere down the road which will be reached because of the efforts put into an area.

I can’t really say that my blog has a distinct focus though, mainly I use it for whatever has caught my attention at a given moment and then use it as a place to try to write about my thoughts on a particular topic.

Thing is, I’ve noticed blogs generally fall into a couple of basic categories:

There’s the self promotional blog which is focuses mainly on promoting the writer(s) of the blog, it’s a way of getting their message out to the world and most of the entries are specifically designed to promote their latest endeavor.

Then, there’s the gripe blog - here a blog is used as an outlet for all the indignities and slights the blogger is subjected to as they make their way through the world. Sometimes these kinds of blogs can go into excruciating detail about personal matters (sometimes to the peril of the author), other times it can just be a matter of griping about a specific area of interest (lots of political blogs are devoted to these efforts). They are usually short on answers but, long on the gripe.

There are also blogs which are devoted to driving traffic to other sites and generating revenue (a lot of porn blogs set up this way - oops that’s right none of us looks at porn, it just those other people.)

I’m sure there are a couple of other categories but, I think you get the drift. I don’t think my blog readily falls into any of these divisions easily but, I wouldn’t think I would be the best judge either.

One thing though that blogs are generally short on, is generating a good laugh for their readers and I think that‘s not a good thing. So, with that in mind, the next few posts are focused on doing just that (making you laugh) enjoy.

First up, if you ever find yourself in a foul mood - may I suggest a brief electronic sojourn over to The Onion website where you can find gems like the one below:

Office Janitor Asks To Work From Home

Got to love this.

Listening to some music this morning and got me wanting to look at this again, always enjoyable and a spectacular example of what a music video can be:

How sad.

Just saw this on a crawl and the first thought I had was how very sad.

She had been unresponsive and was rushed to the hospital Thursday while staying at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino, hotel officials said.

First there is the whole business surrounding the death of her son against the backdrop of the birth of her daughter - then the bizarre marriage between her and the skeevy lawyer. Just really, really sad and tragic.

Was it really that long ago?!?



I came across this shot today - I don’t think I’ve ever lost my distaste for ‘dressing up’ and I can remember how uncomfortable I felt in this suit.

Laurie, who I saw as recently as two weeks back looks as lovely as ever. She now has a son who is slightly older than I was when this picture was taken which is somewhat amazing. Even more amazing is that we still are in touch after all these years.

If you had asked me when the picture was taken if I could have even imagined the path our lives have taken us, I couldn’t have even begun to guess and I have to admit to being fascinated by the route we have both followed.

Making baseball truly an international sport.

“We should not only regard it as a strange game, but who knows,” Morde said. “It could sooner than later become a hard currency earning opportunity for us.”

Interesting story about a recent goodwill trip.

Pretty pictures.


Something just put up on the Flickr stream with a whole bunch of other new shots.

Surprised?

I don’t think so.


“A prerequisite for winning the Nobel Peace Prize is making a difference, and Al Gore has made a difference,” Conservative Member of Parliament Boerge Brende, a former minister of environment and then of trade, told The Associated Press.

Not a lot to say.

Generally, I’m in a position of not having a lot to say these days. Between that and the fact the blog doesn’t generate much in the way of traffic (do people read this thing?), I have been focusing my efforts elsewhere of late. Also, there’s the greater fallout from having to deal with the events of earlier this month which seem very far away even though less than a month has passed.

I’ve got a bunch of things cooking - good things, positive things, which I am happy about and I find myself trying to regain my momentum. I don’t do well when the cold weather comes around, I just don’t like it that much, never have really. Now, I find myself trying to keep moving forward even though I realize there have been some big things happening.

I have feelers out and have done preliminary work into exploring a new direction in terms of what it is I do but, until things come to fruition, better off not talking about it. Also, I spend a lot of time each and every day culling. There is a zen like place I want to arrive at, a place that is free from clutter. Sounds simple but, I don’t know if it is a consequence of age or not, it seems the older I get the more clutter amasses or the more attention needs to be given to keep it from amassing.

I spoke to an old friend the other day. This friend has a storage space where he keeps his prized collection of books. He doesn’t read them, but they’re there in case he wants to.

Think about that statement for a moment.

These are things which he pays to keep stored away, things he has access to, but instead of truly enjoying them they have become a burden to him. He pays for the comfort and security having these things brings him. He’s not the only person I know who lives life like that. There are a lot of people in and around cities who just don’t feel they have enough space and keep things in storage.

I’m like that too in a way. Thing is, I think the impulse arises out of being in a situation where I had very little and where I struggled enormously with just managing to get by in life. I’ve heard stories of people who lived through the depression and consequently were always fearful of losing everything. Because of this, they saved everything whether or not they truly had a use for it or needed it. Their fear ruled them.

I don’t want to live my life ruled by fear.

There are two ways to deal with clutter, one way is the wholesale toss. I’m not a big fan of the wholesale toss because there are some things which are treasures and which you should manage to hold onto. So, lately what I’ve been spending a lot of time doing is sorting through the clutter, getting my house in order so to speak and clearing the decks. I’m not there yet, it’s a big job but, it took around 20 years to amass all this crap, I figure if it take a year or two to get rid of it all, it’s worth it if it means living the next 20 years clutter free and without the lurking fear in the back of my mind.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!



If you look closely at the spinner rack in front of this store on Mulberry Street you will see a preponderance of Hollywood’s take on Italians. Hollywood has done a fairly good job of glorifying a ridiculously small segment of the population and consequently coloring many people’s view of Italians as a group.

What do I mean?

According to the United States census numbers, Italians are the 6th largest ethnic group in the US, clocking in with 15,638,348 Americans of Italian descent and according to the FBI website: The FBI estimates the size of the four IOC groups to be approximately 25,000 members and 250,000 affiliates worldwide. There are more than 3,000 members and affiliates in the United States.

3,000 as a percentage of 15,638,348 works out to .019%.

Yet strangely enough according to the Wikipedia entry on Italian Americans: To this day, Italian Americans are frequently associated with organized crime in the minds of most Americans, largely due to pervasive media stereotyping and a number of popular gangster movies (such as The Godfather and Goodfellas). A Zogby International survey revealed that 78 percent of teenagers 13 to 18 associated Italian Americans with either criminal activity or blue-collar work. A survey by the Response Analysis Corp. reported that 74 percent of adult Americans believe most Italian Americans have “some connection” to organized crime.[2]

Thanks Hollywood and thanks to idiots like the owner of this store who continue in perpetuating a myth.

FCB on a Saturday morning.'

A few weeks back, this was Anna pre haircut while we were experiencing mild, mild weather. Now, having just gotten past the coldest day in two years I have to wonder if I am not the subject of some Kitty Kursing.

I know.

Yankees sending delegation to China.

Understand as I was reading this today, I couldn’t help but think there is a grossly politically incorrect, terribly funny joke in here - any help that can be provided would be appreciated.

The Amish couple and the saddle.

I got a call from my good friend Sarah last night (not to be confused with Madame X) who relayed an interesting tale of a meandering drive through snow covered hills which took her, her son and her mother into a world which has existed right on their doorstep but which they never stepped into. It was a reminder in some ways of the magical wonder which is all around us if we but open ourselves up to the possibilities the world presents us with.

While it was a fascinating journey for each of the participants, it can perhaps be best summed up by the observations of a disaffected five year old who, when asked if he had noticed anything different about the people who had been given a ride (the Amish couple), observed that the man wore a hat.

Strategies for the new millennium.

Just was reading this column in New York Magazine by Kurt Andersen which I thought I would share, click through to read it in its entirety. Makes a couple very salient points which hopefully the right people will pick up on:

The Great Society programs of the mid-sixties—Food Stamps, Head Start, Medicaid, Medicare—were the final flowering of a social-welfare era that began with FDR’s New Deal 30 years earlier. The countervailing rightward pendulum swing—deregulation and tax cuts under Reagan, welfare reform under Clinton, still more tax cuts under Bush—has dominated our political economy for nearly the past 30 years.

In other words, the time seems to be ripening for a transformative surge of new passion and policy and political traction around the idea of economic fairness. Blaming illegal Mexican immigrants and dollar-an-hour Chinese workers for our troubles is an easy way to vent, but Lou Dobbs’s other regular targets are pretty much on the mark: corporate greedheads and their craven enablers in the political class.

For more than a generation, the Republicans have pitched themselves as the good-old-days party, appealing to the nostalgic hunger for the wholesome, coherent society and culture of mid-century, before life went crazy around 1968. What the Democrats can do now is the same thing, only different—that is, appeal to the nostalgic hunger for the sense of basic economic security and fairness that prevailed before life went crazy around 1986.

Why do I feel there is a certain irony in this?

Today, which is the anniversary of the Roe V. Wade decision, the President made the following comments:

President Bush marked the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision Monday, telling thousands of abortion foes he shares their goal of seeing “the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected into law.” Bush also signaled his unchanged opposition to a key goal of the Democrats who now control Congress: broadening embryonic stem-cell research.

Contrasted against this:

This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks). It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion.

Admittedly these are both issues I have mixed feelings about but, why do I get the sense, somewhere, someone is having a good laugh at our expense?

Food, glorious food!

I am driven by my stomach, what can I say. There are few things in life which can exceed the satisfaction and delight of a good meal. To that end I am always on the lookout for new places with which to test my dining chops and to expand my repertoire of dining locales. Perhaps the only advantage I really take out of living around such a large city is exploring and discovering new dining treasures.

To that end a few things caught my eye this week which I thought I would share.

First off, I can’t say why, maybe I saw something on the Food Network or the History Channel about automats but it got me to thinking about them and doing a bit of idle surfing on the topic. I remember the old Automat which was on 42nd and 3rd (now a GAP I think) but, I can’t really say it was a place I frequented with any regularity. I do remember a Horn and Hardart restaurant that was located in the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers. I remember it in that I can definitely recall eating there as a kid but, again it left little impact on me as far as the actual food itself went.

Well, it appears there’s a new automat which opened a few months back and I want to check out (of course if anyone has checked it out I’d be curious as to their thoughts on the place)

Conceived by Robert Kwak, David Leong, and a designer known as “Nobu,” Bamn will serve finger foods, like grilled cheese and pizza dumplings, with an occasional Asian kick. It’s the first restaurant venture by Mr. Kwak, an entrepreneur who launched the first Asian basketball league in Manhattan. Items will cost between $1.50 and $2.50, and diners should either bring quarters or silver dollars or use the store's change machine to get them.

Second, for the next two weeks New Yorkers are fortunate to experience Restaurant Week (why it’s called Week when it is two weeks escapes me but, there you have it). What’s great about restaurant week is that you have the opportunity to try a lot of great restaurants that would otherwise be out of the range of the pocketbook. Granted, you have to stick to a predesignated menu but, you do get the chance to really appreciate some of the fine restaurants in the city.

I’ve taken advantage of Restaurant Week over the summer and all I can say was that it wound up being a half good (Lupa)/half bad (Mesa Grill) experience. If you haven’t heard of or checked out a restaurant during Restaurant Week, well it is well worth it and you are sure to find something to your taste!

Where it went wrong.

Everytime I think about where Harrison Ford went wrong in his career, I look back at Air Force One. There was something almost cartoony about that movie. Besides the laughability of the premise of President as action hero, it was around this time Harrison was getting a little long in the tooth for roles like these.

I keep thinking of Clint Eastwood and how he managed to make a great career for himself even as he aged. Even Burt Reynolds has done a few great turns through the years by choosing to step away from the kind of roles which he was best known for (take a look at Burt’s guesting on the X-Files or his turn in Boogie Nights).

Even Bruce Willis has done a somewhat interesting job of taking his career and deciding to be more of a character actor than a leading man a lot of the time, even when he does take on the role of action hero, it’s less over the top than what he used to do - contrast any of the Die Hard movies with Unbreakable.

I know there has been talk about another Indiana Jones movie but, if Harrison Ford is running around in that like he was in the others... well, let’s just say it might not come across the way the filmmakers are intending. Thing is, George Lucas always said there were supposed to be nine Star Wars movies, the first three being the middle three, the last batch being the first three and then there was supposed to be a trilogy that took place after Return of the Jedi. I kinda wouldn’t mind seeing those same actors (Hammill, Fisher and Ford) reprising those roles as older people in another trilogy.

Remind me.

If you live locally (the greater NYC area), tomorrow when you are running around in your short shorts and t-shirt, remind me how we’re experiencing Global Warming. That it took until the middle of January for the temperature to get this low is to me a blessing. Anyone who has to heat a home will tell you the same. The first significant snow (one that sticked) arrived last night, if that is all the snow we get this year, nothing would make me happier. Hopefully, since it’s already the 19th of January, it will be a brief time we have to spend bundled up against the elements.

Really interesting article,

which I came across by way of the Monster blog. Definitely worth a read and something which resonated within me given my recent post.

From the Harvard School of Business.

The Trap of Overwhelming Demands

Fortunately, most managers can overcome their habitual fire fighting. To do so, however, they must first clear the most difficult hurdle: the belief that they are indispensable. Managers who complain about having too little time often thrive on the sense of importance that their busyness generates. They enjoy being at the center of frantic activity where people continually ask them for help, information, or advice. If they were honest, then they would really not want more time—especially time to reflect!

Has this happened to anyone else?

In the midst of everything that was going on last week I noticed something going on with my phone (and I noticed this the first day all the craziness began). Basically, even though the thing was hooked up and had been charged, it was dying out fairly fast and no longer seemed to be getting decent reception. I’ve had the stupid thing for something like two years now but, as with all my technology purchases, I tend to squeeze every last bit of usefulness out of the life of any gadget I buy. Whether it’s phones, computers, TVs, etc. - I long ago stopped being seduced by the allure of the latest and the greatest. When I do finally plunk down some samolians to get something though, I am genuinely pleased because it entails a big leap forward (LOL).

So, the phone, over the last few days has been acting strangely. No reception, no ringing, thing runs out of juice much faster than I can remember it ever doing and I’m thinking it’s time to get a new battery. Anyone else have this kind of thing happening? This of course is presupposing people hold onto a phone long enough for the battery to go bad (which seems like a rarity these days).