Shockingly Provincial

One More Saint

2007-01-09T02:04:00.000-06:00

The phrase, "Oh, I didn't go anywhere. I just wasn't answering the phone." Comes to mind. One might reasonably assume that my prolonged absence had something to do with the holidays or perhaps a vacation. This isn't exactly the case.

First of all the old man was on vacation. This is never good for me. When he isn't working, he and the the crazy lady (aka my mother) push back their bedtime to almost two in the morning. This pretty much eliminates my private time. I cannot write with them awake and about as they both have that god awful habit of walking in and reading the computer screen over your shoulder to see what you are doing.

Then there is the Christmas thing. I don't really hate it. I just get really aggravated with all the petty things leading up to the date. The crazy lady goes extra nuts what with the need to prepare the house for the holiday. (Decorations. cleaning. Putting things away that we are going to need the day after, but should be out of sight for the Holiday gathering). Christmas Eve is our big day. We have prime rib. We set fourteen places. By the time everything is said and done I've spent a small eternity with a very intense woman who I just want to get away from so I make her even more intense by refusing to be dragged along to yet another gathering on Christmas Day. It is the gathering for my older brother's side of the family. While I certainly love and respect all that side of the family, I'm not particularly close with them and all I really want to do is kill things on the computer without someone always asking me (aka telling me) to do this chore or that chore.

So while the folks are away Christmas day the phone rings. I look at the caller ID. It is from the home of a family that I know has somebody in the hospital with cancer related surgery. There is no way I'm answering the. The chance that I might end up having to deliver bad news to my mother is all too great. Let the answering service buffer me.

Side note: For some reason the folks feel I should always answer the phone when they are out. I don't understand this. The answering service will record a message. I notoriously forgot messages. They just don't stick in my brain. Write it down one might say. My handwriting is often impossible for even me to read. Numbers get just plain butchered. It doesn't matter. My unwillingness to answer the phone galls them.

So the parents come home late on Christmas night (possibly into the morning after). One of the the very first questions (after having me unload the van of presents) is, "Did anyone call?" The mother is still ticked with me for not going with for the evening's festivities and I can see her getting just plain angry when I relay the fact that the phone did ring, but I didn't pick up. The mother goes to stomp past me on her way to retrieve the phone messages. Her foot catches on a stack of bottled water. She goes down. Hard. It hurts allot, but she doesn't want to admit there is a fracture. Who wants to spend Christmas night in the emergency room.

We all go to bed knowing there is a fracture and that the morning will require a trip to the emergency room.

Bright and early the old man wakes me up and tells me to get dressed, we are going to the hospital. I think, "There is absolutely no reason. I need to go. The old man is going to drop Mom off at the entrance and park the car. I will be there, primarily to escort my mother the 10 feet from the entrance to the check in desk." I don't say this. I get dressed. I know the old man is pissed at me. My mom in the days that will follow will joke that I am the reason her arm is broken. I am fairly certain my father feels this to be true.

Doctor's office's and emergency room's have a special kind of torture in them now. They always have a television on. The problem is they always have on shows like Judge Judy or The View on at a volume on can not tune out. After about four hours of this hell my mother could see I was about ready to explode. My mother asked If I wanted to go. I said yes. She asked my father if he would take me. He said no. (Again part of it was the fact that he would never leave my mother to wait alone in the emergency room, but allot of it was he was pissed at me and wanted me there as punishment.) I finally decided to walk. I asked the old man if he his ear protection with him. He said it was out in the car. He did not offer to get it for me. He did not offer me the keys to the car that I might fetch them myself. I was pretty much (explicative deleted) out of luck. I buttoned up my jean jacket and braved the 39 degree weather. I may have stopped to warm up at a video game store along the way.

Hours after I arrive home the parents return. My mother is worn out and turns in early (sleeping in the computer room because she cannot get up and down the stairs to her bedroom with the monster temporary cast on her arm). Eventually I go to sleep.

The next morning a cat is tossed into my room to wake me up. I come downstairs and hear my mother half talking half sobbing. I ask my father what's wrong. My grandmother from my older brother's side of the family, has passed away. The paramedic called my mother because, when trying to get answers from my grandfather (who suffers from dementia) they finally get em to tell em the names of his children. My grandfather lists em from youngest to oldest and includes the name of my mother's first husband (who passed away thirty five years ago). My mother has the same first name as my aunt and for some reason my mother's name was the first of the two on the list by the phone. The paramedic is in a hurry and needs a name of a funeral home to release the body to. She names the local place that buried her first husband so many years ago, then has to get a hold of my aunts and uncle to not only break the news to them, that their mother has died, but to inform them that she was pressed into making a decision on funeral directors.

Hours later we arrive at the house. For some reason the funeral home has yet to pick up the body. All of My grandmother's children see her as she is laying on the kitchen floor. (I stay outside. I saw her this last thanksgiving. That is my final image of her) A sad truth is learned. Sometimes there is no dignified way to get ones deceased relative out of the house through narrow halls and steep stairs. My brother is furious. The men don't even cover up the head all the way.

The rest of the week is spent on things related to to the wake and funeral.

I am saddened that the world lost one of it's best. My grandmother was loved by many and spent many years taking care of a husband who stopped working and took up drinking full time, long before he ever got sick. When asked why she cared for him rather then let him be put into a long term care facility she said that she would never have had her four wonderful children, 23 grandchildren and eight great grand children with out him. She didn't do all that alone I think was her phrase.

Gram was also a lifelong Cubs fan. She managed to pass this devotion on to most of her children and grandchildren (including my older brother). The first time I ever went to a baseball game was with my brothers and my grandmother. If I were a sports fan, I probably would cheer for the cubs too, despite the fact they are part of the north side.

This is one of those rare occasions where I don't know where to end. I have no summary. I can not begin to do justice in describing my grandmother's life.

More Laters

Thanks To Captain Morgan Birth Control

2006-12-18T01:48:00.000-06:00

So anyway offspring of a friend of the family (hello asexual anonymous intro) was just hospitalized for an eating disorder. This is something you never want to hear. Sure you giggle a little when you hear a kid you went to grade school with is serving twenty in the big house for tax evasion (the little devil inside always makes you giggle even though you know it is wrong). There is a little joy in seeing overweight stressed worn out slob who was once the attractive person who ages past wouldn't give you the time of day. I'm sure there are quite a few who delight in the knowledge while I used to be that top 10 percent A + student, I've dropped out of college more than once and now live with my parents as a Paranoid Unemployed Dungeon Master.

But this anorexia thing is just plain scary. You see overweight comedians make jokes about not understanding eating anorexia. There are folks who will say it's not a disease it is just stupidity. Some people will look at in much the same way as they view alcoholism, a matter of will power.

Now I used to spend a lot of time drunk. I worked in a bar. I drank the nights I worked. I'd come in and hang out on my nights off. 3 - 5 nights a week I come home buzzed at the least. If I was in a bar there was no way I was not going to drink. It is that simple. I didn't go to rehab and you wont catch me with in five miles of AA (no I do not need to say I'm helpless and only god can make me better). I can have a beer on my own. Heck on my birthday I even pulled out the 16 year old bottle of Bushmill's Irish whiskey and made myself a cocktail. I can not have 2 or three drinks. I can not go into a bar. It isn't a matter of will power. If I have more than a couple drink I'm going to get 100 % totally blasted. If I go into a bar I'm going to get drunk and spend every dollar in my wallet. It is not a matter of will power. It is a matter of accepting the reality that I cannot drink socially and not putting myself in a situation where I might.

Eating disorders have the problem that you can never get away from a problem with food. You can throw away all the fashion magazines. You can stop watching television. But that wont stop a person from seeing unhealthy body images. It is a constant struggle with the self esteem and the need to be thin. So many of these children (and adults, the ones that live that long or start late) end up with serious medical conditions or dead.

I was amazed to find out that the child will be hospitalized for almost a month. Not that I don't think it is necessary, I've just amazed that the insurance company would approve. I've seen people attempt suicide and get almost pushed out the door after a couple weeks. I guess the insurance companies figure that if they don't pay to try and get the person healthy now, they will could possibly be paying for a number of hospitalizations down the road.

I think the worst part of this is the kid went to the parents. The parents had no idea that the kid was only allowing 300 calories a day. I know they aren't bad parents. Life gets a little busy and suddenly your kids are teenagers and it seems like they can almost take care of themselves with a minimal amount of supervision. So you spend a little more time at the office or you never eat together as a family because this one has band and that one is out with the friends and hey the kid used to be over weight maybe a little bit of wanting to fit in spurred a healthy desire to take care of ones body.

It is days like this I am almost glad I'm not a parent. There are so many things to watch out for that a person can go crazy from worry. I think no small amount of luck is involved if A child grows into adulthood without one serious problem arising.

In summary: An unhealthy body image can be a serious problem. While fat people also have health issues, they tend to live longer than people with eating disorders. Parenting is scary.

More Laters

Live Comedy

2006-12-13T02:32:00.000-06:00

So anyway I went to see Craig Ferguson do a live stand up comedy show last week. A friend was going to see a later show, thus giving me the excuse the procrastinate talking about it to the Internet world.

So first a word about the venue. The show was at the Chicago Zanies Comedy Club. It is located on the North side of the side (which as a south sider I shake my fist at on general principal) in a piece of real estate that local tavern would have a hard time fitting into. Standing in front of the building, waiting for the doors to open, I thought that perhaps it was somehow dimensionally transcendental (see Dr. Who) or bigger on the inside that on the outside. While not actually physically possible, I've seen businesses absorb surrounding buildings, knocking out the walls between, while keeping one original storefront entrance. This was not the case. The place is tiny.

Now a comedy club cannot charge a mere 35 dollars a ticket (plus the cost of two drinks or food items) and book big name people without paying a great deal of attention to fire safety code. The place was packed shoulder to shoulder and the legs of the people behind me were halfway under my chair. You cannot turn to talk to your neighbor for fear of shouldering or elbowing the people front and back. One of Ferguson's first jokes was about how he felt he was doing some sort of act in front of a line of people waiting to get into a movie theater, that he ought to be dressed like a clown or perhaps make a balloon animal.

The place could also benefit greatly from being shut down for a renovation. The decor might simply be called the crap that was when they bought the building from some failed business venture years ago. Everything in the place was just plain filthy looking. The please wait to be seated sign near the door not only looked like it had been stolen from a 24 hour restaurant, but that it had multiple layers of nicotine attached to it. (Zanies is a no smoking establishment). The "stage" is circled in blue curtains that probably haven't been shaken out (let alone cleaned) since they were first put up. Hanging from the ceiling in front of the curtain is a wooden sign painted to look like an electric sign showing the logo / brand / name. If this place didn't have the contacts to pull in big name comedians it would have long since been out of business. One can tell they do have the contacts because every free surface in the place is plastered with the photo of a famous comedian who has worked there.

Now that ll the negativity is out of me on to the comedy. Ferguson wasn't the first one on the stage. First was an announcer / comic who had a few good jokes, but seemed stoned. He talked about his job delivering flowers and how people expect the driver to actually have some knowledge of plant care. He discussed the idea of the sexy nurse when most nurses wear scrubs these days. He also commented that one has a hard time with the entire sexy nurse idea when one's mother is a nurse. I have to agree.

Next was the "featured comic." I'm not sure what this means. Maybe it is something like the local who would perform this night no matter who the headliner is. Anyway her name is Patti Vasquez and I have to say she is incredibly funny. Rather than wax poetic about her talent I direct y'all to her website. Click on the Video link. A lot of the performance in that video is what I saw live. If anyone wants to get me a Christmas present I'll take a XXXL version of fer save the boobies t- shirts. She regularly performs in Chicago and I'll definitely try to catch her next new show.

Now to the Featured Entertainer. Ferguson is, in my opinion, the funniest man on late night television. His television comedy may hint at blue subjects from time to time but the language is all ways clean. The live stand up also hints at the blue without ever really crossing into it (except for a bit at the end where he talks about his enormous penis) but the language was less than pure. The first thing he said was something like , "What the F*** is up with this weather!" He is also very spontaneous. The woman sitting right in front of the stage had a hideous laugh. At one point he points down to her and says, "Quit it." Then "That's the sound you make when your happy?" We got to hear about things ranging from things as current as Brittney Spears going around without underwear to stories about growing up in Glasgow. He made the comedy seem like it was coming effortlessly and in many ways he reminded me of Dylan Thomas. (Except Ferguson knew when to give up the drinking).

In Summary: There is nothing wrong with Zanies that a gutting or a move wouldn't fix (at the very least a bath). Patti Vasquez is an good example of the kind of humour Chicago produces. Craig Ferguson has an enormous penis (that's what the man said).

More Laters

Baby It Is Cold Outside

2006-12-05T01:56:00.000-06:00

That may be the name of a song, but I'm serious. It is 13 degrees Fahrenheit outside the last I looked and it was 14 the minute before that so it will probably drop further until the sun make its way round here once again. It wasn't that long ago we had 60 degree weather and I was out walking for my daily mocha wearing only a denim jacket as protection against the elements. Now winter has just sort of happened overnight and I am cabin bound so to speak, until the world thaws out again.

The old man likes to say that if he hadn't been born in Chicago, he probably wouldn't live here. I have to agree. You might see people on the television talk show circuit talking about how they love Chicago or how they loved growing up here but I'll bet dollars to donuts they usually live somewhere with a much more reasonable weather pattern. In the summer it is too hot. In the winter it is homeless freezing cold. Spring and Fall are those two or three mythical weeks in between the time when it is either too hot or two cold.

I go on like this because It has brought my to a new definition of well off. A person is well off if they can live in this frozen wasteland and set there thermostat to say 79 degrees and hang the expense. If one can walk around the house in a pair of shorts and a tank top on a night like tonight and not have a care about what it is costing then one has officially arrived.

That, I believe, will be my financial goal. Sure I could move to a more temperate climate, but that would mean moving away from family and friends. That's just not going to happen. After thirty odd years a person gets used to having one's family about.

Why, one may ask, would I need to have a house so warm? I don't really. I just get tired of the temperature dropping every night after the old folks hit the sack. I hate the run program button on the thermostat. When the button is pressed the house drops to 64 degrees. If you are sitting near a window (say perhaps at the computer) it is much cooler than that. How can one properly win the interweb bundled up in five layers of close I ask? One cannot.

In Summary: The Midwest is filled with people who may not actually like the weather, but are unwilling to leave their families. The old man is secretly (or not so secretly) trying to force me to go to bed earlier by taking away the heat. I'm not done whining about this yet.

More Laters

Marketing Genius

2006-11-28T01:51:00.000-06:00

These days the PC thing to attack fast food restaurants for is not labor practices or wages. It is advertising directed at children. Every television sweeps season one of the major networks runs an in depth investigative bit about childhood obesity. Sometimes it is a one times news item that goes along with some sort of medical announcement. Sometimes we see a series of interviews done over a period of time with parents, doctors and of course the children themselves.

This scares people who make and or sell products that help make children fat. They want to maintain their "child friendly" status. So we see announcements about how different chains are cutting out trans fats. We see corporate pledges to decrease and or eliminate entirely marketing directed to children. Networks like Nickelodeon and Disney start to become somewhat more pickey in what products they will allow to be advertised during their broadcasts.

Then there is some absolute marketing genius over Burger King. He or she saw the writing on the wall. Avenues of marketing like school posters and children's cable stations are disappearing. A new outlet must be found. I betting they were more than a little familiar with Max Barry's Syrup and Christopher Buckley's Thank You for Smoking. They decided to go right to where the kids live: Video Games.

Burger king is selling not one, not even two, but three games that can be played on the xbox or xbox 360 systems. They are selling these games for the unbelievably low price of 3.99 with the purchase of a value meal. So when the cheap relative wants to buy the kid something fun yet cheap this holiday season it's just a quick trip to BK for a couple thousand calories and a dirt cheap game. It doesn't really matter how good these games are, they cost less than a tenth of what any other new game goes for on the shelf (59.99) Adults will buy em because they are so cheap and children will play em, if only for a little while, because it's something they haven't played before.

From what I've seen most of the games feature the Burger King (the plastic guy in the crown. I'm not sure how much of an advertisement for the store he actually is, but I'm sure it will boost revenue and projected revenue. (whatever that really means). I wonder how long before we have games like Starbucks Sim Barista. Maybe a new grand theft auto where you sell drugs out of a Taco Bell drive up window. British Petroleum Oil Drilling Extravaganza.

I've seen the Future[TM].

More Laters

Adventures In Cyberspace

2006-11-22T02:08:00.000-06:00

So the Myspace Experiment continues. I've learned that almost anyone I've ever known under the age of say 35 who is even the slightest bit techno savvy (can use a web browser without too much instruction) probably has a myspace page. They may log into daily, monthly or yearly, but at one point or another he or she sat down and filled in a few blanks and then went searching for old friends and or enemies. If only I could remember peoples names.

I know I'm not alone in this. There are tons of people out of my past whose names are almost magically erased from my memories. Or worse yet I know their first names or nick names. I can't really go into a search engine and type in Stacy or Sandra and find exactly the women who used to frequent my bar. I certainly cannot type in "the dirty ogre" and expect to find a man whose first name I think may have been Adam. They may be part of this myspace internet domination scheme, but I would never know.

So when I got tired of trying to find people I knew I started looking at bands. Most old school bands are either not part of it or have some fan group who run their page. Modern artists seem to jump on this platform to speak directly to their fans. Moby will have blog something almost every day. Weird Al uses his page to show his fans his latest videos. Perhaps the most interesting part of this aspect is one can start checking out the pages of the people the musicians consider their top "friends" and be introduced to some pretty cool music.

So when I got bored with music I, of course, had to start looking up stars of the adult film industry. (Nothing says geek who lives with his parents like a guy who can actually name adult film stars, their most memorable works and what types of work they are primarily known for). Holy nekkid jackpot batman. The adult film industry is all over the myspace. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. They were the first to use vhs and dvd and the first money makers on the internet. I suppose I had read to many stories about teenagers using myspace and facebook to realize that they weren't alone in that world.

Anyway these stars of adult film cannot post any nekkid pictures on the myspace, so they try to direct you to their personal websites where one can pay so many dollars a month for membership to see all old and new nekkid stuff and what not. As a poor man I, of course reluctantly ignore these offers.

Then one of my new myspace "friends" posted a link to yet another blog / photo hosting site Cherry Tap. Heck even the name is suggestive. Not only are nekkid pictures allowed. They are encouraged! One only needs to put them in a folder that is marked adult content. Holy free amateur nekkid time batman. To make matters even more interesting. It is possible to "rate" people's photographs. They say this is anonymous, but it isn't really. The owner of the photograph can see who has viewed their pictures and can make a reasonable guess as to who has rated their photos. (I gave some guy's anti - Kerry photo a 1 out of ten and as 1 of two people who had viewed the photo he correctly guessed it was me and retaliated with a similar rating to the classic Rich holding a pie photo). So it is kind of like American Idle meets myspace except with a whole ton of cleavage shots thrown in for good measure. (I almost forgot to mention the typical fat man /woman extreme close up shot of the head, except with the woman its the head and the massive chest).

So this will be my fascination / obession , at least for a little while. I've added a link to the right hand column of this page so that if you decide to join me in this gross display of voyeurism, y'all will automatically start out as my "friend."

More Laters

Crackpot Theory: The Friendly Pirate

2006-11-17T02:53:00.000-06:00

So anyway, this past year I've watched more children's television shows than I have in all the years between now and when I was an age to be interested in Big Bird (Not counting cartoon network or sponge bob) and I've noticed a disturbing trend. What, one might ask, could possible be more disturbing than tele tubbies or a dancing purple dinosaur? The Friendly Pirate.

Piracy is not a quaint custom of the past. Pirates weren't Disney jolly fat man given to looking poorly groomed and drunk. Pirates of old were hated. The stole. (everything) The raped. (anyone) They murdered anyone who resisted, and sometimes those who didn't. Merchants couldn't afford to fully armed fleets. They had to try and build faster ships. If a ship was taken it wasn't just a small loss to a wealthy person, but could be the loss of a substantial investment of many parties, all of whom had dependents.

We don't hear much about modern piracy, mostly because the pirates stay away from U.S protected / monitored shipping lanes. Here is a report on Piracy in 2006. Notice the word deadly.

So why, one must ask, do these children shows try to use the image of the pirate? It has to be the clothes. Take Johnny Depp in the latest installment of the pirates of the Caribbean. He looks like a drag queen whose been in a couple fights.

Could it be that what these children's shows really want is flamboyant openly gay male of the fashion design world? This, of course, would never play in the more conservative parts of this great nation. Many of these shows are funded at least in part with government grants. There is no way Barney or Big Bird can hang out with and get a make over from Mr. Fabulously gay Man. Any man dressed up like that had better be a pirate, or carrying bag pipes.

So the Friendly Pirate is born and he just doesn't make sense. Where did that buried treasure come from? Why do they sail the seven seas? What do we do with the Jolly Roger, replace it with a Wal-Mart Happy face?

More Laters

A Consumers Rant

2006-11-10T15:17:00.000-06:00

The feeling of relief is almost palpable. Is it that the Democrats took over congress? No! It is the temporary respite from political attack advertisements. The motto this year was not : What will I do to better serve you, the voter. Rather the Motto was : My opponent is an evil spawn of the netherworld, who is against everything you believe in, wants to eat your babies and has failed at every opportunity to do one positive thing for the people he or she hopes to serve.

Ok maybe I have the words wrong, but I definitely nailed the heart of the sentiment.

I ought to be happy, some may say. Then there would be a rant / lecture about how the people of America stood up to religious ultra conservatism. Those negative advertisements were instrumental in attaining this victory.

I am not happy. An obnoxious amount of money was spent in vicious and petty ways. The voters are no better informed and I'm not particularly sure they are better served. I'm sure the campaign contribution lists for both political parties would have many of the same mega corporations named. Will the Senator from Dow Chemicals please take the podium (see The Space Merchants).

It makes me wonder if there had not been an election this November, would the Christmas advertisements have started even earlier. Almost all commercial advertisement drops off during the last phase of the campaign season. No one wants their carbonated beverage to be even loosely associated in the mind with "wrong on security, wrong for your state." The idea of Santa clause being tied to the sort of negative reinforcement is enough to give even the most care free marketeer a massive panic attack. "Sales will plummet. My bonus is doomed! Noooooooooo!"

The sick thing is, by the time February rolls around with its election I will almost welcome the political commercials again. From now until December 25th we will see how the only way to say I love you this holiday season is to spend, spend spend. Best Buy goes that extra step already. They imply their gifts will lead to instant sex right on the table. After Christmas will be the post holiday sales. Didn't' get what you wanted this holiday season? Come in now and make everything right.

I wonder what a 20 dollar best Buy gift certificate gets? Is that bottom end peck on the cheek? At what point to we hit lap dance?

More Laters

Target : Hallmark

2006-11-03T17:26:00.000-06:00

Each year around this time one company or another leaps out and asks for my ridicule, my scorn and my undying animosity. Two years ago Old Navy topped the list, with their annoying sing song commercials that claimed anyone who just gave cash to their loved ones during the holidays is a thoughtless (explicative deleted) head. Last year I was enraged walking into CVS days after Halloween in hopes of finding half priced candy only to find the place completely decorated for Christmas. The winner this year: Hallmark.

November 1st, (all saints day a holy day of obligation for any actual Christian religious types) the day after Halloween, I turn on my television and the first thing to assault my eyes during a commercial break is a Hallmark commercial. Here is the scene. It is a shot of an transportation (airport train, or bus I have no idea) terminal. Everyone looks tired and half dead. A screen shows delays and cancellations. Mom is sitting there with her depressed children. She has an idea. (you can tell because here eyes get wide) She takes a plastic holiday thing out of her carry on bag. She presses a button. It sings. It dances. Everyone in the terminal is happy. The Holiday is saved.

(Explicative deleted) that noise.

It offends me on so many levels I don't even know where to start. I'll go with the obvious. The date. It's like the people at hallmark were almost pushing the kids in the costumes off the streets in an attempt to hit their target audience just one more minute earlier. Once upon a time the Friday after thanksgiving was the official marketing Christmas kick off. It was black Friday. The day many retailers went from a financial loss (red) all year long into the loving black of profit. Now we can not wait for Halloween to end. It is cutting into the shopping season.

Next there is the entire annoying singing plastic piece of garbage. Why is this the centerpiece of the Hallmark image. They sell greeting cards. Yet for the past few years they have made a huge deal out of their special annoying holiday item. They may be cute the first time you press play, but that is it. Never ever let a child have one. That is like begging to hear the same stupid songs over and over until the kid either breaks it or the batteries wear out. (Or you bust out the old shot gun and send that thing back to its maker).

Next it is the entire sales technique. Buy five Hallmark cards and you can qualify to buy the annoying plastic piece of fecal matter at a reduced price. What a bargain. If I send in five cereal box tops can I get a pay ten dollars to have it shipped to me?

If I were still a practicing Catholic I'd probably be angry about the complete lack of religious sentiment in the company's treatment of the Holiday. As I'm not, It doesn't really bother me, I just like to bring it up to annoy the Bill O'Reilly types who think it is people like me making "war" on Christmas.

For all of this Hallmark must suffer from my Holiday wrath. I refuse to buy from them this year. I ask everyone else to do the same. Sure their competitors are probably equally bad, but they didn't step in the doggy do the way Hallmark did.

On a similar not I ask y'all to at least look at the Buy Nothing Day Website and the larger idea Buy Nothing Christmas. It can't hurt to read about a little idealistic activism.

More Laters

Crackpot Theory: The Wall

2006-10-28T03:27:00.000-05:00

I've come the accept the reality that people are going to be more concerned with the illegals coming over the border than punishing businesses that employ them. I can rant all day about how companies pay wages that only the most desperate would accept(aka illegal immigrants) and people will still make the tired complaint (that was tired when the Irish came here, that was tired when the Italians came here) about people coming here and stealing away jobs from Americans. Now of course they can mutter security risk at the end of their argument.

So we are going to build a wall. Never mind the incredible irony of one President Ronald Reagan calling for a wall to be torn down. We want to keep the illegals out so a barrier must go up.

Now when I think of a nation spanning wall I think of the Great Wall of China. That is the right way to build a wall. Create a engineering marvel that can be seen from space and costs god awful mounts of money and more than a lifetime to build (a far cry from the 300 years spent making the great wall). People think we spend a lot of money now.

And here we find my crackpot theory. Make the wall pay for itself. Privatization is the current fad in government. Let some wall street types get a bunch of financing together and form The Wall LLC or something like that. How, one might ask, will this company make money? One word my friends: Advertising. Think the largest billboard in the united states, in the world! Of course to make big bucks they will need high tech stuff. There will be shiny signs that can change message on a moments notice. They will need giant plasma screen walls that will make old school drive in movie theaters look small. We can tell the illegal immigrant that while he and his family aren't welcome here, for just a few pesos they can drown their sorrows with can barley flavored alcoholic beverage, a can prefered by movie stars and super models.

Why have a simple prison like set of fences and barbed wires when we can have a Godzilla sized starbucks symbol and maybe even make the roads crossing in and out of the country into giant golden arches. Picture characters from the latest Disney animated feature walking up and down a quarter mile section of the plasma wall. Picture some vindictive jerk getting two months of (Insert Name Here) is a cheating Whore on a slightly out of the way section of the wall.

This wall could be so financially successful that we would almost have to build a second one along the border with Canada, just for the added revenue. This is our future.

More Laters

Here Comes The Tickle Monster

2006-10-23T01:22:00.000-05:00

So anyway the aunt is in town. We never really know when to expect these visits. Usually the kind of notice is something along the lines of a phone call that goes something like this, "I'm at midway airport. Can anyone pick me up?" This time was a little different. One of my uncles (her brother) was recently hospitalized after some sort of seizure like event they still haven't found the cause of, and she being a doctor thought it might not be a bad idea if she came to spend some time with her brother and see how he is doing. After the event we knew she would be coming "soon" just not exactly when. Last Tuesday we got a call a day in advance. The tickets were worked out she was flying in.

After a day of driving 3 hours to Boise and waiting in airports for flights (you just cant get a straight trip from Boise to Chicago on the cheap. Its always through Minneapolis or Denver) she wasn't about to just travel on out to Joliet (cant even estimate the travel time). A day of rest and Chicago style food is needed. So it wasn't until Friday that she finally commandeered one of the mini vans and braved the areas south of Chicago. It was an overnight affair. We didn't expect to see her again till Saturday afternoon.

Late Saturday night my aunt comes strolling in. She grabs a beer. She drinks her beer. She is ready to report.

My Uncle is doing fine. He has a good support system. He lives with his baby brother and his family (technically they live with him in that it is his house but that is neither her nor there). The odd thing is the boy. The boy is sixteen. The boy has lost a bit of weight over the past couple years and now he has a girlfriend. The boy is the dictionary definition of hormone infused energy. He practically bounces off the walls these days. My aunt tortures the boy for a bit by making em sit still while she talks to his girlfriend. Finally the teens get up and go into the boys room. My aunt asks her baby brother about this unsupervised situation. He replies "It's fine. They aren't allowed to close the door."

The aunt wanders by the door after a bit. The teens are making out hot and heavy. She goes back to visiting with her brothers. Later still she makes a point of wandering by the door again (she notices that neither of her brothers has even bothered to think about going in that direction). The teens are not only making out, but they are under the blankets making out. Holy Teen pregnancy batman.

By this point the elder of the brothers has escaped down to his part of the house. My aunt asks baby brother if he has spoken to the boy about birth control. My uncle replies, "The boy likes to play tickle."

Holy avoiding reality batman. If "playing tickle" is feeling up a young lady while making out with her, then hey sign me up to play tickle.

My aunt eventually convinces her baby brother that perhaps he ought to have a talk with the boy. Next she goes to track down the escaped brother. He may need a walker after the event (he broke an ankle too) but he can get away from an uncomfortable situation right quick. My aunt is even more blunt with the elder brother. As an uncle he might take it upon himself to just go and buy the boy condoms. I picture him walking up to the counter at the store, using his walker mind you, in the small town where everyone knows em, and buying a pack of condoms. These people are going to going to think he's either mighty ambitious for a man in his condition or maybe perhaps he is loosing his mind.

What blows my mind is that none of these people thought perhaps the boy might need to learn the fine art of masturbation. A couple years back the elder brother gave me his collection of playboy magazines (I thought I was getting the mother load of science fiction magazines. Instead it was airbrushed photos of silicon enhanced anorexics. Sure they have some good stories in em but I would have been happier with the science fiction). The boy had been caught steeling the magazines. Perhaps now is the time to rethink this plan. Who needs the magazines more, the thirty two year old man who has a high speed internet connection, or the 16 year old boy who is likes to "play tickle".

The problem with what I am implying, of course, is that is illegal. The viewing of pornographic materials by people under the age of 18 is the kind of stuff that gets adults thrown in jail for a long time. Never mind these kids are practically dripping hormones, the sight of a nekkid person might warp their fragile young minds. Much better to risk teenage pregnancy.

In Summary: Beware anyone wanting to play tickle.

More Laters

Chork

2006-10-18T01:42:00.000-05:00

What is a Chork?

A Chork = A Chunk of Pork.

Why, one might ask, would one create a silly term like that when the butchers of the world already have a bunch of their own? (Gimmie a big old butt slice) Because the chork is not something you get from the butcher. It is a product born of the discount warehouse.

The discount warehouse doesn't normally attract the type of shopper who likes to make daily trips to the local market for fresh ingredients. The discerning discount warehouse shopper is the type of person who has a pantry, a larder, a deep freeze and as many refridgerators as one can afford. These are the people who when faced with the option to buy a 10 oz jar of olives and a 55 gallon drum invariably start doing the math in their heads trying to figure out if the price per ounce on the drum is in fact better than the jar (or pallet of jars). They do not say "Do I really need that much." They say, "How long can it sit on the shelf unopened?"

When one buys a piece of meat at the discount warehouse, one does not get a single serving or even enough for a single meal for a family of four, but rather something that quite probably at one time nearly ran the full length of the side of an animal. One can take this monster of meat and with the help of a very sharp knife create three to four decent sized chorks.

Usually one chork gets cooked immediately. When people buy an obnoxiously sized piece of meat they usually have a meal in mind at the time of purchase. The rest of the chorks are frozen for future use. Here in lies the problem. People loose track of their chork. They aren't sure if they cut it into two three or four pieces. They forget if they made a roast and pulled pork, or just the pulled pork. They are absolutely positively sure that if you would just take the time and search through all the freezing compartments, you will come across an uncooked chork.

It would not be a problem if people would just cook the chorks every day until they were gone, but we don't work that way. If we had Chork on Monday, then its roast beast on Tuesday and bread and butter Wednesday (everybody happy with that's O.K.) A week may go bye before one even thinks about pulling out chork number 2.

In summary a chork sits on the counter defrosting. I have no idea when we bought it. I'm almost glad they are going to bury it in sweet baby ray's barbecue sauce (not a fan of that much sugar on my meat).

More Laters

Brave New Illinois

2006-10-14T01:56:00.000-05:00

So anyway everyone across the country knows that the President was in Illinois the other day, because every paper with a national distribution showed em giving a hug to Dennis Hastert. What people outside of Illinois may not realize is that said trip raised an obnoxious amount of money for local congressional candidates.

That money is already working.

Prior to this infusion, the vast majority of the advertisements one saw were from the democratic candidates Melissa Bean (An incumbent)and Tammy Duckworth (a purple heart recipient from the recent Iraq war). Democrats in Illinois, especially in and around Chicago get the hard core funding.

Apparently the RNC wants to change things in Illinois. One might call this advertising campaign, "The Republicans Strike Back!!!" (Oh yes all those exclamation points are necessary). These advertisements have gone where no Chicago area campaign in my lifetime have ever gone. They are saying liberal like its a dirty word. They have shots of Bean and Duckworth with the words "Liberal Democrat" stamped across em like some sort of wanted poster. They are being called weak and wrong for not only Illinois, but for the country. These advertisements stop just short of saying these women are unpatriotic. (It's implied, just not said).

So either one of two things have happened. Some moron has gained control of the RNC advertisement budget in Illinois or they have some kind of data that leads em to believe that there is some kind of growing anti liberal sentiment in and about the Chicago area. The first theory cannot easily be dismissed. Let us not forget the sheer genius that thought Alan Keyes had even a remote shot of winning a senate seat. There is a certain downstate republican element that really truly feels the word liberal is a very dirty word, and that if they only repeat it enough they will somehow convince the rest of the state to go along with em.

The second theory bothers me. I see signs of it everywhere. Our mayor, King Richard Daley II, is awful friendly with a republican president. Roe Conn is one of the most popular radio talk show hosts in the area and the station he broadcasts from WLS is conservative radio 24 / 7. The big box ordinance was vetoed. It could be that great Chicago Democratic Machine is really and truly a thing of the past.

I guess we will have to wait till November to see how it really is.

More Laters

Riding On The Donut

2006-10-10T01:28:00.000-05:00

So we are driving down the street and when we pull up to the stop light the car in front and to the right is what one might call well used. The paint is faded and chipped in places. There appears to be quite of bit of dirt on it. The stereo is playing in a loudly, yet the quality of the sound is rather poor. Where the left rear tire ought to be is what is often referred to as the donut.

The auto manufacturing industry in it's zeal to increase cargo capacity and reduce cost has long since stopped the practice of supplying a full sized spare tire. In the place of the spar tire is an object hat is about a third the size of a normal tire (and probably a quarter of the cost). It is commonly called a donut. I have no idea why.

Ideally the donut is suppose to take a person from the place where there original tire failed directly to a place where they can have this tire replaced. This is supposed to be a trip of maybe fifteen or twenty miles at most. Reality rarely works this way.

Tires go out at the worst possible times. They don't wait for the weekend when you have no plans. No they fail on the way to work or on the way to pick up the kids from soccer. The tire fails on the way home from time with the mistress. When the tire fails we say, "(Explicative Deleted, I do not have time for this!" The donut is thrown on the car and we finish our errands. Days go by and the donut is still on the car. This emergency measure that was never, ever meant to be used for any length of time sits on the car and we say things like, "Well I can make a quick trip down to the gas station for milk" or "I swear I'm going to get this taken care of tomorrow, it just has to get me through my errands today."

Sometimes you look at a car like the one I noticed the other day and you wonder if the person is too poor to afford a replacement tire (On a used car a replacement tire can conceivably be as much as half of the down payment. A very large economic burden for the paycheck to paycheck life) or is this person just to stupid to be concerned about the fact that he or she is riding on the donut. People just don't think. It is as if they expect the magic tire fairy to appear when the donut finally fails and leaves em stranded with no means to move their vehicle without calling for a tow.

Somehow I think I could probably translate this into a life philosophy book where in a person examines his or her life and ask the question, "Do I have a spare, or am I riding on the donut?"

More Laters

The First Incision

2006-10-06T01:04:00.000-05:00

So the mother had to get up at the crack of dawn for the most unpleasant of reasons, she was having surgery. Not just any surgery, eye surgery. I'm not talking a quick somewhat unpleasant laser thing, but a clockwork orange lying on your back awake while the doctor takes sharp things and pokes about the lens in a most frightful sort of way. She has Diabetic retinopathy and her vision has deteriorated to such a point that her options were either to go with the surgery or accept her current limited vision and the reality that it will deteriorate further.

This is scary (explicative deleted).

I've said it before as a child I never really understood what it meant that my mother is diabetic. My understanding then was that her body didn't produce enough insulin, so she had to take injections. I thought it was basically a managed problem. So long as mom kept taking her shots all would be ok.

I did not know the amount of extra care that a person with diabetes must take with his or her body to prevent all the other problems that can occur. I didn't know about the problems healing from infections. I had no idea about the blindness. No one said a thing about the loss of sensation in the extremities. One guess what was a large factor in mom's cardiovascular disease which lead to eight bypasses.

It's days like today, when I've been slack with my exercise, slack about watching my calories or fat intake, when I realize that I've been avoiding going to see my doctor because I have not only not loss the goal weight but probably put on more than a few pounds, that I wake up and smell the coffee. These days are a shock. A terrible reality comes home wearing an eyepatch (not even a cool pirate black one, but a blue foam job that is taped to the face). I start exercising again. I go for my walks. I stop buying chocolate. I look at my gut not so much in disgust ( I cant really be disgusted with my own body) but with abject terror. This belly is going to kill me in my fifties, or worse make me some sort of blind, amputee completely dependant on others.

In Summary: I am exercising again, well at least until the fear abates. You are awake when they cut into your eyes. I never want to experience that.

More Laters

Pestilence

2006-10-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

I like fantasy books that things like death, chance, lust and pestilence an anthropomorphic personification. I like the idea that there is some sort of being personally responsible for some of the day to day crap we go through. It gives you someone to shake your fist at. (As in "you darn kids stay off my lawn.")

I thumb my nose at all of them today. I was suppose to have a rather laid back week of sleeping till the wee hours, reading, scratching, perusing adult material on the internet and of course the video crack known as World of Warcraft. Instead I get Typhoid Baby.

So let me set the seen. I'm already a couple days into this do nothing week so by the time these events take place, my sleep schedule is already pushed back to five thirty in the am. I am just laying down nearing sleepy land when the phone starts ringing.

There is nothing more terrifying than a phone that is wringing at an odd hour. I start thinking "Oh my god! Something happened to mom while she was on vacation." I miss the phone before the service picks it up, but seconds later it starts ringing again. It is my brother ... This could be worse something could have happened to baby girl (tragedies are magnified exponentially in regards to the age of the persons involved).

There is no crisis. My sister in law has a stomach bug and is having all the stomach bug symptoms, could I watch baby girl that morning. I want to say no. I am desperate to say no. I haven't slept. I cant be alert enough to watch the wild one for an entire work day all by myself. This house isn't really set up for me to baby sit by myself. I have to say yes. There is no one else to do it.

So me and baby girl made it through our day all right. Much public television was on in the background as we colored, played blocks chased Mollys (aka cats)read books and did just about everything there is to do in this house short of take a nap.

Her father fetched her that evening. I collapsed into my computer chair where I proceeded to kill virtual monsters for a few hours before crawling up to bed.

The next morning I woke up with an acid stomach. By five in the evening my body had purged itself of all food and beverage. I was hot. I was cold. I napped on and off till midnight curled up in a bundle of blankets on the fouton closest to the bathroom. The fever broke may have broke but then the full body ache settled in.

The body has a way of contorting itself in an almost fetal way when sick. You pay for it later on when those muscles finally relax from being tensed so long. I'm still sore.

Through all of this baby girl has been fine. Both her parents succumbed. She was all smiles and playtime.

I think the next time my parents plan to leave town, I will make plans to be gone for the same period. Though that might be tempting fate, the pestilence anthropomorphic personification might see fit to strike me sick away from home.

More Laters

The Idea of Nekkid Happy Fun Time

2006-09-26T01:17:00.000-05:00

Ok so in just a few hours I shake the old folks from their slumber and boot em out the door. They are of to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Idaho. (Ok maybe they are off to see my aunt who has a pretty nice place up in the mountains, but how can one resist using a wizard of oz reference. Really). Then it is just me and the cats for almost two weeks.

If I were a teenager, I would almost be obligated to try and through some sort of party. Why teenagers think they can get away with this, I have no idea. I call it hormone stupidity. Neighbors can tell a party when they see one. A teenage (or a twenty something) party always involves either somebody getting drunk and breaking an object of value, somebody getting drunk and regurgitating all over the upholstery, somebody getting drunk and playing hide the empty bottles in places that wont be noticed until they are truly ripe with the smell of stale beer, and last but not least the police showing up. My theory was if I was going to be caught by the police it was better to be at someone else's place. (Until I turned 21 and realized I wanted absolutely nothing to do with being anywhere near alcohol and people under the age of 21).

As a man of thirty one (closing in on 32) my expectations for the upcoming weeks are different. Liquor will not be involved. Sure we have enough booze here where I could probably spend the next couple weeks well and truly loaded to the gills (not much of a tolerance these days. It doesn't take much), the idea of a hangover ( and the shame attached to memories of past hangovers) is more than I'm willing to deal with. Well that and I've never been one to drink by myself. It is so boring.

I could lie and say it will be weeks of womanizing. The truth is that the scare tactics that they called sex education of the 80's and 90s just makes the thought of having sex with some random stranger, even with five layers of latex and coated in antibacterial soap, is enough to make my package crawl up inside and hide for a week or two. I swear, back in the day, it was like just looking at another person might give you the crabs, brushing up against em was instant syphilis and god forbid you start swapping spit for the doom of AIDS was upon you. It wasn't an education so much as some scary fortune teller crying out, "You Gonna DIE!"

So this leaves me with the last option. Nekkid Time. If I so choose, for the next couple weeks, I could prance about the place without a stitch of close and no one would say a word about it. I lounge in front of the TV picking lint out of my belly button and it would be OK. I can even walk around in my bikini briefs without fear that someone might make fun of em and call em "manties."

Not that this will even happen. It has been cold in Chicago off and on. I'll probably spend the vast majority of my time bundled up in sweat pants and a nice soft fleece hoody. Still I will be happy with the Idea that I could be nekkid at any time. It is a level of freedom I don't experience every day.

More Laters

Warp Speed

2006-09-22T02:37:00.000-05:00

So the space shuttle Atlantis landed safely and if you followed the news coverage of this last venture in space you can just catch the hint of disappointment. Explosions are page one news all week long. A successful mission is something to bury halfway through the paper, on a page covered almost entirely with advertisement.

Part of the problem, I think, is that space exploration has failed to live up to the science fiction hype. We don't have a space navy out conquering alien civilizations. We do not zoom across the galaxy at multiples of the speed of light (or even fractions of the speed of light for that matter). The aliens haven't landed just to say hi. I don't have a jetpack in my garage. No one has degrees in xeno biology or xeno linguistics. Even Mars turned out to be a mostly red dry place.

Another major problem is image. The early space program had guys strapped into a capsule at the top of a giant missile looking set of boosters. That is a pretty darn cool look. The shuttle looks like some over sized freight plane. You expect the middle hatch to open up and out comes some rail care looking parcel. "Your oxygen supply is here mister astronaut, please sign after the X." These are vehicles built on a design that is over twenty years old. Car design changes from year to year, and we just use those to move around on the planet. No people want to see the curvey sexy space ships they were promised over and over again during the Golden age of Science Fiction. (Not so much by the authors but by the guys who painted the covers for their books). Sure a monster space ship with pointless curves and lots of shiny bits probably isn't very practical from an engineering standpoint, but think of the marketing opportunity.

We can sell all the religious folk on the need to spread the human race beyond the galaxy. We can sell all the liberal type folk on the opportunity to do great science that will benefit all of man kind (exactly what that science would be, I have I no idea. We would have paid geeks for that kind of stuff). The real selling point would have to be that the space ship would be a money maker. It is the only way it could possibly work in this day and age. People are just tired of paying taxes for things they aren't getting immediate tangible results from. We will throw tons of money at biological research because every day some drug company or research hospital is coming up with yet another way to improve our health for longer periods, but sending yet another shuttle up to an international space station that few people know much about, doesn't have that same appeal. No this new ship needs to do something like mine asteroids or take extremely wealth folks on more than just a quick orbit around the planet. It needs to be like a solar system cruise ship.

So anyway, I'm glad the astronauts are back safely, but it is really telling that I have no clue who they are. NASA needs to do something about that.

More Laters

Crackpot Theory: Kurt Loder

2006-09-19T02:31:00.000-05:00

Ok so I'm checking out the news on google news the other day and I scroll down to the entertainment section (on my way to the section that list other important news items) and Imagine my shock to see a news story by Kurt Loder of MTV News.

Actually there were two different kinds of shock going on at the same time. The first shock is that Google News would use MTV as source of legitimate news. I mean sure it is only the entertainment section, but that is kind of like going to British Petroleum and for hard breaking news in the oil industry. MTV is the Branding of celebrity itself. I can't see em being particularly objective about their sources of revenue.

The cynic in me stamped out that bit of shock in moments. Viacom (the MTV parent company) used to be merged with CBS which is a leader in providing broadcast news (as well as regular commercial television) If they can sell me something that is supposed to be news, then why cant MTV?

The Second shock was that Kurt Loder still works for MTV. Holy Unnatural Longevity Batman. This network goes through people faster than a chef can go through an eightball of coke. (Yes that is a terrible generalization. Sue me.) Their flagship show TRL (Total Request Live) can not make it through a three minute music video because they have been so successful in shortening the attention span of their target audience (screaming pre teens). The moment one of their Video Jockey's shows the first hint of age they are out the door. Carson Daly Had one of the longer lasting careers at MTV. He went from 1997 - 2003. Six whole years or a teenage eternity.

Kurt Loder has been there since 1988.

So my question is, "What gives this man this unnatural longevity?"

Theory A: Supernatural Pact. (with a devil, demon, genie, Dr. Strange). Traditionally these things have round numbers. If he bargained for 20 years he could be almost out of time. If he had the bargaining skills of Dick Clark He could be good for another 30. His soul would of course be forfeit at the end of the time, but he worked for MTV so that was a given anyway.

Theory B: MTV political Savant. Loder knows the way the network is going even before the network executives who make the decisions do. His keen powers of observation keep him always on top of the most current trends. CEO's come and go, but Loder Remains.

Theory C: Blackmail. Loder has major dirt on every decision maker even loosely associated with MTV. People live in constant dread of the day when the Secret Kurt Loder files are mailed out to every major news outlet. Their only hope is to pre decease Loder.

Theory D: Continuity. Sure everything else changes on MTV. Some executive terrified of the constant change that is his universe has insulated one man to serve as the thing that never changes about MTV. The stars come and go, but the man who tells you who they is always the same.

I personally think like the blackmail theory the best. Imagine being the only sober person "reporting" at Hollywood entertainment events. Dude must know where all the skeletons are buried.

More Laters

Techno savvy Hookers

2006-09-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

So a cousin and her husband were over recently and they were trying to explain the concept of craigslist to my mother. One would think that a person with a masters in health science would be able to grasp the concept readily enough, but one would be wrong. She is the type of person who has a minor panic attack any time something she hasn't seen before pops up on the screen. She will yell across the house like some sort of national emergency had just transpired and then ill walk in the room read whatever it is that is on her screen and nine times out of ten click on the "x" button to close the window.

This is the woman who must have heard the word blog on the television a hundred thousand times in the last year (slight exaggeration of each news outlet doing the discovery of blogging story) and every time she hears the word she says, "What the hell is a blog?" Then when I explain what a blog is or what facebook or myspace is she will say, "Why would anyone want to do that?" She has a sort of odd black hole in her head where almost all technology knowledge goes to disappear forever. (Though any time she ask me a question and I answer, "I don't know" she will say, "well cant you just google it or something?")

Anyway this is bit far from the original point that we were talking about Craigslist and we were finally able to get across the idea of a sort of world wide classified ads.

My cousins husband was trying to explain that he uses it to find acting roles as an extra or in student films. He then had to explain that one must read the classifieds carefully in that some of the ones listed under "talent" are not so much acting gigs as the opportunity to star in an adult film.

My mother was somewhat shocked. I then had to report on my own investigation into the craiglist personals section. Holy Techno savvy Hookers Batman. These people barely go to the trouble of pretending to be looking for a normal date. That is until the cops got techno savvy too! The smoking gun was there! I, of course, could not help perusing the mugshots. (It looks like they took number 1 in her bathrobe and I have no idea what number 7 is smiling about, but she kind of scares me.)

This puts me in mind of the saying you get what you pay for. They used a free internet personals service, that is almost like asking all the cops in the area who are hooked up to the internet, to knock on ones door. Remember you techno flesh dealers it takes money to make money.

More Laters

Yet Another Political Rant

2006-09-11T02:21:00.000-05:00

I've said it before, but let me make it clear at the outset, I am a pretty liberal guy. I believe in things like a living wage and organized labor. I believe everyone should have the right to get married to anyone they want. If one were to give me some sort of where do you stand on the issues tests I would probably land far to the left on pretty much every social issue. Sure there are many things I really could care less about (pristine Alaskan wilderness, not exactly a PETA person I like my meat, never once complained if a vegetable I was eating was 100 % organic) but I can understand the idealized passion that creates that point of view.

So it may come as a surprise when I say I am not voting for the Democratic Candidate for governor (Rod Blagojevich) primarily because his latest round of attack advertisements against his Republican opponent Judy Baar Topinka. I am completely disgusted.

The tag line / zinger of these commercials since they first started airing after the primary elections is, "What's she thinking?" Until recently they had a voice actress who did a pretty good job of sounding sort of appalled by Topinka. (See a You Tube example here that tries to link peoples disapproval for the president with Topinka). These are annoying enough in that they have been playing almost nonstop this year.

The latest advertisement, which hasn't made its way to the internet yet, ends the commercial not with the elitist "what's she thinking" but rather has the now cliche mix of children of various sex and ethnicity saying the tag line. I think the only way that these attack advertisements can sink to a lower level is to try and find some member of Topinka's family to say the tag line, implying that even her own family question not just her ability to lead the state, but her sanity as well.

I understand the entire kiss the baby thing or bring the kids on the campaign trail (don't exactly approve of it but I understand) because it is a very physical way of showing that the governor is a family man and shares peoples values. He is married and has procreated and that sells well in Peoria (to steal an old advertising question).

Using children to attack ones opponent crosses an unwritten boundary of innocence. Sure these kids probably don't even know why they were saying what they were saying, just that they were going to be on television and that is exciting. There parents knew. I don't have the words to say how incredibly outraged I am.

It doesn't stop there. Searching the internet for this terrible commercial I found Topinka Watch.com. Apparently it doesn't do to host the negative attack ads on the same site as the Rod Blagojevich's reelection site. Sure the money may be coming from the same place to host these sites but one must keep the outward appearance, the facade, of a separate Smiling Rod very distinctly not the same person responsible for the negative advertisements.

Heck there is even a Judy Baar Topinka Watch Blog. Read all the near slander, hyperbole and elitist condescension one can stand to stomach, well at least three months worth.

I'm not voting for Blagojevich. I ask other people to join me in saying that he has behaved in a way that is unacceptable of a public official. I'm not saying we should all loose our minds and vote for Judy Baar Topinka (she did after all head up the presidents reelection campaign here in Illinois), but I think we an find someone better suited the job and write them in. Feel free to ad possible write in candidates in the comments below.

More Laters,

Welcome to the Jungle, Jim

2006-09-08T00:52:00.000-05:00

When did the park become a plastic wonderland atop a bog like foot or so of shredded rubber. The parks look as premade as your modern suburb. A child will feel at home in any park as they all have the same basic bits and pieces.

Gone are the jungle gyms the monkey bars the teeter totter. Gone the strange animals with saddles affixed a spring that would be better suited to a car suspension. (I remember you could pull one of those things back, let it go and the beast would shoot back and forth for minor eternity.) Gone the aluminum slide that was about 600 degrees in the sun. Done the sandbox filled with sand grass dirt toys bottle caps cigarette butts and the occasional hypodermic needle.

Those god awful four fountain sprinklers on concrete remain with the garbage in the middle no one is willing to fetch and the permanent green slime coating the entire area the water covers. Every one comes with a mother / grandmother seated half a block away shouting at children, "You stay away from their, Jimmy busted his head open on one of these!"

And Holy Gather of the Weary Women Society. These are people so starved for social contact that they practically beg their kids to play with whatever kids come into the park with an adult, just for the opportunity to make a little small talk with said parent. While my niece had three adults at her beck and call, these women often manage two or three children apiece. They appear to be somewhat sleep deprived and practically cheer when the children decide its time to spend twenty minutes on the swing. That only requires the slight exertion of the occasional push whereas the rest of the plastic wonderland requires the poor adult to chase a child from play station to play station, up stairs through tubes and under the occasional slide. Often I see wiped out parents sitting on the foot high ledge that surrounds the rubbery space, keeping a hawkish eye on their children wondering just how far they can let em get before they need to leap into action again.

The view, of course, is a beautiful thing from the male perspective. Sure these may be busy mothers, but they all still keep up on what the fashionable mom on the go ought to be wearing. If I wasn't so busy chasing a little one about myself I'd be in a state of shock from all the cleavage available top be viewed not to mention the glorious abundance of tight shorts / pants.

I don't remember these women being around when I used to spend my time at the park during day camp. Perhaps I just didn't notice because it was prehormone days, but I seem to remember that almost everyone's parents worked in the old neighborhood. A few would volunteer to by chaperones for the weekly outings, but for the most part they stayed far away from the parks during the day.

All in all the safer parks just don't seem that fun to me. You have to wonder what age the kids start getting bored with turning the wheel on the choo choo train? (why does the train even have a wheel I wonder?) When does the choice of 10 different four foot high slides loose its appeal?

More laters

The Labor Day Sale

2006-09-05T01:04:00.000-05:00

I'm a pretty cynical bastard, but sometimes the irony of a life slaps me in the face. The other day I was somewhat stunned by people talking about how they were looking forward to the sales of this now past labor day weekend. I shouldn't have been. I see the commercials on the television, hear em on the radio and see print advertisements in every possible public space that can be sold, but to actually hear people go on about their intention to spend the holiday that celebrates organized labor, shopping at stores that employ people part time at below subsistence wages, was a bit of a shock.

I wonder how long it will be before we change the name of the holiday. You don't see kids coming home from school telling mom and dad all about the things they learned Labor Day. It's not like there are any sort of construction paper hats or hand turkeys they can make for the day. There is no Jolly Saint Union to preach solidarity and consolidated bargaining. Heck the local news mostly referred to the Holiday weekend as the unofficial end of summer. Maybe therein lies the hint of the future. It might go for a trite Seasons Change Day. Maybe with a continuing dumbing down trend it will actually be Last Bar - B - Que Day. National Hangover Monday?

The current trend in liberal thinking, the big issue for the fall elections, is a raise in the national minimum wage. How effective this will be in alleviating social ills, I don't know. It is quite possible that it will just be a huge inflationary step in that businesses know that their stockholders will not except anything less than growth in revenue so any increase in their costs will immediately be passed on to the consumers (plus whatever reasonable amount they can tack on and still plausibly claim that it is mandated by rising costs). While I certainly think people need to be paid a living wage, I think by going the legislative route we take the power away from the workers. People need to be more involved in the decisions that effect their lives.

So to any poor wage slave who was stuck selling future landfill to people, I can only say this: Solidarity Brothers (and Sisters).

More Laters

Wicked Revisited

2006-09-02T02:34:00.000-05:00

So we went to see Wicked again. The last time we went our seats weren't exactly what one calls good. Sure the Oriental theater isn't quite the monster that is the Auditorium theater, one doesn't feel a football field away from the last few rows (I think we had something like row "YY") but with my mothers vision troubles we might as well have been. Our first time she could make out a bit of color and movement, but for the most part it was an auditory experience. This time we were in the eleventh row in one of the two center sections. Throughout the entire show my mother kept asking me "Did they do this last time?" because she had no idea. She didn't even realize there was a mechanical dragon mounted over the head of the stage.

So the first time I went to see Wicked, Ana Gasteyer of Saturday Night Live fame was in the role of Elphaba. The woman can sing. There are now words to describe her talent. She is good. That is all. Coming into this Thursday's performance I was prepared to be a little disappointed. I didn't think anyone could do as good a job.

I was pleasantly surprised.

An incredibly talented woman by the name of Kristy Cates was in the role of Elphaba and it may be just me but it seemed she had a much more natural camaraderie with the actress in the role of Galinda / Glinda (one Stacie Morgain Lewis). One walked out of the show feeling this two women genuinely care for each other (and while Gasteyer has an incredible voice it seemed to overwhelm when she would sing the duets).

One of the bests parts of the show, of course< is the fact that they have flying monkeys. Everything is better with flying monkeys. These guys climb all over the place. They come down ropes from the top of the stage. They hang off the laticed seenery. They must have incredible arm strength. And then they spend the remainder of the time in a sort of perpetual crouch walk. My knees and thighs hurt just thinking about it.

People watching is always good at an event like this. There were a number of people dressed in their very best. On many woman I saw the type of evening gown one might see a photograph of on the "society" page in the paper. Shawls were abundant. The men were also dressed in their best, but for some of the men it seemed as if they were wearing the same suit they've had for twenty years and wear to every formal occasion. It put me in mind of a used car salesman convention.

What suprised me most about the audience was the numebr of young girls there. I can understand why they love it. The main characters are all women. The costumes are extravagent. The dancing is thrilling to watch. The content might be a little bit adult, but the show is never vulgar. The thing is it's not like it's a cheap night out. I saw what looked like a mother, a grandmother and four young girls sitting a few rows in front of us. That had to be like a six hundred plus bill. Kids dont usually understand the kind of crunch an expenditure like that can put on a parents budget. I hope the memory stays with em a while and they aren't demanding anything even moderately costly for a good long time.

So Wicked has been here for over a year and even with a change in cast it is an outstanding night out. The place appeared to be sold out and that was a thursday night. It makes me hopeful that soon there will be more full time shows here in Chicago.

More Laters

The Clock Ticks

2006-08-29T01:19:00.000-05:00

So we have a number of computers hooked up to our router. Over the years as we upgrade to new computers the old ones all get shifted down the line. The new computer goes in the family room. In name this is my mother's machine. It is there for her to check her email, get her food network recipes and before her eyesight went out of wack to play the same solitaire game the old man first put on a 386 almost twenty years ago. This is the best machine as I need it to be able to run my games. (The mother gets lonely if I'm not in the room and there is only so much bad television I can stand to watch. I need to be able to game and close out the vast amount of stupidity coming at my through the television).

The next best machine goes into the spare bedroom (aka my father's space). This is the old man's machine. This machine must have a working CD and DVD burner at all times as well as a flat scanning device. The old man will spend hours browsing the internet saving information (Laws, population statistics, murder statistics of the 1890's, tank information, articles on judicial decisions, articles on history, articles about organized labor, anything from the library of congress, etc. )that he intends to read to then he backs the data up by burning it to disk. If the disk he is burning is not full he will add document and photograph folders to it, seemingly at random, until it is, even if he has backed up that folder ten times before. This is also the machine where the old man does his school work whenever he is going to school (Starting work on his second masters this fall). This machine is sacred. While at one time when it was the best machine I was allowed to mess with it (so long as we had copies of the restore disk readily available) once it migrates into the old man's domain it can be touched by him alone (and his sister should she be in town and sleeping in that room).

The Final machine on the network is the machine of parts, or my machine. After a machine leaves my father's domain it makes a slight detour to the basement, where we open it up and start playing Doctor Frankenstein. We add a second hard drive. We go through all our old ram to see if we can use any combination to increase it's memory. We make a trip to the computer parts wholesale shop and see what is on the discount rack and then we stitch the machine back up and see if it works. Usually it does we have just the right amount of geek knowledge. We usually keep the old operating system as windows XP is just to much of a resource hog to run on an old machine. Windows 98 did the job.

Once the machine is in my room virus and spyware protection are loaded and they are very much needed as the sole purpose of this machine is to let me try things I wouldn't dare do on any other. I can download a third party program and install it. I can browse adult material. I can type anything I want into a google search engine and feel free to click on every link that comes up. If the machine got loaded down with nasty hijackers or spyware I could do my best to clean it myself, or just wipe the entire thing and start fresh.

When Microsoft said they weren't going to support Windows 98 anymore I wasn't concerned between Webroot Spysweeper and Nortons antivirus I was covered. Then I got the email from Webroot saying that they too would on longer be supporting windows 98 operating systems. My machine is a dead man walking. Why just today I was reading an article that I found on Fark about a virus that is designed to attack your processor. My machine doesn't stand a chance without protection.

(One might think that I would stop using the machine is such risky ways as the situation stands. One wouldn't really know me very well if one thought that).

So it is a race against the clock. Will I buy enough parts (possibly a whole new motherboard and processor as well as ram) to make an upgrade to windows XP home edition (saw it on sale for just 98 dollars) or will the evil internet monsters turn it into a giant paperweight first!

More Laters