Ahhhh!!!!

Well, almost a month and no posts. It's been a busy time. I'm planning a move to an apartment closer to work. Check back soon.

The danger of TV

Recently took to disking all my tapes to DVD. It's like trying to glue 5,000 individual staples together into one long U-shaped sleeve.

And, of course, while disking all the tapes (midway through Farscape), I'm also trying to disk various current programs.

The most vexing aspect of this is the hunt for the two or three episodes I still need in several programs. I just got the final episode I was hunting for of "Mission Hill." I still have two or three episodes of "The Venture Brothers" to get. And so on.

And now I'm running into the same problem with the DVDs that I had with the VHS tapes: where to put them all?

Snow Day and Johnny Carson...

I should be so lucky! The snow fell one day too early. If it had fallen Sunday afternoon, I would have been able to stay home and watch tv. But, no ...

Sigh.

And Johnny Carson has died. I notice that none of the major media outlets is mentioning Carson's role in providing a forum to help debunk Uri Geller and Peter Popoff. How sad. Perhaps it's professional jealousy. I mean, it's not like the media did anything themselves ...

One big jerk ...

Yes, I could be talking about how to remove a Band-Aid or about Inauguration Day.

Actually, both.

Now that the last particularly unpleasant part of the re-election is over, I can focus on other things.

1460 days to go.

I hope I'm still here when the counter reaches zero.

Black sheets of rain ...

I'm in a Bob Mould state of mind right now. The commute to work was like going through a car wash. Of course everyone's brains fall out of their heads when there's rain coming down. There are benefits, however. You get the damnedest thoughts.

My damnedest thought? Okay, security for the Inauguration is going to be tighter than imaginable. If someone farts three security dogs will tear the offender apart.

So what's to stop al Qaida (who is, of course, under every rock and behind every tree, just like the Communists of the 1950s) from blowing up something in Portland, Oregon, or Boise, Idaho? You know, some middling city that everyone's heard of.

Coffee used to be fun ...

The other day I stopped in a coffee shop in Princeton for some coffee. The guy behind the counter was about 19. Smooth, unlined face; thin, lanky body. He only charged me for a small coffee even though I got a medium. I hate pleasant, young, good-looking people.

Just wait. In 80 years, he's going to look like crap!

Like crap! Do you hear?

I'm having a much better day than that guy ...

On my way into work this morning I saw a car on fire in a parking lot. I think I've been present for a total of two car fires in my entire life.

So today was pretty unusual in that regard.

The part that struck me as odd was that the car's engine compartment was on fire, and there were cars on either side of it. Can you imagine being one of those poor bastards?

"Phil, what the hell happened to your car? The left side looks all funny."

"Yeah, some guy next to me in the parking lot had his car catch on fire."

"She-it, Phil. You're gonna have a hell of a time with the insurance company on that one."

So I can't really complain too much about today. (At least for now.)

I think it's about time to leave...

Read this in the NY Times today. I'm only going to post the first two paragraphs:

Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse
By Chris Hedges

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Fritz Stern, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a leading scholar of European history, startled several of his listeners when he warned in a speech about the danger posed in this country by the rise of the Christian right. In his address in November, just after he received a prize presented by the German foreign minister, he told his audience that Hitler saw himself as "the instrument of providence" and fused his "racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity."

"Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics," he said of prewar Germany, "but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas."

I've been thinking seriously about getting out of the United States. And following the Democrats pathetically weak response to the voting irregularities in Ohio, I'm becoming more and more convinced that this country is really going crazy. This piece in the Times only nudges me farther down that path. I think I'd better start studying French and researching emigrating to Canada.

Be careful what you wish for ...

So tomorrow is the day. Either one (or more) senators will back the objections over the Ohio Electoral Votes being raised by the House of Representatives, or no senators will back the objections.

So what happens if Ohio is declared a fraud?

Considering John Kerry's (in)action to these events, I cringe to consider the effect of a Kerry presidency. He's lost any sort of street cred. He practically raced to throw in the towel. He won't even be in Washington on Jan. 6.

I suspect the Green and Libertarian parties are going to see a lot of interest after this.

A new year ...

A new year.

Let me share a meme.

When I was in first grade, my teacher Mrs. Ellis handed out some papers for the class to fill out. One part was for the date. And for where the year went, the space read:

19__

And every time I saw that on a sheet of paper, I would think about how far away the year 2000 was. I had images in my mind of all those forms going bad, just like the milk in the refrigerator, when the clock ticked into 2000.

I just looked in my checkbook. "Date _____________"

There's something a little too flat about that. I hope the printing plants start cranking out the 20_______-type documents soon.