Hosted By...
Last Updated : Sunday, 21 July, 2002 at 09:38 PM -0500
|
| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 21 July, 2002 at 09:38 PM -0500 |
 | ||||
|
|
|||
| ||||
Monday, July 15, 2002
Bye-Bye Casey
It wasn't much, really. It was a locally-produced, on-the-cheap kids
show. Every city with a TV station had them, practically.
Casey was vaguely railroad based, which meant you had lots of trains hanging around as well. Casey was the lunchtime background - and after Casey, came Huckleberry Hound, Underdog, and Rocky & Bullwinkle - and naptime - unless we were lucky, and Mel Jass was running some rubber-monster feature in the afternoon movie - then Mom would let me watch with my pillow and blanket on the floor in front of the television.
Before Casey in the schedule we had Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan), Romp er Room, and Mr. Rogers, then, somewhere in there was Clancy (John Gallos) and his sidekick Willy Ketchum (Allan Lottsburg - and you thought my bad taste in puns was genetic), and Carmen the Nurse (Mary Davies). Most of that we couldn't watch unless it was too nasty to be outside - but lunchtime, we could watch Casey.
"Lunch With Casey". Roger Awsumb (pronounced Awesome, and he was) and his side-kick Roundhouse Rodney (played by a championship figure skater named Lynn Dwyer) were part of that kiddie-show lineup.
Most of those shows ( locally produced, and when I look back now, those shows were so cheesy, so cheap, and so very inventive (Casey had this feature they'd do every so often with a character named "Oswald" where they'd paint a face on Rrodney's chin, and he'd have to make his expressions upside down into an inverted camera, which would then flip the picture over, and you'd have this horribly-freaky-looking face staring at you out of the television - I wasn't the only one it creeped out, let me assure you). But Casey was the king, for me. I can remember claiming Dad's spot at the table so I could see the TV and eat lunch with Casey.
Most of the memories were good. And boy, some were just plain weird. I can blame some of my taste for the demon Mountain Dew from that period - I'd even forgotten, until I read through this page, Rodney's "YAAAAAAAHHHOOOOOO Mountain Dew" howl! Wow.
I'll never forget looking through the box of lego blocks my folks got me (with the clear garage, which I still have, and the sort-to-scale volkswagen bug, which I don't) to watch Casey, and I can still remember hearing my name as he read it on my birthday - I must have been all of five years old. Wow, indeed.
When he sang what became the "Casey Jones Birthday Song" on your birthday (if you're in a local restaurant that makes a fuss about birthdays, for any length of time, you will hear the Casey Jones birthday song sung by the wait staff - most of who are way too young to remember or have seen Casey, unfortunately) you swore he was singing it just for you. And, if you had whined and begged and pleaded enough, he would, because your folks had sent in a letter with your name and the date, so your name would be on Television, on Casey's list. The good news is that they've even got an MP3 I'm going to download at home tonight. Just for the memories.
Casey introduced me to potato-chip sandwiches - really - two pieces of bread, potato chips - oh, man, crunchy. I even did it with peanut butter to give the peanut butter some texture. But there was plenty of music (I learned "Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder, Here I am at, Camp Grenada" one year because of his repetition of the song). Some good music, some really bad stuff (in terms of puns, not the quality, mind you). Some with a wistful sadness at the beginning of the decline of the rail-way of life, which really started to accellerate just as Casey was becoming popular.
In perhaps 1967-1968 or thereabouts, I pestered and pestered. My folks eventually relented, though I had to wear my Jammies. I didn't care. We rode into Crossroads Mall in the evening after dinner, and there, in between Scheels Hardware (back when it was still a hardware store) and Woolworths (with the lunch counter - now it's been replaced by a Vickie's Secret and some other dime-a-dozen clothing stores), in between the two fountains in the mall, just down from the cheese shop, I can still remember the blue-and-white structure - perhaps a pontoon boat - that held Casey and Roundhouse. And I remember waiting in line until my mom could lift me to shake hands with both Casey and Roundhouse. They both looked a lot different in real life than they did on our black-and-white television. But I remember that evening - clearly - down to the coat I was wearing, and a fall (?) morning a few years later when we saw Bob Keeshan - Captain Kangaroo - down on the Mall in St. Cloud.
I remember one show where Rodney was supposed to come through a door which apparently had stuck - he damned near pulled down the entire set (parts were pre-filmed, but most of it seemed to be live - including the lunch delivery from a restaurant in the Twin Cities, an imposssibly long way away from where I was in the rural area north of Sartell), but they kept going.
Sure, those "locally-produced" kids shows were often promoting products that were aimed at kids. If I remember right, Casey would drink YooHoo every day on the show - and we tried it once. Back to Nestle's quik, thanks. Rodney promoted Mountain Dew, sure, but he was also putting wheat germ on his peanut butter, and encouraging kids to get out and exercise - when's the last time you saw someone do that without pimping a piece of techo-exercise-crapquipment that had their name on it? AND in a kiddie show? Not today, that's for sure.
But Rodney and Casey and all the rest were also fun, a connection to the real world. Carmen was a nurse who helped a whole lot with getting kids comfortable with doctor visits, while Clancy the cop was just that - a good old Irish Cop characture, as I recall. Casey went off the air with an ownership change, though that didn't prevent Mr. Awsumb from being recognized for his contributions, along with other faces and voices from my childhood, like weatherman Bud, or the guys who would cancel school, Boone & Erickson. Boone & Erickson were special, because WCCO AM Radio, which apparently had enough power to heat a cheese sandwich a mile from the transmitter if we could get it out in the hinterlands, were the Official OFFICIAL notice that school would be closed. For everyone. It didn't matter if you might have thought you heard it on the local stations. They'd allow anyone to call school (and it sometimes worked). But whatever magical, mythical system B&E used was IT as far as school principals went, because WCCO was the official notice - said so every year at the beginning of school when we got our student "handbooks" home.
Life was a lot different then. Now, the shows aren't so thinly veiled in their attempts to sell stuff. The connection often isn't local - often, it's international, in fact. You certainly will not see the REAL OFFICIAL Barney the Dinosaur outside of a TV Studio - though they'll rent costumes and you'll see him opening the car wash down the street. Not the same as the real-live human being you'd seen daily for years. And the shows don't seem to be quite as much fun.
Nor, some days, does life.
Roger Awsumb died today. Lynn Dwyer died back in the late 1970s of a sudden massive heart attack while, what else, out exercising. Now, they're both gone.
I wonder in twenty or thirty years, who my kids will remember fondly. When they go to a museum, will they see an old friend on exhibit? Or will it be Barney and The Teletubbies, still available on DVD and in re-runs? Will it be more slickly-produced 3D-sensie-type stuff that will come out of the collective media in the next few years?
Lord knows it won't be stuff done on a shoestring budget, with love and fun because it could be done in a local warehouse on the cheap with some plywood and paint and cardboard and camera tricks, and allow kids to get their names on TV and then have a tough time taking a nap because they were so excited that their friend, Casey, had lunch with them.
Gadgets, and news, etc. This looks like fun for a gadget geek like myself.
And this looks like something to keep an eye on - remove/more information/tools here.
Um, yeah. Hey Doofus. Pet Cobra. Nicknamed "Crazy Dave". No home phone. Three possible outcomes. First, he sues the police for destroying his "pet". Two, he spends a long time discussing his "condition" with people who have more letters after their names than in their names, and three, he is incarcerated for violating the law.
Oh well. Two out of three.
Humor
What else?
Comments, as usual, intermingled...
Some interesting trivia sent to me by a friend...enjoy
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
You mean they AREN'T defective if they can't? Oh, damn. I'd been
tossing the "broken" ones back into the sewer system...
A snail can sleep for three years.
Yah, but just think of the slime it's gotta dump when it wakes up. I'm
sure this is where my wife says "Ah, now I see the parallels"...
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child
reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
Which is, coincidentally, the age where their heads are most likely to
crush your testicles when giving hugs...
Butterflies taste with their feet.
Ooooh. Athletes tongue could be painful for butterfly chefs.
Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.
Yeah, and if you count my cat Gilligan and his at least four different
snores, the number just keeps going up.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line
would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
Heh. My first thought was "That's f***ing impossible!" Then again,
what else would they have to do while waiting to pass you?
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
Oops. They're forgetting the common house-husband. Which I, to my
wife's very great regret, am not.
Leonardo DiVinci invented the scissors.
And his brother Estupido started running with them, thus the saying
"hey, stupid - no running with scissors!"
No word in the English language rhymes with month.
I'm thinking of a vulgarity said with a lisp... And I'm also joining
the witless protection program shortly.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears
never stop growing.
Yah. Especially the hair in my ears...
Shakespeare invented the word 'assassination' and 'bump'.
Aha, maybe he's a mob boss, not a playwright?
"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand,
"lollipop" with your right.
Pity the poor fool who has to do the closed-caption transcription for
the Lollipop song. You know - "lollipop, lollipop, oh, lolli lolli
lolli, lollipop, lollipop, oh, lolli lolli lolli, LOLLIPOP! (POP)".
Gee. I think I need a break...
The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of
diesel that it burns.
Yah. I had a Pontiac Catalina like that once... ;-)
The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they
start with.
Ah. North American. South Americas. Yeah. I've seen that. After
severe head trauma... Or were they talking Northn America and Souths
America? I dunno.
The words 'racecar' and 'kayak' are the same whether they are read
left to right or right to left.
Yeah, but I'll be the rest of the words in the sentence aren't. Stick
to left to right, oh goyim...
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the
letters only on one row of the keyboard.
Boy. And I thought my job had down days...
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
That's because we males constantly surprise them. Though I dare guess
they'd blink a little less if we did it less often while naked... "Look
honey, I vacuumed!!!" "Oh, how nice, DEAR, and this is Mrs. Frump of
the Ladies Auxiliary..."
If you are an average (north) American, in your whole life, you will
spend an average of 6 months waiting at a red light.
Gee, about 10% of the people I see just blow the damned thing off. I'll
bet though, they'll make up the difference waiting at the red light for
the ambulance...
In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed
on a watch face is 10:10.
Or 8:20, neither of which is the time Kennedy was shot, but provides a
nice symmetrical arrangement for the hands, and doesn't hide the logo
(placed above or below the spindle), date window, etc. See, aren't I
fun at parties?
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely
solid.
Which pissed off Emil Schmutz, who was half-way down the damned thing in
a barrel at the time. He was going to get out and walk, but, well, you
know how slippery it is...
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks
otherwise it will digest itself.
I'm guessing I'm a prodigy in the mucus world, then. How wonderful.
There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables.
There's actually a simple reason for that. Wilma's easier. Betty was
the virtuous one. See, Betty told this traveling vitamin salesman "Get
Lost." He went next door and Wilma told him "Eat me!"... Thank you,
thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week...
There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels
in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
Ah, yes. Facetious. How about useless?
There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which
occurs five times: "indivisibility."
Yah, and at least one word with no vowels. Cwm. Originally Welsh,
for rounded valley, if I recall correctly. Your point?
The Bible does not say there were three wise men; it only says there
were three gifts.
That's because they sent only one, the other two were arguing over "the
player to be named later" in the Camelball team trade...
Did you know that crocodiles never outgrow the pool in which they
live? That means that if you put a baby croc in an aquarium, it would
be little for the rest of its life.
Ah, I see. A similar experiment was tried on me. Of course, they
called it "Junior High". Obviously, it failed.
A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; a group of geese in the
air is a skein.
Actually, I thought a group of geese in the air was known as a "flying
shitstorm." Trust me on this one, you don't work next to a golf course
populated with overfed, diahreatic geese...
A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
Oh, great. All those things I promised to do "in a jiffy" assuming it
was the five-decades-long thing...
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye".
No. No pine puns. Would I disappoint you? Wouldn't be prudent. I'd
end up in a ... casket if I did (heh. You thought I was going to say
pine box, didn't you, knothead?)
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses
every letter of the alphabet.
Yes, and is used to test typewriters, just like "Now is the time for all
good men to come to the aid of their party". Neither of which, however,
can be typed after high-speed application of a solid wood ruler to the
backs of the knuckles by a kindly-looking Nun-ninja typing teacher who
catches you sneaking looks at your fingers...
The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a
letter is "uncopyrightable"
Which will likely get you points in Scrabble, if no where else. And if
you need to get points at Scrabble, well, you NEED the scrabble
points...
Barbie's full name is Barbara Milicent Roberts.
Which only goes to show that EVERYONE hates their middle name.
It's impossible to lick your elbow.
And 87% of you just tried. Including my wife. Again.
More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or
received a telephone call.
Yup, don't tell the telemarketers.
Rats and horses can't vomit.
Given the size of the stuff I had to work around in marching band
parades, I think I'm glad I only had to worry about one end of the
horse...
The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest
tongue twister in the English language...try it!
Hmmm... Coincidence that the sheik and the sheep got sick at the same
time? One wonders...
Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your
ear by 700 times.
And if you use the open-cell foam kind, they can also get tangled in ear
hair. Consider it a safety/hygiene tip. Oh, stop yer puking...
In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
Truly, truly, my job could be so much worse.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Most people not know Caveman Og use burning branch to light cigarette.
Og smart caveman. Match came much later. Match needed sandpaper, which
Caveman Og use for years before invention of Toilet Paper. Explains Og
unhappy disposition, most of time... Of course, Og also unhappy he
couldn't spell last name of Hemorrhoid...
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating
are already married.
And the other 65% are single for a REASON...
A duck's quack doesn't echo anywhere, and no one knows why.
I guess it's not all it's quacked up to be... What? I passed on the
wood puns...
In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat
70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
Would you like fries with that?
Most lipstick contains fish scales.
Gives a whole new meaning to "making fishylips".
Cat's urine glows under a black light.
I like my job. I like my job.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Oh, great. Yet another pickup line I'll never use. "Hey, baby - wanna
swap tongue-prints? Put yours right here..." SMACK!
In Conclusion...
Yeah, it's a long one, I know.
Had a meeting at work this afternoon. Official semi-official word is that the company did good enough. They're thinking of giving back the other portions of our salary. But there might be additional head-count reductions. Given what we went through last January, I'm not sure we're going to find out ahead of time who's head is on the chopping block. The only good news, if you want to call it that, is that one of our programmers is going back to school full-time. Which might count as our one, but I dunno. Al's I can do is keep on doing what I keep on doing, and hope it's not me.
The other fun bit was in the mail when I got home. Nice, thick envelope from district court. "WhadidIdo?"
Nothing, it turns out. I'm called for Jury Duty. And, since I no longer live in that county, bummer for them, I can't serve. So sorry. See ya. Whoo hoo. Twelve years of living in the same city and I finally get called for Jury Duty. Which means I need to plan to move in about March of 2014...
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
You'd Think I'd Be Used To This By Now...
But of course not.
Last night, after browsing the want ads and finding sixteen intriguing possibillities (from the last three weeks, admittedly), I ran out of steam after getting them formatted into the spreadsheet for mailmerge (yes, I maintain a fairly sophisticated job-search system, believe it or not - once bitten, twice shy, as it were). And after putting the kids to bed, I flipped the TV on to Robin Williams' HBO special.
Now, when I was in high school, "Reality What a Concept" was played by someone so many times they nearly had it memorized - OK, so it was me. Anyway...
But I figured "this guy is good, but there's just no way he's kept up like Carlin or some of the other guys doing Standup constantly."
Right. Remind me again about not betting against Microsoft, either.
At one point (yes, the colonoscopy portion, for those of you who watched it) I found myself falling out of the rocking chair, trying desperately to get enough breath to get into the bathroom before I wet myself. i barely made it.
Then I went to bed and crashed out fairly quickly. And awoke again and again and again. By 5:20 am, I'd just about given up, when I finally fell asleep... Did I mention the alarm goes off at 5:30? Thought not.
Got up, got going, got stuff done, got dressed, made lunch for myself and half of the kid's (they're pretty into putting their own together). Got the appropriate individuals appropriately dropped off, and avoided most major backups in traffic.
Once I got off the freeway, however, the old "omigawd" feeling hit again. Tight stomach, shaky hands, and serious thoughts/dreams of A) Winning the Lottery, and B) running and hiding. Can't do either, so I put my head back in the game and head in to the office.
Nothing unusual, no lock changes, and as usual, I'm first. Unlock the door, check voice mail, record my daily greeting ("Hi, you've reached John Dominik at $Employer. Today is $Day_Of_Week, $Date, and I am in the office all day today, I'm just not at my desk right now. You can leave a message after the tone and I'll get back to you as soon as I can, or dial zero for the operator. Thanks and have a good day. Bye.")
Get to work changing backup tapes, checking logs, making sure that which needed to be updated (virus updates, etc) got done. Go to work on Project A for the moment - boss's voice mail message light isn't blinking on his phone. It runs on a computer. OK.
Update software, it crumps like the usual pile I've come to expect. It's the third update for this particular version, and on my computer only that means a complete remove-install cycle.
Times like this I find myself listening more and more to the music that I enjoyed when I was in high school/college. It's weird, but I guess it's an attempt to move back to an earlier time where life wasn't so complex.
Oh well. Just in case anyone hears of a firm hiring here in the Twin Cities, let me know, 'Kay? Just in case.
Linkie Bits
Let's see. Oh,
score one for the good guys. Stomp those sneaky bastards.
Of course, even the evil ones are sometime stupid.
I THOUGHT So.... Seems we got scammed out of our old phone number after all, the bastards...
And this is likely to go nowhere fast.
Most people think that saying "X was a saint" is enough for canonization. Sorry, folks, but there'ss a long and winding road to sainthood.
- First off, the saint must have led a good life. No, not perfect -
that's just not possible. Nor does the potential saint need to be holy
for their entire life - recovery from "Godlessness" is always a good
back-story. But this person's "Goodness" must be on the "heroic" level.
I think this case reaches that level, not that my opinion's all that
valuable.
- Obviously, support from the people is needed - it can't be done alone.
Clearly, he has that. Get together, discuss the issue, the potential,
and start the campaign. Well, duh. Done that.
- I'll assume that they've also started PRIVATE devotions - private =
not in church. Pray where ever you want, ask the man to intercede with
God for you, but not in church.
- Whatever Fr. Mychal had - helmet, habit, whatever - put it in a box
and SAVE it. Seriously. It might be useful later... If Fr. Mychal's
declared a saint, the items are therefore relics.
- The group, while collecting this material, also needs to document in
detail the life of the man. Vagueness is not tolerated. They've got to
document the whole life, even the ugly details.
- Once they've done the above, they need to enlist the support of
clergy - especially bishops, etc., who will need to move the case to
"the next level". The next level is typically where the Vatican says
"ehy, what? Oh, okay, put all your stuff in this file and go away."
- Now, it gets hairy. Research into the life of the potential saint.
Costs money. Reports have to be composed. Costs money. Case has to be
taken to rome. Costs money. No, you can't buy sainthood, but it
certainly isn't cheap.
- And once all that's presented, you wait. If you're lucky, the
"clinchers" have happened while documenting. If not, keep reading. If
the Congregation for the Causes of Saints accepts the case, the
individual would become a "Servant of God" in church parlance - in other
words, on the bottom rung of the Saintly ladder.
- The potential saint is exhumed (that is, dug up) to see if they are
incorrupt (unrotted). Corruption is not an automatic bounce, just as
incorruptability isn't an automatic in. Part of it's to make sure Joe
Schmoe is Joe Schmoe. Or, in this case, Mychal Emmet Judge. After
exhumation, the body is typically moved to a more accessable location
(that is, not left out in a common cemetary).
- After seeing all the evidence, the Congregation for the causes of
saints (the outfit that filters out the riff-raff) decides whether or
not to forward the case. This is where the pile lands on the pope. If
the pope decides that the case has proven that the individual led a life
of "heroic virtue" - definitely a possibility in Fr. Mychal's case - the
pope declares him "Venerable" which gets him up another rung.
- Remember those clinchers? Miracles. These are bone fide miracles.
Attributed to the Venerable proto-saint, it requires one to hop up the
ladder to "Beatified" - one step down from Saint, and one more to make
that final hop to Sainthood. Now, if the miracles occurred quickly
enough after death that they were covered in the research done earlier,
you're doing OK. If not, you're going to have some more expenses - such
as "miracle research" - because those types of experts do not work for
free.
- Even if you get through all of that, you're still dependent on the
Pope to declare an individual beatified or sainted. It's entirely up to
him.
Do I think it's possible? Heck yeah. Do I think we'll see it soon? No. Not at all. I think we'll see it on God's time. Of course, Fr. Judge already has a feast day. As do all who have led lives of heroic virtue that has gone unrecognized by officialdom - November 1, All Saint's day. And all the rest, of ordinary virtue? November 2 - All Soul's day.
There. Enough top-of-the-head theology to keep you disinterested and thoroughly bored... ;-)
Housekeeping
For the record, this page says,
quote,
What if I have moved out of the County?
You are not eligible to serve as a juror in Dakota County if you have
moved out of the county. However, we need this information in writing.
We ask that you complete the jury questionnaire and include your new
address. Once we receive this information, we will confirm by letter
that you are disqualified. This also applies if you plan to move before
your jury term. In that case, give us the effective date of your move.
So that's good news. Of course, today was doggie day at the office, and little Merlin has a colon almost as big as me, judging from the output that dog did this afternoon. All vapors, but my word, what a stench. I was tempted to feed him bubblegum, just to see if the stuff was lighter than air. The image of a little westie being towed around with a balloon out of his butt stopped me (but only barely).
And
Finally...
Five quick notes - sounds like the layoffs at work are already over - and since I haven't been, that's a good sign.
Speaking of work, those who say Windows 2000 is unstable, well, check this out ... over twenty-one days uptime, a whole lot of network traffic (not as much as a server, mind you). And this is done while I'm testing software and trying out new, different, sometimes painful configurations. I had to reboot today because I removed and needed to reinstall some software, but I thought that was pretty cool. Over 200,000,000 packets in and out. Okay, geek moment over...
And it would appear that my increasingly obvious attempts to give She Who Must Be Obeyed something useful and interesting to kvetch about are succeeding. She's posted two days in a row, now...
And a warning - tomorrow, garden pictures. And if I catch that damned rabbit, I'm going to string him up in the garden - eating beans, though I don't think he's made it too far in the pepper plant arena. Next year, animal-proof fencing. Lovely.
Finally, they have the plans up for rebuilding the World Trade Center area. My 2¢ is that the Garden plan looks the best. But what do I know, I don't live there. The Promenade seems to be leading, but that was my third choice - I liked triangle second. Figures.
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
First of all...
I know, I know, I promised garden pictures. But we stopped on the way home
to make an appointment to get the car looked at, and then we came home, and it
was 94 in the back yard, and I had to grill, then the grocery guy came early...
One of those nights.
More Pledging
Yah, I know, but...
Dennis Miller said recently on his show, regarding the judges who declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional: "So, Your Honor, the Pledge is unconstitutional because it says 'Under God'. Guess that means when you were sworn in with your hand on a Bible, and at the end of your oath repeated, 'So Help Me God' that makes your job unconstitutional, therefore you have no job, which means your ruling doesn't mean shit."
Ah. Little-known fact, apparently. When you swear in, as in as a judge or a congresscritter or witness, the oath isn't to the government, or anyone else. The oath is to what you hold in highest respect or regard.
I'm sure Mr. Seto could point us to alternate forms of the swearing in in courts, etc., as they most certainly do exist. However, I'll be damned if I can find them in Google. But, Dennis, the point is not that the judge said something contrary to the Constitution. The judge said, in effect, "I'm going to do the best job I can of interpreting the law, by all I hold holy and most dear."
Simple factiod, folks. It's not the same as the pledge of allegiance. In the oath of office (or for court), you promise by that which you (supposedly) hold most dear that you will do the best job you can (or tell the truth). Failure to do so presumably will rend you from that you hold most dear.
Which might be one of the causes of our present troubles. In the past, it was enough for you to have a "handshake" deal with the fellow down the street. We had what is apparently now an outdated concept - "honor".
Once upon the time the leaders of this country, before it was a country, pledged to eachother their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. It's important to note the "sacred" portion referred to THEIR honor. Today, I doubt many people would know what that meant.
"Honor" meant doing the right thing, not because you had to, or because you were told to, or because someone might find out if you didn't, but because you said you would. Unli ke scumbags today it also meant not being deliberately cruel, or stupid, and not causing deliberate, willful, undeserving harm.
Honor didn't mean not fighting for what you believed in. On the contrary. You fought desperately for what you believed in. But you also accepted that occasionally people might give offense unwittingly, and those who asked could be forgiven.
"Honor" isn't something that you say "of course I do, see, here are the examples." It's something that OTHERS decide you have, or do not have. As a Boy Scout, I tried, very hard, to be "honorable". Not "honor-able", but doing the right thing, being the better example - not for my own gain, because that's not the point. If I'm going to be an example, though, I'd better be a GOOD example.
Oh well. One last comment - And I apologize, because I don't remember where it came from. "When man speak of honor, guard your doors."
So be it.
Proof My People have been around for quite some time, apparently. Us chocoholics gotta stick together, as there is no twelve-step plan for curing our disease. Well, there was, then a bunch of us got together and beat hell out of the fellow who proposed it. He lasted precisely thirty-eight "jiffys" before we corrected his abberant behavior.
Ah, the things I do because of this "disease"...
McCartney
Oh, HELL.
I'm sorry, but if Jesus himself came by selling tickets to the second coming, I wouldn't
be paying $130 for a seat there. Not that buying a seat would get me out of the warmer
"free" seat I think I've probably earned already... Good grief. Damn, I'd love to see
McCartney just once in my life, but I guarantee you $260+ is NOT coming out of my budget
any time soon. Damn.
Thursday, July 18, 2002
Good Morning, I think
It's sad. I've no idea when I collapsed into bed last night. I know it
was late. Which was painful enough. But now I'm awake, and I've managed
to eat lunch without injuring myself (pork patties grilled last night,
nuked for lunch, with cheese, on potato buns, a frozen Mt. Dew (forgot
to get it out of the freezer after two hours - I refill my bottles (with
Dew, smart ass), and the refilled ones take about three hours to
freeze - the "fresh" (some would say "virgin") bottles take only about 2
hours to freeze in our office fridge-freezer). Of course, there was
significant potential, as I once again demonstrated that a ding-dong
(the cupcake, cupcakes) is a single-bite food, therefore a box of
ding-dongs is a single-serving container. Think about it - if you can
finish it in less than twelve bites, is it a "serving"? Shouldn't be.
And for the rest of you who think that's a bit much, take it up with Mr. "Three-litres-IS-a-Single-Serving-of-Coke" Thompson...
Stumbling blindly along
I can't vouch for the authenticity of the pictures below. They were
e-mailed to me as "an American MI-24 Chopper in Afghanistan".
I've got no military service in my background. Just lots and lots of plastic model experience. Everything from Greek and Roman Triremes to Star Trek's Enterprise. My particular favorites were military ships/planes and Corvettes. Thus, I know with some small degree of confidence that a MI-24 HIND is a Russian chopper (which the US Military has at least a couple of, or maybe just one they took a lot of pictures of).
Which in no way manages to ruin my enjoyment of the paint job on this particular plane.
Sorry about the size, but I just couldn't bear to shrink them...
And, of course, this caused a whole cascade of other issues.
Many thousands of years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth (quoth my wife), when I was a kid, my father signed me up for some "plastic model of the month" club. Every 4-6 weeks a white box would show up. No fancy four-color printing on the outside, just the plastic model, with instructions, inside. I built a model A (1/24 scale - that's 2 feet equals one inch). Model T. Corvette (1/24nd - ouch - all I can say). Enterprise aircraft carrier (1/720 scale). Even a Boeing B-52G (1/144 scale still was huge). All sorts of plastic models.
But apparently, today, the concept no longer exists. I stopped getting them when I had too many unbuilt kits building up (yeah, I know, sounds familiar, doesn't it?), but now, I was thinking, it might be a fun thing to get back into - especially with Jack. Oh well.
Yet another business idea which won't fly because not enough people want to take the time any more to do something like that... Meanwhile, I need to remember to check out hobbysurplus.com, Tower Hobbys, and my old friends at Squadron Signal (if I can find them) every once in a while for a cheap, vicarious thrill.
And, of course, such a search like that takes leaps and bounds. For example, while looking at the Plastic Models web site, I saw one for a shuttle "Orion". This sounded familiar. And I found this, which led in short order to a search for a Discovery model, but since I couldn't remember the name of the ship, I found this site (and Ken Scott, get down to Denver and see this film - tell me if I gotta start screaming at the three REALLY-BIG-SCREEN venues here locally to make sure one of them get it), this, which promised a tour of the digitally remastered film (which would be ... unbelievably awesome if done in an Imax theater, I'm thinking...), and then left me possitively DROOLING over this, and by then, lunch, such as I knew it, was over.
Speaking of Over
I guess
I should have expected this from Texas. Good
Lord. Look at what kind of President they regurgitated.
I especially like the paragraph
"An example of a "mistake" cited in a Texas Public Policy Foundation review: Proposed books fail to say that Indian tribes were as much to blame as fur traders and tourists for wiping out the great buffalo herds of the Plains by shooting the animals for sport. "
Right. And the Indians were just whooping it up, shootin' them damned buffalo because they got in their way. Good grief. This is why I send my kids to private school. Sure, it's Catholic, but there's a whole lot less re-education for me there than in the public schools. And no, for the record, they don't teach creationism - if they do, my kids are already smart enough to ignore it (Jack likes anthropology because it digs up bones - his mom's fascinated by it as well).
Mark my words. If this country wants to REMAIN great, they'll give up re-writing history and stick to making the present better and the future brighter. Instead of looking for ways to blame stupid mistakes of the past on someone else.
The alternative, of course, is we just arm everyone with a sidearm, and then pass a law which says "any killing which is done by six or more people is assumed to be a justifiable homicide". As we all know the decision-making abilities of any committee, we can assume that if they agreed enough to rub out Idiot A, Idiot A most definitely had it coming. And if Idiot A couldn't avoid the group of them, well, then we put it down to improving the breed.
Idiots. Pure and simple. Idiots.
Garden Pix
The Pea Runners (Careful, wise guy) I put together. One's of sticks from a
tree I took down this spring - the other's lath that I picked up. Hey, it
works.
Most of the garden. I forgot that when you take the camera from the 68F
basement to the 96F (high humidity) yard, things fog up. Besides me, I
mean. Most of the earlier shots were a bit fuzzy.
On the left, the morning glories are almost seven feet up. Tish is a bit
upset that he can't come out, though.
And this is a tiger lily under the apple tree. Seriously.
Friday, July 19, 2002
Heck of a morning, no?
Yeah, I know.
Woke up, but had a heck of a time getting out of bed. Finally hit the shower, climbed out, and ... damnit, 7 am already (my personal goal this summer has been to leave by 7 am to get the kids to their daycare and the wife to the properly sheltered and air-conditioned bus stop, rather than the bench on the side of the street). Get dressed, toss together kid lunches, and head out the door.
Decided to drop the wife first, and then had to wait while Mr. Stubborn JR. decided to get whiney, and succeeded admirably. Once we got going, dropped Ann at her bench, started working my way BACK to daycare (this method requires I pass my house three times - once out to the bus, once back to drop the kids, and one last time to get back to the freeway), and have one of those kidney-busting moments... The car quit. Just flat out stopped running. I coasted around a nice, rounded corner, down the street, into a parking lot, and into a big, wide loop to stop the car. Then started it back up, put it in gear, and drove away. Phew.
Dropped off the kids, went right past the house (didn't even think about stopping in to grab a lunch, duh), and headed off towards the on-ramp. Got onto the freeway, following ... you got it - a knacker's truck. Or whatever they're calling them these days. Three dead cows, stacked like cordwood, bouncing on eachother. Eeeeewwww.
Then it started to drizzle. That's what I'm hoping it did, at any rate. The pavement NOT in my lane got wet, so I'm assuming it was rain...
And that's just to START the day...
Samantha Runnion
What the hell can we do?
I mean, seriously. This little girl did EVERYTHING right. 150 feet from her door. Screamed and howled and fought like a demon. Police were there in minutes. The bastard still got away, and killed a beautiful little girl.
What really brings it all home for me is news that we have a Level III offender loose somewhere locally. And he's been convicted in Shakopee, near us, and preys on boys... Gee, I have one of those.
I'm beginning to think that what we really need is permanent incarceration for people like this. Convicted, jailed. Period. No chance for parole, release, or a life. Period.
Or we quite simply eliminate any appendage with which they might do harm. No, not chemical castration (unless we're talking a rope, a bucket of acid, and a few hours of them screaming...). I'm talking about removing anything they could use to penetrate or in any way harm another individual. Let's see. Nose, tongue, fingers, thumbs, hell, the entire arm below the elbow, genitalia, toes, feet, heck, just chop above the knee, and that should do it.
What? Cruel and unusual? You got it baby. So's being snatched out of your yard, raped, suffocated, and dumped on the side of the road before you've started first grade. Clearly, treating them like humans isn't working. Let's treat them like the dangerous animals they are, and pull the dangerous portions so they can do no harm.
Makes perfect sense to me. Then again, I'm a parent.
Don't Panic, But...
All right. You're in jail. You're suspected of aiding in the most
horrific murder of innocent people in quite a long time, and it looks
like you're headed into that really dark spot in the tunnel. Your
attorney is, at least in your view, a puppet - the only attorney you
want isn't allowed to help you because of some silly rule about being
licensed in the place you're killing time.
The people who are charging you bring up more charges - this last bunch could result in your death. You still tell them "no, I'm innocent". Then you look at the calendar, and realize "oops, there's another one set to go, and unless I get into a safe place away from these other people right quick, I'm going to swing from a tree!"
The alternative is that he had an attack of conscience which seems about as likely as ending up in a heaven full of virgins. Sheesh.
Unless, of course, one is seeking the woolly type of virgins. Which might go a long way towards clearing up a whole lot of loose ends...
Inglewood Police Beating
Yeah, I know.
But I saw a chunk of video this morning that showed the kid involved rolling on the ground, wrestling with the police officer. To me, that says you're unwilling to obey the policeman, so you're liable to end up in slightly-less-good condition than you might think.
Now, on the other hand, Johnny Cochrane has apparently taken over this kid's defense. Um, yeah. I'm innocent of the charges against me, but I'll take Cochane as my attorney anyway?
No, thank you. Johnny Cochrane, since his "O.J. Trial" work has screamed to me "guilty, but we're workin' the SYSTEM".
The kid shouldn't have been punched, and bouncing him on the trunk of the car might have been a bit much. But if you're going to resist arrest, you're going to have to be prepared for things to not quite go the way you'd like.
News and Linkie Bits
We'll take a quick trip around the horn...
First up, there's this absolute outrage. I'm going to encourage you to discuss the matter with your congress-critter if your license appears on their site - mine (which you can see here) did. My thanks to Mr. Wootten, a faithful reader of my wife, who happened to let me in on that secret.
And we'll follow it up with the collection of manuals Mr. Kershner has uncovered - seriously, seriously twisted, my friends.
Oh, Esther. I think you pulled their legs right off. Assuming, of course, you were kidding... Besides, how would such a network survive? Cats are lacking in income in general, which means they wouldn't benefit from advertising...
And, since I started the whole crocodile/alligator thing earlier this week, this now seems wholly my fault. But for the fact that I haven't been north of my office since the fourth of July...
And that reminds me - special to Matt - Bad juju come by Cabelas yesterday.
At first, I thought this was a crock, but then I read through it, and it made a lot of sense. I was worried some nutball was going to propose building physical highways between planets, and the thought of explaining why that wouldn't work, well, it hurt too damned much to continue.
Speaking of cool, though, This is way beyond even SERIOUS cool. I can remember watching Thunderbirds over at Grandma's house - in front of her color television. The marionation portion of the exercise was a bit freaky, but the rest of it worked fine. Especially the ships. THERE are some models I'd love to get my hands on...
Yahbut...
(As in "yeah, but...")
This is cool,
but how fast would it be at freecell? 
Saturday, July 20, 2002
One thing July and January have in common here in Minnesota - fogging glasses. Tonight, I went out to throw out the ... well, I changed the cat boxes. And when I stepped out the front door, my glasses went all foggy.
Yup. Just like last summer, when we hit an 80-degree dewpoint (that means the water in the air will start condensing out if the temp goes BELOW 80), we're there again. Which means seriously humid.
Some running and some hiding today. We got up late, mostly because the early event (the Farmer's Market) was rained out - we got an official half-inch of rain this morning - I emptied two inches of water out of the wagon, though.
Hit the bread store, the other bread store, the movie rental store, the library, and the grocery store, then came home. I fiddled for a while and ended up installing that damned Real player, and then got to see some really cool video - and more than that, I won't say. Let's just say some people have really cool jobs - and I'm not one of them.
I learned tonight why bacon is not often grilled (I lost two pieces - as in they were there, and then they were gone when I came back with the spray bottle). I also did a pretty good job with burgers. Did learn one other thing, though - Kingsford charcoal burns hotter and faster than the cheap stuff.
And, of course, 33 years ago tonight, I was watching television. The moon's nearly full tonight. Nice reminder. Too bad it's not still happening, of course.
Sunday, July 21, 2002
Let's see. It's a lot easier for you folks to see the stuff I type if I upload it. Good point number one.
And number two is that no matter how hot it gets outside, it can always get hotter - as it did today. It was positively brutal.
And, number three, if you're gonna party, for crying out loud, don't get stupid with the watermelon rinds, Okay? (And, if you're working security for a wedding, for chrissakes, get a sense of humor, would ya? Sheesh. Lobbing watermelon rinds to forty police cruisers is a hell of an escalation in force - especially when there were only 75 guests. This wasn't an Afghan wedding, after all - these folks were in Colombia Heights). Though I daresay that we're apparently backwards heathen when compared to our brethren in ... well, more dusty climes. When I got engaged, I had a drink of champagne to celebrate. This fellow, on the other hand, celebrates with his machine gun, kills a few, and, well, there you go.
Some day I've got to figure out the difference between "infidel" and "idiot". Or, along the lines of Robin Williams the other night, frankly, were I Pharaoh back in Biblical times, dealing with Moses, I guarantee you that the first time a frog fell out of the sky, I would have gotten up on my throne and yelled "You - Get your shit and GET OUT!". Then again, I don't like dust, frogs, or indiscriminate discharge of automatic weaponry without suitable reason - and frankly, engagement doesn't qualify. It's not even on the preliminary list.
Other than that, not a whole heck of a lot got done. Reviewed the paper, did some other busywork, ran out to return a movie and came back home. Grilled hot dogs, a steak, and a whole mess of shrimp. It all turned out.
Damn, I must be getting the hang of this.
Of course, tomorrow's back to the grind - for three long days, then another four day weekend, this one kicked off by everyone's favorite, car repairs, and at this point, containing the potential for
And, I'm sure, a whole lot of shenanigans that are totally unplanned, of course.
And now, I'm gonna go watch A.I. Off to the races...
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 John
P. Dominik. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express
written permission. Opinions expressed herein are my own, and my fault. For further information, check out my
other home page.