Hosted By...
Last Updated : Sunday, 22 December, 2002 at 8:30 PM -0500
|
| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 22 December, 2002 at 8:30 PM -0500 |
 | ||||
|
|
|||
| ||||
|
|
Monday, December 16, 2002 |
Some Days, it Doesn't Pay To Get Out Of Bed...
For example ... The full quote which went rambling round my twisted mind last night was
Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zools knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
Ah, Ghostbusters. Good film. So what happens when it doesn't pay to get out of bed? I get out anyway. Such is my life these days.
Today has actually been a sorta-good day. I've learned that there are many things I could do to make money - and some few ideas which might also work. Unfortunately, no one's paying me for the ideas, and the work that seems to be most valuable is that with my hands. So, without further ado...
 This is Rhiannon at her loft desk. |
 Rhiannon and Jack sharing the new pens she got. |
 The shelf above her desk. The writing surface is whiteboard. |
 This is the shelf at the head of the bed. |
 The Green Monster. A felt cape to cover the open wrought-iron railing. |
 The Tree Stand. Ann says "serious overkill." Mostly because she's not the one picking the damned tree back up. |
 The tree, bound. No, don't get all excited. No whips and chains. Yet.. |
 The tree, unbound. Yes, I trimmed those off-center spikes out. The trunk's got more twists and turns in it than your average horror movie, but it looks good now. It'll look better once it's decorated. |
Other than that, lots and lots of keyboard pounding and "analysis". Ugh. I just love it when firewalls ain't.
|
|
Tuesday, December 17, 2002 |
Leave It To Matt
Beland, that is. He notes "Now, is it just me, or does anyone else see the gopher from Caddyshack
dancing? See the two paws pointed up, the butt shimmying down near the
floor..."
He is a sick, sick man. One I gotta hang out with more often.
Proceeding apace...
At a pace that will kill me, that is. To bed far, far too late last night, and the usual toss and turn all night sort of sleep one gets used to after four months of it, and then up, late, this morning. Off to get Ann to her bus, back home, hurrying the children into their clothes, then run down to check e-mail and the like. I return, 20 minutes later. Jack has regressed from socks in hand, ready to wear, to "I can't find 'em!" wailing. Sadly, it's also ten minutes to nine. Which means little putzing boy will go to school hungry (dress first, then food - assuming the children are hungry, that should handle the problem).
And he turns up with even more good news. The new $5 gloves (plain cloth) I bought him over the weekend, and he wore, first, yesterday, are gone. He dropped one in school, which his sister picked up and gave to him. He thinks they're in the closet, but doesn't know. Time for the idiot clips to connect gloves to sleeves again, I guess. It worked for Rhiannon. A year of those, and she hasn't lost gloves since.
Out to the bus, where the wind-chill might have hit zero (and you just know that when the storm breaks on us tonight, we'll get freezing rain and sleet tonight, instead of snow. Yuck), and the kids get on it. Get back up the driveway, and not even into the house, when the phone rings. Consulting client #1 discussing what hardware of his I have which needs to be refitted, and I end up doing some on-line shopping for him. Ugh. Oh well, it pays.
End Of An Era
Jesse Ventura is slowly wrapping up his stuff, getting ready for his return to the Private Sector (I swear, when he says it, you can hear it). And today he had an appearance on the local Public radio station.
What's disturbing as hell about Ventura is that he was once an afternoon-drive-time shock jock talk radio personality in this town. Now he refers to those in the media (his former co-workers) as "jackals".
Anyway, today Ventura visited one of the most even-handed interviewers where he's concerned. I missed most of it, but fell into the car (to get Jack) at about the time he was discussing school vouchers.
"What's not to like? The state pays $8500 a pupil for those in public education. Yet the private school folks tell me that with a $3500 voucher, they could do the same thing." Ventura's plan would require that private school students, just like those kids who are home schooled, pass the same sets of tests the public school kids do. Other than that, there's a $5000 savings in what the state pays for each child to be educated.
The nice thing about Ventura is that he can over-simplify a complex issue to the point of absurdity, and then dare you, through his very manner, to challenge him. And when you do, he'll get pissed off, storm out, and get all over the national media that the locals do not like him.
Consider; the state does NOT pay a flat $8500 per pupil. There is a set amount which each school district gets, per child. This has been the "wobbly bit" if you will that has tripped up many a district's administration. As there is no requirement for public school students to register before they arrive, the first day of school is typically when most administrators find out how much state funding they'll get. Some wait a week or so to do a final head count to make certain the numbers.
Once those kid numbers are known, the state typically pays something like $5300 per student. There are other funds which are released based on if the child is special needs, resides in a high-risk or largely rural district, and there's a distinct weight placed upon the school's overall performance. Inner-city Minneapolis schools get more per-pupil money than those in the outstate area - presumably because there are more non-English-speaking students in the class.
Once all of this has been calculated out, the state unleashes a trickle of money.
Most private schools, on the other hand, are not equipped to deal with special needs students. For the most part, private schools focus on two areas - high-performing students (over-achievers, or what ever you want to call them this month), and specific curricula - such as religious content. Recent additions to the state's "private-school" mix include the "magnet" school program, where certain under-used schools are converted to focus on key topics - sciences, arts, music, environment, for example - but are in all other ways public schools. They charge nothing (or so I've been told) to attendees, and get their funding from the state. Their financial programs are regularly reviewed - as is their staff. The private corporations formed to run these schools are not-for-profit institutions which are under tremendous scrutiny.
So why should private schools accept the flood of children who suddenly, bearing $3500 state checks, want to attend their place of learning?
I can think of a couple of reasons.
First of all, commitment. No parent is immune from assisting in the whole "homework" thing - however, there are many children in my neighborhood who are out playing while mine are still inside doing homework. Yes, it's perhaps misguided on my part to require the child to do her homework immediately after school rather than waiting until later, but if the material is fresh in her mind, as are the instructions, it might be completed before 5 pm, versus starting at 6:30 and finishing some time after midnight.
The second is a bit more problematic. There's a certain level of involvement which is required in private schools. Assistance with the kid's schoolwork, in the community, and with the growth of the community. We pay tuition - we also pay through the church, as some of our donations support the school. We participate in the fundraisers. The school itself has only one - the Marathon - first week of October, every year, has ever since I was in high school. Various groups put on Pancake breakfasts, bake sales, fish fries, dinners, etc. - we go to many of them to help support the school.
The third is a deeper issue. Commitment of the mind and body and effort is one level. Commitment of the heart is another. I trust the principal and teachers of my daughter and son's school. I have to. Not only am I giving them my most precious things to take care of, I'm paying them for the privilege, while I could take what the state offers for free.
Lastly, at least for now, is the loss of voice that most parents would have to tolerate. Most public schools are run by school boards. Groups which try hard not to micro-manage the school, the teacher, the administration, and all the rest. They all have at least one committee to "review textbooks" - right. Sorry. The last thing I want is a group of people who partied their butts off in High school and graduated by the skin of their teeth picking the books that will teach MY children. Let's leave the choice of book up to the person who has to use it, eh?
Ventura says "I can save the state $5000 per pupil". Sure. Right. Nearly every single private school I know of in the state is running at or very near capacity. And I don't mean "we've run out of teachers" capacity. I mean "we've run out of flipping ROOM" capacity. Our school recently added a $2.1 million dollar expansion - about eight classrooms in two different sections, and a re-organization which allowed for three classes of each year (K through 8) through the school. Previously, 7th and 8th grades were only two sections - which meant some of the sixth graders peeled off to other institutions, whether they wanted to or not. Now, the school has the capacity for 78 kids per grade-year. And given the space on the block, there's not enough room for them to add eight more classrooms. Not without going out of business for a year while they rebuild the entire site, ground up.
I wasn't thrilled with Pawlenty getting elected, but I'm certainly glad to see the back of Ventura. A beligerent bonehead like that belongs in a museum or in a circus, wearing a tutu and feather boa. Then again, he's done that already.
Back To The Future
No, not the DVD set (which came out or is coming out, I guess, I dunno, I don't crawl out of my cave much any more).
Back when I was in college in 1982-1987 (yeah, I was a prodigy - I took all of 1983 off, what of it?), I had an account on the campus VAX. Well, that's not precisely correct. 99% of my life was based on that VAX, an 11/785 with Maxbus, connection to the card-catalog computer (first one in the country to do that, thank you very much), and a lousy bank of four 2400-baud modems. It has two 360 MB drives which fit into a case about the size of your average two-drawer file cabinet.
While I was an assistant administrator on the machine, we added a third drive. The thing was massive - twelve-inch or thereabouts platters, weighed a veritable ton (I had to crawl around installing extra braces under the raised flooring - remember that?), and gave us 50% more storage.
We even had a laser printer to go along with the dot-matrix and band printers. The band printers were awesome. Literally 60 pages a minute, on dense stuff. Even overstrike stuff dropped to only 50 pages a minute. Which was hell when some wanker would forget and send his 800-page love missive to some upper-class goddess to "Print" without setting his print queue - the default was our computer-room band printer, the holy of holys, where only those deemed "clean" could pass through the eight bookcases of manuals (nine feet tall, four feet wide, all full of VAX program manuals) to the door, enter the room, and touch the massive printer (it was about the size of your average Ford Fiesta/Cooper Mini).
We had plenty of fun reading those "Karen, why don't you return my calls" letters. You'd think these kids would learn, but no.
And from Day One on the VAX, we had two incredibly useful tools. The first was "Mail". Not even "E-Mail" back then, just "Mail". You sent a message to someone, they'd log on, get notified they had a message, and send a message back. Pretty cool. Remember, this was 1984, or thereabouts. The internet was still more baling twine and bubble gum than wires at that stage.
The other tool we had was "phone". A creepy little program, Phone. Dastardly types would find certain escape sequences would wreck havoc with your terminal, and really hose you up. For, you see, if you were on the VAX and you were using a good old VT-220 terminal like most of us were, you could pull up additional sessions. Three or four, or more, if you felt brave. But those escape sequences wouldn't lock your session, just your terminal - and then you'd have to reset the terminal, and hopefully your account wouldn't freeze, or worse. There were a number of times my morning e-mail would contain a half-dozen "we were chatting with Madame X, and she zapped us." For a while, we even had a fellow who called himself "Zany Madcap" and would regularly surprise us with new ways to lock us up.
Phone was simple in other ways, as well. Multi-part conversations were simple. You added another person simply by agreeing to include them in the conversation. Then you typed and read fast. I improved my typing speed by about 500% when I was using the Phone system. And you learn to read while typing, because the Phone utility used three lines at the top of the screen for status. The bottom line of the screen had the terminal's status, which meant you had twenty lines. Every individual you added to the conversation required at least two lines, and the phone program typically split the screen evenly. When it was just two of you, you each had ten lines - theoretically. Realistically, you had eight to write/read in. Adding a third meant you had six lines each. Four dropped you to four lines each. Five, the absolute limit when it came to coherent conversations, gave you just two lines. Once or twice we maxed the system out with eight people in the conversation.
We also found that while the VAX was a slow computer compared to the rocket of the day (the folks at Compaq had just released their screamer 386/20 PC. With the optional 387 Math coprocessor installed, the Compaq was capable of a whopping 7 MIPS - that's Million Instructions Per Second. The VAX on the other hand maxed out at .9 MIPS - a measly 900,000 instructions per second. But the VAX wouldn't seem slow until you had about sixty people on it, all e-mailing, phoning, or compiling (yes, we had every single language known to man, including FORTH, COBOL, SNOBOL, PROLOG, ADA, LISP, okay, okay, I'll stop. I remember one day having a contest with another admin - we tried to write "Hello World" in as many languages as we could in one afternoon. Programs to be run from DCL command script, as executables, no interpretation allowed. I think I hit nineteen, she hit twenty-two. Figures).
Today, after a brief discussion with "Frank" I upgraded to Netscape 7.01. Why, you ask? Well, Netscape includes that which I swore I'd never run - instant messaging software. Frank and I were discussing a potential business deal.
I think. Or maybe we were discussing thongs. I don't remember. It's all so hazy now...
|
|
Wednesday, December 18, 2002 |
Hump Day
In so, so many ways. Except one.
This morning, after launching Ann onto her bus, the children onto theirs, and myself onto a path I'd rather not have been on, I wandered the stores. Well, store, actually. Rather than participate in Men's shopping day this year (Ann's gotta work Christmas Eve, and rather than get my butt up early to haul her to the bus, I decided to let her take the car. Smart? Maybe. Dunno. Depends on when she'll be let go. If it's not until late, well, I'll be walking to church. Rhiannon's got to be there by 4:15 pm for the service. Ann's normal hours are 8-4:30. Thus, you see my problem), I did it today.
Rhiannon and Jack made out like bandits (Jack more than Rhiannon to this point), so once that was done, I came home. Pulled into the driveway, and ... started worrying. First, the police car was stopped in front of the neighbor's house. Very unusual in our neighborhood. Then, provided some neighborly assistance by giving a fellow from a couple blocks away a jump-start.
Then, once Rhiannon got home, I put her and Jack to work in the Crawlspace. In about twenty minutes, she'd found all of the decoration boxes, and we had them upstairs. I put the lights into the tree this evening, and then Ann and the kids put on layer one of the decorations. Layer two will follow tomorrow evening. Then we shall see what we shall see. Methinks we've got too many decorations for the tree right now, as it's a long-needled tree. They're much more difficult to decorate. Short-needled trees are easy.
Anyway, that's the day to date. Since I'm exhausted and way behind on a couple of paying projects (and a garage cleanout and one last building project for the year), I'd best hit the hay in preparation for tomorrow - Second-last school day of the year. Gulp.
|
|
Thursday, December 19, 2002 |
E-Mail Ettiquette
I've matured in my view of E-mail over the years, I suppose.
It's like anything else.
The United States Postal Service is complaining that they can't make enough money to break even any more due to e-mail and other factors impinging on their "core business". These days, their "core business" seems hell-bent on clogging my trash can with an overwhelming flood of crap.
I get the mail. These days, pull out the cards, bills, and unknowns. Then deliver about a quarter-inch a day to the trash can. Yesterday, some absolute fluke caused this outfit called "Microcenter" to send no less than eight flyers to my home. Oddly, not a single stinking one was to me - they were all previous owners going back several years. I guess that's what happens when you buy a mailing list and stick to it.
Why the post office doesn't just jack the rates on the bastards who use them the most is beyond me. Instead of hitting the people who require the bulk of their business, they hit the folks who can't afford the bulk end of things. And those people say "you know, I have options." Most of our bills are paid on-line through direct transfer methods - to hell with mailing a check. It's a lot easier to key in a number in a system and then say "okay, you have your payment TODAY. Right Now. There." Nothing to lose, or get confused, or lost, or anything.
But I digress. E-mail's what sent me off the deep end today.
I treat most of my E-mail the same way as the contents of my mailbox. I look through the list. If it's from someone I don't recognize and the subject is somewhat random (or not), I simply trash the message, unread.
Today I received a 125 Kb file on my hotmail account from some nitwit I didn't recognize. Given the 125 Kb limit is about the size of many virus payloads, I dumped it immediately. Especially since the subject looked like a program invocation.
But what's driving me to near-rage is the fact that there are some ... well, I'll call them inconsiderate boors - who will fire off e-mails that are just annoying as all hell.
It's too bad there isn't a law. Something to protect ISPs and network providers in the event that they ban traffic from one or more spammers from being sued.
What's really pathetic is that most "marketers" have forgotten in this busy world that the key to getting new customers isn't the repeated hammering of the message, the catchy, bouncy jingle or the flashing lights. It's not how big and how noisy your banner ads are, or how good the offer is. Most people, myself included, want a good deal, on quality merchandise (which is why we don't shop at Wal-mart any more except for known brand names), from someone they can trust.
Trust isn't established through a commercial, banner ad, mailed circular, or airplane towing a banner. Trust is established when someone whom you trust introduces you to someone they trust, and they prove worthy of your trust. That's how that works. One person at a time, individually.
And no, I'm not talking Multi-Level Marketing, either. That's a special form of hell which could have been quite worthwhile and good until the creeps at Amway and other places decided "well, our name is shameful, therefore we must sell you on the business and service before you know our name." Frankly, I trust no MLM-type "opportunities" because very, very few help you to succeed. They take your money, sell you a dream, and then somewhere, someone in the upline gets a cut. You try to build a downline and you run into skepticism, revulsion, derision, or outright rejection. The simple fact is by the time an MLM prospect reaches general knowledge, it's passe - MLM makes money for the first 5% in - no more than that.
Sheesh. What a world, eh?
The Good, The Bad, and the Incompetent
I forgot the high-and-lowlights of yesterday.
The first was yesterday evening's foolishness and tomfoolery, inc., where we
The whole problem was that when I asked Rhiannon about choir, and she said "yes, I have it tonight" and I thought nothing of it. If we had known, we could have hit the grocery store, the meat market, and gone home. Instead, we probably drove four miles back and forth when a simple one-way trip would have been sufficient. In addition to lining our intestines with grease and God-Only-Knows-What from the vat at McDonalds. Oh well.
Puh-Leeze
Got a newsletter for an organization we're involved with today. I'm not specifically mentioning the organization, because for the most part they do good work. But this one sent me completely off the deep end.
One little paragraph in the newsletter was all it took, too. Perhaps it's time to up the medication.
The paragraph said "SALAD BOWL : The proper term for America is no longer the 'Melting Pot' but rather 'Salad Bowl'. In a melting pot, each ingredient looses it's distinct flavor and instead acquires flavors from other ingredients. In a salad, each ingredient maintains it's own unique, individual flavor, and is distinct and yet contributes to the whole."
Fer chrissakes.
The exact problem we have today with this country is "Mine" and "Yours" and "Theirs" and "Ours". When I was eighteen, in St. Cloud, I worked at Shopko Stores. Since most of you don't know what Shopko is, think your average Target-type outfit. In fact, St. Cloud had two Shopkos before it had a Target. It's a cut-rate department store. Half the floor in the store (or less) is carpeted, which is where the clothes go (carpet's to hold the rolling racks so they don't roll so far).
I worked in the Auto/Hardware/Paint/Pet department. One night, near close, an ... well, I'll use the term "ethnic" since I don't want to offend any single group. This family, all nine or ten of them, huddled close together in the aisle and looked at wood stain and the like. After about ten minutes (I was back and forth in the department, dusting and cleaning the place for the next day's business), one little girl approached me. She was about eight. In heavily accented English, she asked me to come back and help. She performed the translation duties for the family, and tried very hard to explain what it was they wanted.
Now, there's a huge gap in culture, in knowledge, and in language. We stood on opposite sides of that canyon, with one little eight-year-old girl trying very hard to span it with her limited skills. Furniture stripper and refinishing products are not common conversational topics for most eight-year-olds, yet I was trying to explain that product A was toxic and required rubber gloves and a lot of care, while product B, which cost more, came in a smaller container, and was newer was in fact the safer route to go, especially with small children around (I saw a two-year-old or so crawling around in the aisle as well).
In the end, they left with two gallons of the toxic stuff, and I'm sure the father and grandfather both cursed me soundly for my repeated attempts to get across to the young lady that the stuff they had could kill the whole family if not used properly. I think they might have suspected me of threatening the family, honestly.
And by the time I left, a good 20 minutes after close, I was ready to.
The key thing to ANY society, be it American, European, Australian, or Martian, is the ability to converse - not just with language, but with common references. Phrases like "furniture stripper" if translated directly can, I am sure, cause all sorts of issues. I remember the Chevy Nova, which sold like crap in Mexico until someone from Chevy figured out "Nova" meant "no go". Well, duh.
The isolation of one culture from another is one of the prime problems we have in this country. The Martians are in their enclave, blaming the Venusians for being odd and isolationist, when the Venusians require the facemasks and eye-coverings to prevent blindness and filter out various chemicals - or something like that.
And from a simple misunderstanding ("That man was telling my child that she should remove clothes from the furniture"), we get distrust, dislike, and hatred. It doesn't take much.
At the same time, while isolation helps to preserve the traditions of "the old country" the other residents of the new country are left to assume that the "new" people are just a bunch of jerks. They don't wave, they don't smile, they frown a lot, don't say "hi", and won't run the flag up the flag pole on the fourth of July.
"Salad bowl" my hind parts. If you're going to move to America, fine - bring us what you enjoy of your country, your culture. We will welcome you with open arms, willingly, because that's who we are. But for crying out loud, don't expect us to welcome your goat slaughter in the garage, your chicken sacrifice at midnight, or your insane habit of running nude to the mailbox each morning for the paper. Please - assimilate just a little. We want to learn what makes you different. But we also want you to respect what we've made here from our experiences. We're not discounting yours, nor are we trying to get you to forget what life was like.
But don't call us the evil people because you're the one having problems. If you can speak the language to at least a fifth-grade level, if you can smile and nod and wave whether you feel like it or not, if you can hold your own in the community, we'd be glad to have you. If you're looking to move your enclave here and build your own little gated community to preserve "the old ways" then try some small island somewhere in the arctic circle. The puffins and seals will welcome you more readily than we will.
And That, As They Say...
We're nearly-but-not-quite-done with shopping. Rhiannon needs a gift, my sisters need gifts, and we have a family friend or two to shop for yet. Nothing huge - minor stuff, mostly.
The final holiday project landed on my head yesterday. Something to put the manger set on. So I'm gonna glue sandpaper to a board, add some rocks and lychen and the like (Lychen = spraypainted dried moss. Yes, I know, $0.99 at Micheal's) and call it "a board". You do these things when you're in a house, apparently.
I also managed to "create" stocking hooks.
Plan A was to hang them from the credenza. Good idea, but for one thing. Tape isn't strong enough and leaves residue, which means holes - nails, tacks, screws - and whatever I do to the credenza, Ann's gonna do to me (wait until later - I should be making out like a bandit for weeks to come, all for the cost of a little furniture polish...).
So that was out. So we decided "yeah, the stair railing, I guess". It was either that or out on the deck. Which seemed a particularly bad idea.
So I was looking for something like "cubical hooks" - you know, something fancy which went over the top of a cube wall for a coat hook or something? Nope. Local office supply super-store kid looked at me like I'd taken to the demon rum quite early in the day, and said "uh, no, I don't think so."
So I took a shot. Headed to the opposite end of the mall where Micheal's is. Figured someone would have figured out how to hang something heavy over a fencepost or something.
No joy. Then I found these "screw-in hooks". They're the two-tiered coat variety, one piece of wire that's doubled up, back and forth, and all over the place to form one hook about three inches long and one about an inch lower, an inch long. And a half-inch of threaded wire left to screw into something.
I cut the screw end off one, hooked it over the railing, and then bent the remaining portion down, to give me a railing "clamp". Tomorrow I'll hit Menards and get a couple of little brass "S" hooks and I'll be done with that end of things as well.
Never a dull moment around here, I tell ya... And that's without adding in the thin layer of ice which has finally managed to form under the half-inch of snow we've gotten so far. Another inch tonight and inch in the morning and "wheeeee-shit" isn't going to be funny tomorrow morning. It's just gonna hurt. And cost. Best hit the hay so I can be bushy-eyed and bright-tailed in the morning...
|
|
Friday, December 20, 2002 |
Score One for the PC Gestapo
Seems my whipping boy in the Senate, Trent Lott, has decided to step down.
The PC Gestapo in this country can stand up, take their bows and applause, and move on. Comedians and politicians, take note, joking is no longer allowed, nor is reference to humor that might be even slightly offensive, even as a joke. Should you choose to tell an ethnic joke of any sort, prepare to kiss your career goodbye. Should you try to tell a joke based upon religious differences, may God help you in one of His Many Guises, because the PC Gestapo will not stop until they get you and ... well, they can't crucify you, that wouldn't be PC. They'll send you to anger management courses and charm school.
Should you wish to tell jokes about history, when life was less correct, beware, because those who were not alive then will rise up and defend the spirits of their ancestors, even as some of their peers will sit by and say "what's that fool's problem, anyway, it was an effing JOKE!"
I'm no fan of Trent Lott. Far from it. But to have him removed in this fashion, rather than having his money-grubbing, glad-handing, slack-jawed, cousin-loving, sister-marrying, rib-gnawing, non-family-tree-branching interbred ass removed in this fashion endorses his policies, while deploring the man. I'd rather see his politics discredited. I think he is a good man, or as good as one can be given his rather ... unusual background (he is a Senator, after all, and one of the Good Old Boys. If there's nothing "hinkey" in his background, I'll gladly eat my hat without salt and pepper).
Lott's comments on the occasion of Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday were funny. In a sick way, if you look at it, endorsing the idea that electing a racist in 1948 would have prevented a half-century of rather foolish blunders (and, no doubt, more than a few rather spectacular deeds, like man on the moon), then yeah, I thought it was funny - in a "Mississippi Intellectual" kind of way. But please, let's not mistake this for a "victory for African-Americans everywhere." This was a lynching. No more and no less. Gangs of media swirled around, watching the PC Gestapo ride Lott down like an antelope on the plains. And when he plowed to turf, stood, and tried to apologize, the endless parade of talking heads started with "is that enough of an apology?"
Nothing succeeds like ratings, in the television world. And nothing but nothing gets ratings like watching the once-mighty being fed plate upon plate of shit sandwiches. And having to eat them and pronounce them delicious, well, that's just the sick kind of television most of us avoid on Jerry Springer. But when it occurs on the nightly news under the guise of "Political maneuvering" well, we have to stop and stare.
And heaven help us if the comments by someone who has a shade of skin lighter than another slip out and can be construed as "racist". Because then the brush and paint are out, and you're tagged. Doesn't matter what the sentiment was, doesn't matter the context, nor does it matter what the reason was behind it. The truth is that the comment, in whatever edited form can be used, will haunt you until your dying day (and beyond).
All for trying to be nice to a senile old fool on the occasion of the old fart managing to avoid the angel of death for 100 years. What a country.
Nice Work If You Can Get It
What a job. I can see it now.
"Man, what are we gonna do. They want us to throw out all those old American Playboys!"
"I've got it. Let's make a study!"
"Nah, they'll never go for it."
"No, look. We've got measurements right here. We can put these in and use them as a basis for the changing views of feminine beauty!"
"It just might work..."
I can see stage two.
"Look. The boss says it's not a statistically valid sample. We'll need to check more women."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we need a larger sample."
"How so?"
"We need to look at more pictures."
"Right. Where?"
"In magazines, videos, and the like. We're going to have to use a wide variety of techniques to measure them, so this could take years."
"You mean...?"
"Yes, we've got to go buy porn. And lots of it."
"Do you think we'll get a grant?"
"Already got seven checks on my desk, and eleven thousand applications for "measurement technicians". It'll work."
"Measurement technicians? I thought that was my job!?!?!"
"What's it worth to ya?"
Tempest In A Urinal
Yesterday, Governor-Elect Pawlenty met with Governor Ventura, and requested that he withhold all or part of the state's $500 million disbursement to cities and counties in hopes that Pawlenty could use some of that to balance the state's budget.
Some of you might recall when Speaker Pawlenty of the State House of Representatives said "We don't need Governor Ventura's plan to balance the state budget. We'll come up with our own."
And for those of you wondering, it would be like your employer withholding a fair chunk of your salary - about half the money you'd expected - when you'd been going for the entire period, knowing that the money would be in your checking account on December 30.
Yesterday, Ventura indicated that he was "cool" towards the plan. Today, he did just what Pawlenty had done to him. Said "tough" and released the funds.
Let's be honest, folks. While Pawlenty said "No new taxes" and signed a pledge, we know what's going to happen. User fees and other costs will go up. And, just to add insult to his smoke and mirrors policy, Pawlenty will somehow manage to balance the budget without raising taxes. He will also manage, somehow, to pass the problem on to the counties and cities of the state, where they will have no choice but to raise THEIR taxes.
What remains to be seen is how perceptive the average Minnesota voter will be. Will they see Pawlenty's tactics as "keeping his campaign promise" or "jerking us off just like every other politician". Time, and the next election cycle, will tell. One that is, at present, something less than four years away.
Of course, this little poke in the ribs comes on the same day that Norm Coleman courageously stood before a podium and said he would support Tennessee Senator Bill Frist as Majority leader... Five minutes (literally) after Trent Lott said he wasn't going to run. Wow. I'm sure the state's Republicans are as proud of their leaders as the Democrats are ... oh, wait a minute. The Dems are still LOOKING for theirs. Apparently when they said "run 'em out of town on a rail" they were serious. And that rail was plenty long...
School's Out
The kids are officially out of school for the remainder of the year. This year, instead of "slob out" day last day before Christmas vacation where the principal gives the whole school an out of uniform free day, and the middle school student council decided to make it a "dress-up day". You know, the opposite of a casual Friday?
It went well...
|
|
Saturday, December 21, 2002 |
Interesting Question
Ann posed an interesting question last night.
Gandalf versus Albus Dumbledore. Who'd win?
Aside from the fact that, were Dumbledore a wizard near where Gandalf was, Dumbledore would probably be similarly aligned to Gandalf (Chaotic Good, in AD&D terms), I don't know that they'd fight one another.
But say they had to. Who'd win?
No contest, I say. Gandalf, hands down.
Dumbledore's a human. Non-muggle human, but human nonetheless. Which means he is likely mortal.
Gandalf? Puh-leeze. Aside from the fact that he was old when the Second Age ended, Gandalf has, by the end of the Lord Of The Rings, dealt with a Dragon (Smaug, in the Hobbit), dueled with Saruman (sure, he lost, but wasn't killed - any duel you can walk away from is a victory), outsmarted a Balrog (yeah, I know, thumped "the Grey" and came back "the White"), outsmarted kings, Nazgul, and above all, Sauron.
Dumbledore? So far, he's managed to avoid dealing with a former troublesome pupil named Tom Riddle. Taught magic. Keeps a phoenix.
Not even a fair contest, you ask me. Gandalf, hands down, far and away.
Special To Matt
Found your Christmas Present. Let me know when you want delivery. It's ready to go...
Road Trip
Don't know if I'll be back later tonight. I've got to leave in about 45 minutes for Rochester to get my Mother-in-Law. Why, you ask, would I drive an hour and ten minutes, one way, to get my mother in law when I could pick her up from Minneapolis (twenty-five minutes away in the other direction) two hours later?
Have you BEEN to the Minneapolis bus depot? No thanks. I'll drive the hour and ten minutes, one way, to get her. It's easier on her and me.
Oh well. At least it's all up from here. Shortest amount of daylight we get, annually. Messers Sturm and Barkman, amongst others, are enjoying the first fruits of summer, while we ... Well, we aren't exactly wallowing in the depths of winter yet here. Our coldest weeks come in about three weeks or so - third week of January is statistically our coldest. Which in no way explains the nearly-annual occurrence called "January Thaw" - we hit forty or more at least once, just as a fluke, to remind us "yes, those ninety-degree temps you were begging to go away are returning."
And I, as I get older, am continually surprised at the ever-increasing speed of the seasons. As a child, the distance between my mother's birthday (December 5) and Christmas was so long as to seem like a lifetime in itself. And yet, as I get older, it seems like just yesterday I was outside, sweating over a hot grill, trying to stay close enough to see what was cooking while not frying my eyebrows off. Most of the time, it seems now that the meat could have cooked to medium-rare if just left on a cookie sheet in the sun.
Then again, that's probably exaggeration. But the speed of seasonal change is, I suppose, constant. It's only my perceptions which have managed to change over the years.
When I was 5 years old, the 20 days from Mom's birthday to Christmas was a huge percentage of my life - an even larger percentage of my self-aware life. At forty (or nearly so), a month is less than a quarter of one percent of one's lifetime. So it makes sense, I guess.
Still doesn't help things much.
Oh, Goodie
Looks like California is seeking to provoke Yet Another Constitutional Challenge (YACC) with this one.
You see, while the PC Gestapo might wish to beat on the Boy Scouts for their stance against things like homosexuality, there's also a small problem. The California Supreme Court seems to think that judges and others can be prevented from joining the Boy Scouts because of their stance on certain issues.
Um, Folks?
Constitution of the United States Of America, Amendment I ("Bill Of Rights")
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
That would be "...or the right of the people peaceably to assemble" - as interpreted by the courts, this means that unless the organization is BANNED BY LAW, you can join. Your employer, nor others, can forbid you from joining certain groups. They can make your life difficult, and perhaps frown upon it, but there is no way that they can forbid you to join a group.
Unless, of course, the California State Assembly et. al. gets together in a bunch and says "see ya, bye" to the rest of the United States. Frankly, I think we'd recover after a week or two of mourning. And the Independent Nation of California could then declare itself open for business with Tom Cruise (or Arnold Schwarzenegger) as King/Emperor, and they can export their "entertainment" and their "culture" to the rest of the world unburdened by the rest of the reality we "labor" under.
I don't know why this one's upset me so, but clearly, California is one of those states where you just have to take reality, logic, common sense, and a fundamental belief in human decency and put it aside and look at the leadership with the expectation that they are not exactly part of the same race, or species, as we are. Most Californians are good people. Heck, I've got a few cousins out that way. But when it comes to California Law and California Politics, I just have to scratch my head. There are some seriously demented individuals out there who need some severe reality checks.
Or perhaps just replacement with people who have common sense, logic, human decency, and a grip on reality. Well, we can hope.
|
|
Sunday, December 22, 2002 |
Ow Ow F@#$%(* Ow Ow Ow Damnit
And that's a quote.
As a child, the family joke was that we would dread the holidays. Typically, on one or another of the federal holidays, my father would take ill. One time it was an infected tic bite around Memorial Day. Another time there were the kidneystones of Thanksgiving. Of course, we had the Flu Bug of Christmas, and the something-or-other of Easter (not a federal holiday, I know, but it was an "event" nonetheless). And we will never forget the heart attack of the fourth of July, nor the Pacemaker Birthday week.
With all of that, you'd think I'd learn. Holidays and physical harm go together like chocolate and ... well, my mouth, to be honest with you.
Today, rooting around in the pantry looking for soups to add to the ground beef for Tater Tot Hot Dish, I was distracted. Our pantry has these solid shelves with a raised lip along the front. It rises somewhere between 1/4" and 3/8" above the surface to prevent you from accidentally dislodging cans over the edge.
Or, if you do, it imparts a wonderfully variable spin.
Wonderful, that is, if your bare foot is not under it. As mine was earlier this evening. Oh, and that spin? From the Canned Veggies shelf (my wife has them cataloged in some strange manner which I am neither allowed to nor intelligent enough to understand), about four feet up, the spin on a can of corn was just about right to bring it edge down.
On that little piggie who ran "wheee wheee wheee all the way home."
Ouch. And other vulgarities.
Yes, I know Santa heard. And yes, I know, coal's been stacked for my stocking as we speak. But damn, that really stung. I heard the nice "grunch" sound you get when you know this is not supposed to be happening, and shortly there after, that bright light which says "no, idiot, you're not dying, but your toe? Well, it'd rather be dead."
The swelling is moderate, due to the ice pack Ann got for me, and perhaps also due to the four ibuprofin I also ingested before dinner.
So instead of enjoying the cookie experience with the wife and other cookie consumers, I'm hobbling, pissing and moaning about the whole thing. And me with a veritable ton of wrapping to do tomorrow. Plus get Ann to her bus early, etc., etc., etc.
Rest for the wicked? Right...
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.