Not to Leave You on a Downer

Today the sun was shining and it was an absolutely perfect 70 degrees. A little cool for some tastes, but for a Nordic like me, just about perfect.

Have a great day / night.

Something Wrong

Over lunch I jumped over to Yahoo! to see if there was any reaction to the NFL Draft or last night's hockey game (Go Flyers!), but I was drawn to a story on the homepage before I ever saw any of that information. An Austrian man confessed to imprisoning his daughter for 24 years. Fathering seven children with her.

It just boggles the mind.

This man's wife claims ignorance, and yet they were raising three of the seven kids as their own, and I am finding it extremely hard to imagine that she wasn't somehow complicit.

I could be wrong.

Driving back to work after lunch, listening to last week's This American Life, they had a story about a family who moved to a rural neighborhood, next door to a man who could most charitably be described as a son of a bitch. He destroyed their property, killed their pets, burned obscenities into their lawn using weed killer, and taunted and stalked them.

For no other reason than they were there. And they weren't originally from around there.

It really makes you wonder. So many people in this world, sure you'll come across one or two that are wired wrong. But this is pretty profoundly bad wiring.

Makes you want to run home and hug your kids and pets.

This Childhood Discontinued Due to Lack of Interest...

It is Monday afternoon, the rain is coming down, my joints are slightly achy, and I am feeling a bit tired from staying up late over the weekend. On a day like today, I could use a cup of one of my favorite childhood hot beverages. But that can't be. Because the two choices I would be most interested in are no longer available.

You cannot buy General Foods International Coffees Irish Mocha Mint. Nor can you find Celestial Seasonings Cinnamon Rose. There are many cinnamon teas, and rose teas, and you can get many different varieties of chocolate flavored coffee-ish beverages. But these two products, favorites from the years of my youth, aren't produced.

While we're talking about it, I know that California Pizza Kitchen discontinued their Carribean Shrimp pizza. It was my favorite! (I realize that I am breaking form here, since CPK was introduced to me as an adult, but I shall always be a child at heart.)

And if you want a Zagnut candy bar, you have to be really determined. Maybe one store in every state still carries them.

Have you tried watching saturday morning cartoons lately? Seems that only one of the three major networks remembers them and has them anymore. The others in my area seem to be playing morning talk shows and informercials on Saturday mornings.

Remember Pepsi Light? "We put a little lemony taste in and took out half the calories..."

What about Koogle? Peanut butter mixed with real banana flavor. Or chocolate. Or cinnamon. Remember that? Sure it was probably vomitacious, but so what?

Someone is systematically discontinuing my childhood.

It's a damn good thing I can still find a Charleston Chew when I need a fix, and Spenser Gifts still has blacklight posters of very questionable taste available.

Leatherheads - review

Mrs. P and I are fans of football and George Clooney, so it seemed a natural fit for us to go to see Leatherheads together the other night. Although I had read reviews ahead of time and knew not to expect greatness, I still felt like something was lacking. So, as a service to my readership, here are my non-spoiler thoughts on this film...

A movie this slow moving needs to have really great, complex characters to keep you invested. But these were characters that thought that they were in a slapstick comedy movie, not a drama. But were they in a drama? This movie souldn't seem to figure out what it was.

Sure, there were frequent comedic moments that made their presence seem appropriate, but they were punctuated by long scenes of non-comedic material. Which weren't really dramatic. More sorta episodic. (And then this happened. And then this happened.)

And that's the thing for me... the stakes in this movie were, in the end, not really all that high. They talked throughout the movie like they were high, but in the end when the worst that could happen happened (to TWO main characters, by the way), it wasn't really that big a deal.

So, while this was a diverting piece of celluloid, it still had me checking my watch at times.

And Renee Zellweger... I sorta think I used to think she was cute back in the Jerry Maguire days. But in this movie, her facial expressions made her look like she was sucking on a lemon and wasn't wearing her glasses throughout. All squinty-eyed and pucker mouthed. And it just sorta wasn't working for me. Sorry Renee, you're very talented -- loved you to death in Cold Mountain -- but this just wasn't your vehicle.

Story: B
Dialog: A-
Characters: B-
Directing: B
Editing: C
Art Direction: A

An Administrative Programming Note

I or my dear wife may have given the wrong impression. We are not leaving for the Dordogne until this coming Friday. While away, the independent republic of Posolxstvia will be governed by "MeeMaw" - also known as Mrs. P's mom, who is flying in from Baton Rouge this week.

I will, therefore, be away from this pile of pebbles for a week plus a day or two.

Or will I?

Our place in France purportedly has high speed wireless access. And I am genuinely conflicted as to whether or not I will have time / inclination to check in. I won't need the laptop for purposes of pulling pictures off my digital camera -- with 4 Gigs, I can take around 1800 pictures before running out of space. So, I am leaning toward leaving it home. The space it would take up could be better served with... well, many other things.

So, assume that you will not hear from me. But maybe I will post something from my iPhone if I just can't wait (or if Dave's post count is getting out of hand...).

And then I will check in when I get back.

Thank you for your patience...

Don't Get Yer Knickers in a Twist

I want to comment on a recent social phenomenon. But I need to handle it with delicacy lest I give the wrong impression of myself.

Let's just say that I have heard stories about certain young starlets who have a bad habit of showing up on sordid websites showing a bit more of themselves than their parents would likely wish. In fact, through no fault of my own, I have been assaulted by a couple of these images.

In each case, said person was exiting a car.

Exiting a car has never been much of a challenge for me, but that's because I'm a man, I rarely wear skirts, and when I do, I typically wear underthings. It occurred to me that this tendency to accidentally (or on purposely) flash the world while exiting a car might be more common than we know. Even as we speak, there might be hundreds of women exiting cars while wearing skirts. And the way cars work, it can makes exiting the back seat a rather indelicate affair. I'll spare you the physiological description of the act of exiting a car whilst wearing a miniskirt, suffice it to say, it can make a young lady as susceptible to certain types of attack as a giraffe grabbing a drink in the savannah.

Of course, unlike starlets, my hypothetical exemplary women don't have hundreds of papparazzi chasing them night and day hoping for that one shot that will put them on top of the tabloid journalism pyramid. Given enough starlets, enough cars, and enough photo journalists, and ... well, even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes.

So, assuming that these flashes on the part of these starlets is unintentional (I always try to give the benefit of the doubt), as long as they go from place to place in cars, these incidents are likely to continue, and possibly escalate.

So I am here to offer up my advice to any and all of them willing to take it.

If they would simply take the bus when going out, this whole awkward 'exiting the back seat' thing could be avoided entirely. They could gracefully descend the stairs to their adoring public, rarely showing any more leg than is modestly appropriate for this pivotal epoch in history.

Sure, stepping off a yellow school bus lacks a certain amount of the cachet that a limo or Rolls or Bentley might, but I didn't say it was a perfect solution.

iRack

I'll put this up for as long as the networks don't yank it from YouTube. This was sent to me by my father. I personally thought it was a hoot.

Anatomy of a Reformed Hypochondriac

It would not be unreasonable to say that she was practically defined by her lack of self-esteem all her life. Further, it would not be an inaccurate statement to say that her sense of self-worth was extremely susceptible to her perception of what others thought of her. Couple that with an understanding that she was raised by a father who was distant and stingy with his approval, and you can begin to see what made her tick.

She was also a sickly child. Childhood ailments left her with myriad limitations. She couldn't swim because she had a hole in one of her eardrums. She couldn't do active things because of a heart murmur from Rheumatic fever as a child. She spent a lot of time in the care of medical professionals, where I dare say she felt much more supported and comforted than she did at home.

Consequently, as a child, I suspect that she acted as a sort of nursemaid to her brothers, protecting them from the wrath of their father, providing solace when there was none to be had elsewhere. This became her calling. Her job, her role, her mission was to ease the suffering in others.

Therefore, for her to have worth and value, especially in her post-divorce years, when she had now been rejected by the only two men she had ever loved (her father and her husband), it was absolutely vital that she have the ability to heal, to soothe, to mollify, to ease the pain of others.

It should come as no surprise then that she worked in a hospital as a Registered Nurse. Her true love was working in pediatrics, but soon she began to realize that if she wanted to improve her position financially she was going to have to do other types of work. So she wandered into administration.

Her financial outlook did indeed improve, but she was no longer pursuing that which was her true calling. Luckily for her, she had four children. Three daughters, one son. And they all needed her. To heal them. To appease them. To mollify them.

Although she treated her son with rougher gloves than her daughters (she didn't want him turning into a Momma's boy, now did she?), she was always aware of all of their medical issues and was ready to assist them in an instant, should they require healing or support.

Her son recalled spending many a time in doctors' offices or in the emergency room of the hospital she worked in. Frequently his ailment was little more than a bruise. Sometimes it was more. But all four children became accustomed to going to their mother immediately for medical advice.

And when they did, she became a different person. She was authoritative and decisive. She had secretive hidden knowledge that the children did not, and this was her opportunity to serve her true calling. And of course the children responded to this. They learned that it made Mom happy to nurse them.

Eventually, the boy took part in organized athletics, bringing home an increasingly large number of scrapes, cuts, bruises, hyperextensions, strains, and all the other aches and pains associated with football and wrestling and running and lacrosse. Although this opened up ample opportunity for her to nurse him, this tendency to over-report his minor bumps and bruises eventually got him labelled a Hypochondriac by his coaches.

He soon discovered that this was a label to be avoided at all costs in the outside world. In his house, it was okay to have many medical issues that needed caring for, but outside the home, real men do not whine and complain about aches. They suck it up. They shake it off.

He preferred the outside world to the world in his house. And soon, he grew to no longer need his mother or her nursing. He fled at his earliest opportunity. One of his sisters fled just before he did. The other two preferred the world inside the house to the world outside the house.

He is no longer labeled by anyone a hypochondriac. Indeed, he has learned to suck it up and walk it off. And he takes great pride in his ability to do so. But it also means that the third man she had ever loved had also, in her eyes, rejected her. Their relationship as two adults was ever-strained consequently.

When he visits his sisters - particularly the two that never left home - he ruefully notes their tendency to seek out labels for each and every ailment they or their children experience. And he judges these tendencies. He is not even sure that half of their labeled and diagnosed ailments are real. As evidence, he notes the time when he was discussing upcoming knee surgery with one of them. He had a meniscus tear that was making his three mile runs quite painful. His sister told him that she was going to tell her doctor that that was what she needed, as her knees were also hurting.

This told him everything he needed to know.

Ambassador to the Dordogne

As I am sure you are aware, as I believe I have mentioned it previously, in a little over a week, Mrs. P and I are going to Europe for a week, courtesy of my father.

My father is a seasoned world traveller, and he sent us some tips, which included "Secure your valuables when out in public. We will stand out as American tourists, and will be targets."

My response to that was "But I don't WANT to stand out... Maybe I can convince them that I am Canadian."

I have been studying up on how best to blend in, to not dress like an American, to not ACT like an American on holiday in France, etc. All in the effort of not coming across as American...

And I realized, I don't want to come across as NOT an American. I am glad to be an American, but I don't want people to assume anything about me because I am American.

So, my new goal is to be a good and positive representative of my country as I travel. I am the Ambassador for my nation to the Dordogne -- for a week.

I want people saying, as I leave them, "If all Americans were like that, that would indeed be a wonderful country."

Wish me luck.

But That's Just My Opinion...

On behalf of my fellow residents of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, please accept my humble apologies.

But hey, at least we didn't elect a professional wrestler or an actor as governor...

Oddly, going into the campaign, I didn't care one way or another who came out victorious. But the lead up to the primary, the debate, all have led me to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, Hilary rubs me the wrong way. (Insert gratuitous White House intern joke here.)

She's brassy. She comes across as petty and mean-spirited. I'm not as worried about her dishonesty, as all politicians are dishonest, and let's face it, if you or I spoke non-stop for 15 months, I'm sure we'd make a few mistakes and exaggerations along the way.

But I don't feel like she deserves the nomination.

Plus, I think that a McCain / Obama election would be a contest worth watching. Hilary is just plain polarizing. And that would make for a less interesting election. At the end of a McCain / Obama campaign, I am willing to bet you won't hear about hanging chads or stolen elections. They appear to have class. Clinton on the other hand seems like the type to pull out every dirty trick in the book to make sure her horse is still in the race, even if it means throwing the corpse of her horse on a trailer and dragging it around the track behind a pickup truck.

Any of you Republicans out there should be praying that Clinton gets the nod, because I don't think she can beat McCain. But I think Obama can. Not guaranteed. Not a blowout. But that would be a real race with two real viable horses.

Primary Day Rant: Blue State, Red State, Yellow State

Red state. Blue state. Blah blah blah.

Pennsylvania is a yellow state.

Everywhere I turn a thin layer of pollen dust covers every surface that is exposed to the outside air. And it is causing me to wake up with gobs of phlegm in my nose and throat. Not so bad that I have to be constantly grabbing a tissue, but bad enough that I have a near constant low level sinus burn. Bad enough that I wheeze a bit more on the treadmill than I would like. Bad enough that I would rather not be experiencing it.

It seems my kids have inherited my incredibly useful histamine responses as well, which means that this time of the year, we turn into the Bickersons. Everything is an issue, everything a debate, everything an imposition. We all feel a bit like something the cat keeps trying to bury in the sandbox. And we're taking it out on each other.

The truly stupid thing, on an evolutionary basis, this histamine reaction simply needs to go away, but is hanging on for no really good reason. Maybe in the past it was useful to block out noxious sulfur gases or something, but pollen?! Can pollen truly harm you?

Or is it that plants evolved to develop pollen to keep us pesky people away from them so they can grow in peace.

Whatever it is, on days like today, I just want to cut off my nose to spite my face.

Something of an appropriate response for an election primary day...

Too Stupid to Use the Internet

I am an experienced geek. Although I am not on par with the guys and girls who work in your offices and who think that it is completely natural to send the entire output of a complex server log file as proof that their routers are not the cause of the current network outage, I am able to read said logs and determine if they are or are not trying to duck responsibility by baffling me with BS.

Since 1996 I have maintained a home network of my own, linking as many as 5 computers together at a time, setting up print sharing, file sharing, blah blah blah.

So, can we all agree that I'm not a rookie? Good. Then let's move on.

The following is a high level diagram of my network:

Figure A.

Today my DSL cut out on me. Very annoying with how much I depend on the Internet for everything these days. My router was unable to establish a connection. So I did the natural thing - I shut down everything - all computers and the router and booted back up.

I was still unable to establish a connection.

I decided that Verizon was having issues (has happened before) and decided to wait it out. Tried back periodically. Still no dice.

Finally this evening, I decided enough was enough and I was going to report this outage. "Probably some faulty router on their end," I cleverly surmised.

I called tech support. They have this annoying thing where when you are on hold they keep breaking into the hold music and suggesting things that you should try. Things I already tried. They kept telling me -- "Most problems can be solved by turning your modem off and on. Be sure that you have tried this." Which I had. I had restarted my router SEVERAL times.

Then they said it again. "Be sure to turn your modem off and on again." And that's when it hit me. They said MODEM, not ROUTER.

My router is not the same thing as my modem (see figure A). And I had no idea where my modem was. It was supposed to be right next to the router, but it wasn't.

Today was spring cleaning day. My best guess is that while dusting off the area, the modem was knocked back behind the desk -- which must have been when the power cord was yanked out the back.

So, this whole time, the issue had been that my ***** modem was unplugged.

I am so glad I hung up the phone when I did. I am certain that I would have been informed by my tech support person that I should pack the modem back in it's original box and send it back to them because I AM CLEARLY TOO STUPID TO USE THE INTERNET. And I would have had to take it, because in this case, they were absolutely correct.

And Thus It Begins...

I picked the 12 year old up from something the other day -- a friend's house, lacrosse practice, -- something. I dunno.

As soon as he got in the car, he switched the radio from what I was listening to (probably NPR) over to Q102, the local radio station designed to target advertising at teens and young adults. Oh, I guess they play music too.

The first song was some rap influenced something or other. The next was by one of today's interpreters of what "heavy metal" is supposed to mean. The third -- I actually kind of liked. At least part of it. I think it was by Good Charlotte, a band I have at least heard of.

So, my fifteen year old never did that. Switching my stations on me like that, I mean.

I suppose if it bothered me enough I would have smacked him and told him to leave my **** radio on the **** station I set it on. But I want to at least be aware of what my kids are into. So I let it slide. And which is why I have music in my iTunes library that I never would have bought for myself -- but is instead music that the 12 year old wanted and since he doesn't have an iTunes account or a credit card, he has to rely on good old Pop.

"Old" seemingly being the most important operative word there.

I have been able to exert some influence on all of my progeny. Led Zep. Depeche Mode. AC/DC. Silversun Pickups. Bishop Allen. Metallica. Goldfrapp. Boomtown Rats. U2. All went from my iTunes library onto their iPods.

And they have exerted influence on me. Imogen Heap. Jimmy Eat World. Blink 182. From them to me.

But we are on ever divergent paths. And so far, none of them likes jazz.

My only comfort is the knowledge that, when I was a teen, my father and I could not have been more extreme polar opposites musical taste-wise. He listened to opera and classical and had nothing good to say about my musical choices. And I hated everything he listened to. It didn't help that his car radio at the time had a single tinny speaker that choked off everything you listened to.

As an adult, however, Dad and I have gotten together to check out both Yes and The Charles Mingus Big Band.

Already my kids and I are closer together than my Dad and I ever were. Who know what we'll be checking out together when they are adults. I'm looking forward to finding out.

Something Whacked

This is probably a fake. But that doesn't mean it isn't Whacked all the same...



UPDATE: It is almost certainly a fake. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/1655/P40/

In addition to the comments in this forum, wouldn't you think that if it were real, someone somewhere would be hooting about how they were there? And I would expect more details about when it was, who it was, etc.

I think we need to send this to Mythbusters.

Sometimes Not

Years ago, when I was still a fresh faced young little cynic, while still in college, my school welcomed a new president. A young man. A family man.

I met him a few times and he seemed like a really decent guy.

In my latest issue of the alumni review magazine, they published his obituary. He was only 60. Which means he must have been about my age (now) back when he took that job.

I am much more morbidly fascinated by obituaries of the ones that die young, like this guy, than the old geezers for whom it was just plain inevitable. I have seen cases of people dying from aids, car accidents, mountaineering accidents, cancer, heart failures, etc.

I have noticed that in cases where the details of the death are a bit ... sordid, they tend to be a bit squirrelly about listing the cause of death. So, if someone young has died and they won't tell you why, it is often something like an OD or something.

In the obituary for this man, they were not squirrelly. And part of me wishes they had been.

He killed himself. By jumping out an 8th floor window of a hotel in Atlanta.

My blood ran cold when I read that.

I imagined some alternate version of myself standing on the ledge of a window, high above a city street. I imagined starting to leap out, and deciding halfway through that I have changed my mind, but being unable to halt the fall I had already begun.

And that's as far as my mind will let me go.

What I am also unable to resolve is just how bad things have to get to take someone to that ledge in the first place. Was he harboring a secret that he was afraid was going to get out and ruin him? Was he lost in the dark recesses of his mind? Had everything he had ever lived for gone up in smoke? Where was his mind?

I don't know why I am writing this. Except to say, maybe, that sometimes people really surprise me with what they are capable of. Sometimes this is a good surprise. Sometime not.

20

A 1995 Ford Ranger pickup has a 2.3 litre four cylinder engine, generating 112 HP @ 4,800 RPM. (I doubt that MY Ranger met these numbers, as the Check Engine light had been on for a couple of years.) I don't know what that translated to in MPGs. But I seem to think I was getting between 19 and 23 in town and closer to 29 on the highway. But I could be deluding myself. I'm pretty good at that.

A 2007 Honda CR-V has a 2.4 litre four cylinder engine, generating 166 HP @ ???? RPM.

I have a secret inner fantasy that I am a LeMans racer, and tear up the roads around town, constantly mashing the pedal to the metal. I like acceleration. It makes me feel alive.

And it makes my fuel economy suck like nothing has ever sucked before.

For the past couple tanks, I have experimented with a new driving style. I drive like a Pop-pop. When the light turns green, I eeeeeease into the intersection. When I am on a hill I maximize my engine's efficiency, tyring to squeeze every last little inch out of every single gallon.

I actually had an old man gesticulating at me furiously in an intersection because he wanted to take a left turn and I was going straight, and he had to wait for me to pass before he could turn. He was waving me past like I was a gnat. I smiled and waved.

I have gone from averaging an extremely sub-par 17.x MPG to a respectable 20.6 MPG. I was averaging even higher with the current tank (in the 22.X MPG range), but Mrs. P took my car to a meeting last night, and she still thinks she's Danica Patrick instead of Ma Kettle.

My goal is to keep my average MPG over 20 for the duration of owning this car.

Further proof that my viability as a stud has faded away.

Flashing in the Pan

Juno was released on DVD yesterday. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. I saw it in the theater with Mrs. P and liked it enough that I resolved to buy it on DVD as soon as it came out. I watched it last night, and it was cute still, but wasn't as impactful as it was the first time.

Through my screenwriting group, I got ahold of the screenplay and read it, so maybe that's part of why it wasn't as special the second time around. Not sure.

I read another screenplay by the same writer, Diablo Cody, and although the subject matter sounds interesting, certain things began to bother me...

Like, both Juno and this other movie feature a main character who is female, in high school, is a bit of an oddball, and has a much prettier more popular best friend. The dialog in both is similar.

Who knows, in execution, maybe the next one will be enough different thematically and genre-wise that it won't matter, but I am currently concerned that I am witnessing the screenwriting equivalent of Dan Brown...

Someone recommended The DaVinci Code to me, and I eventually picked it up and read it. It happened that the subject matter was in line with some of the research I was doing at the time. And Dan Brown is a master at keeping you engaged -- lots of short chapters that all end with some sort of cliffhanger ("And when she opened the box, she couldn't believe what she saw." And then he leaves that thread for two or three chapters so you have to keep reading to find out what it was she saw).

My opinion at the time was that it was a fun story, not as deep as a lot of people were making it out to be, but the characters were a bit two dimensional.

Then I read Angels and Demons. And the Dan Brown formula crystalized before my eyes. In many ways, Angels and Demons was the SAME as DaVinci. Different cities, different ancient symbolic object, but most everything else was the same. Even the fact that both stories begin with the same main character being woken up at night to come look at some sort of bizarre murder scene.

Fine. Two for two. Might still be a fluke. So I read another Dan Brown novel. Before you get to feeling too sorry for me here, you have to understand that a Dan Brown novel is at worst a two day committment - these are not tough reads. I picked up Digital Fortress. I had high hopes for this one. It was about a character other than Robert Langdon, Dan Brown's personal avatar... I mean, his usual hero. This was about a woman.

Who was woken up in the middle of the night to look at a crime scene that had clues that only she could solve.

I swear on a stack of Faulkners that Dan Brown has a novel generating macro written for MS Word. Enter the city. Enter the object. Enter the first puzzle. Enter the second puzzle. Enter the friend who turns out to be the adversary. Execute.

I'm not saying that Diablo Cody is in that league. But I would hope that she is aware of her potential ruts and steers clear of them in the future.

One of the things that I like about Joel and Ethan Coen is how well they write multiple genres. Thrillers. Comedies. Dramas. Absurdist fantasies. They do it all well. Cody could too. Or she could be a flash in the pan. She is the author of her own fate.

I Don't Know How To Do It

A friend/colleague/client sent me an email yesterday announcing that her documentary was selected for inclusion in a film festival. She was inviting me to attend the screening in early June.

Being a film buff, and wanting to support her, I want to go. But the weekend in question I will be attending my brother's wedding in Tennessee.

I want to promote her film by telling all of you people about it and getting the word out and stuff, but am afraid that doing so, she might be able to trace back to this pile of pebbles. Which would potentially shake our professional relationship. She's a decent person, but she is a very strong Christian - not that she has ever made that an issue by pushing her agenda on me. But reading some of my sentiments on organized religion might be potentially alienating unnecessarily. If she managed to put 2 and 2 together. Which she's way smart enough to do.

I am very careful to draw boundaries, not because I don't want people to know the truth about me, but because (channeling Jack Nicholson here) some people can't handle the truth about me. And we can get along just fine as long as these boundaries are in place.

So. If you can, go see her film. I just can't tell you anything about it -- when it is, what it is called, or what the URL to the web site about it is.

Wish I could.

Oh, The Caninity!

Mrs. P has run away from home. Again.

The last time this happened, I was encouraged to write about how badly the weekend went. How the house fell apart without her around to hold it all together. Etc.

But it never happened. Outside of a greater than usual pile-up of dirty laundry, nothing came of it.

And we're kind of in the same world now. Dishes are clean. Kids are fed and bathed.

Only the dog is freaking out. He has this routine established with his surrogate mommy that I refuse to enable. It involves the two of them retiring to the bedroom about 2 hours before I am ready to crash, at which time I bodily move him back to his crate for the night.

Last night, while I read for about 15 minutes, he snoozed next to me, but he was so wiggly I had to crate him before he felt he had received his daily allotment of "snuggle time." It was close enough to when I would normally have gone to bed that I didn't feel that I was inflicting undue cruelty on him. But he objected a bit.

He's going to be so happy when she gets back tomorrow.

100% Satisfaction

As I have mentioned, I recently had my car serviced at the dealership. I do this not because I like to go to the dealer, but because I like having my car covered by the manufacturer's warranty. And I like to know that my car is well maintained.

Yesterday, I received an email from the dealership:

Thank you for choosing XYZ Honda for your recent service needs.

It is important to me that you were completely satisfied with your service or repairs. In the next few weeks you'll be receiving a Manufacturer Survey direct from Honda, this is our report card to the Manufacturer and I would appreciate you taking the time to fill this survey out.

If you are not 100% satisfied please call me directly at 215-555-1212 or you may contact our General Manager, Bozo DeClown at 215-555-1212. Your comments will make a difference, so do not hesitate to make your views known.

Once again, thank you for servicing your vehicle at XYZ Honda. I look forward to seeing you when you come in for your next service.

Things like this baffle me. They ask me retroactively to let them know if there was anything they could do to ensure I was 100% satisfied. And what the heck does 100% satisfaction mean anyway?

I didn't like having to pay for the service. How many points do I take off for that?

I didn't like having to drive to the dealership. They're a half hour away. Should I ask them to move closer to me?

I didn't like having to wait for an hour and a half for the appointment to be finished. Should I ask them to create a time machine?

I didn't like losing an entire morning of my life on this. Should I ask for them to set up a desk for me to work at?

I didn't like the way the waiting room smelled. Should I ask them to create a new waiting room?

Are any of these comments helpful? Is there anything that they can really do anything about any of my complaints? Yet these are the kinds of things that prevent me from being 100% satisfied.

So when I get the call or the survey asking me if I was satisfied, and I wasn't, I suppose I will have to lie and say I was 100% satisfied, even though what I mean is that I was 100% satisfied within reasonable bounds. But they never ask that.

Why I Work Here: Reason #645

As I have explained in the past, my company is owned by two partners. My office is adjacent to one of the owner's.

Today, owner #A goes into owner #1's office and says: "We're closing today. Due to weather."

It is in the 70's and sunny. And I am done for the day.

On Probation

It pains me to do it, but I can't in good conscience stand here and not do anything about it.

Too many football players are involved in domestic violence disputes. And too often they get swept under the rug or maybe someone decides not to press charges because she knows that doing so may cause her sugar daddy to miss out on millions. Which means she misses out on her share of those millions.

That still doesn't make it right.

I have known far too many women who have been treated badly or abused or even date raped by athletes who act as though they are above the standards set by society. And I can only say that it is JUST PLAIN WRONG.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are no different than any pro football club. They all have players or coaches who are involved in domestic violence situations, DUI situations, etc. But there have been far too many domestic violence situations in the last three years for my liking involving members of the Steelers. Some are BS. Most are legit.

I think that none have been convicted.

And only one was disciplined in any way by the team.

As of now, the Steelers are on probation with me. One more undisciplined domestic violence dispute involving any member of the Steelers organization, and I will be putting away the Steelers gear for six months. If, during that time, there are any more incidents, and that period gets doubled to twelve months. And if another occurs in that period of time, doubled again.

Etc.

If there are more than three such incidents in any 12 month period, and I will stop supporting the team altogether.

Waiting

I am typing this from the waiting room at the dealership where I am getting the first service on my car. It's a pretty straightforward deal - oil change, lube, etc. And it's nice that I have wifi here.

But I am reminded of how much I hate waiting rooms.

It doesn't matter where they are. It could be at a dealership, a hospital, the airport, the dentist. They always try to make them pleasant and comfortable, providing plenty of vapid reading material and free nasty coffee, and they always fall shy of the mark.

This one smells vaguely of stale coffee, Lysol, and some sort of minty something. There's also a hint of a smell that I always associate with industrial air conditioning -- maybe a sort of a dusty ozoney smell? It smells and looks and feels just like every other waiting room I have ever been interred in.

I frequently come to these things with an ambitious idea of all the stuff I am going to get done while I wait, while I am away from the phone and other distractions of the office.

And I always completely lose my gumption when the rubber hits the road. My energy sags. I feel a physical draw down - through my sinuses, my upper back, wherever. And all I want to do is close my eyes and listen to "Dancing Queen" raining down on me from the piped in music speakers.

I'd put on my iPod, crank the jazz, and get some real thinking/writing work done, but because I am waiting, there is this nefarious fear that they're going to call out my name. And I'm not going to hear it.

Would that be so awful? Would they not seek me out?

Maybe, maybe not. Actually, I am pretty sure they would come find me.* But I think it is slightly more ingrained in me than your average behavior pattern and may be a bit of a drag to weed out.

So for now, I must resign myself to the idea that all I will actually be able to do in a waiting room is ... wait. (Sigh)

* A little known fact about me -- I actually go by my middle name most of the time. On official communications (my license, my bank accounts, etc) I go by my first. It's just easier that way. Came from my time in the military trying to explain to the red-tapeheads there that my preferred name is X. Posolxstvo Khlebotnik (not my real name, in case you hadn't guessed) rather than Xavier P. Khlebotnik. They insisted on Xavier.

Not long ago in this here dealership, "Xavier" was paged to the service area. They didn't say "Customer Xavier", so I was unsure of whether they were referring to me or not. And they didn't say "Khlebotnik" at all. I assumed therefore that they had an Xavier on staff here (could happen), and I decided to stay where I was. But it was me they were looking for, and sure enough, one of the service drones sought me out physically here in the waiting room rather than relying on the page.

So, I should be able to allow myself to "go under" as it were. But still I resist.

Sometimes I Swear They Do It On Purpose

Over my lunch hour today, I had a few errands to get done, so I took an alternative route from my house to the office. Along the way, I was signalling to turn right onto a cross street I often take. There was a flag man standing there with a STOP sign. Behind him, three trucks were completely blocking the way.

The flag man's eyes connected with mine, and he waved me on. Signalling that there was no way in hell I was getting through there anytime soon.

Call me weird, but if you're going to block the entire road, you should set up detours and stuff. Luckily I know my way around here, but it's a pretty convoluted set of roads, and not everyone will.

This is another example, in my opinion, of people failing to realize how their actions might impact other people, or worse, realizing, but simply not caring.

My rant the other day about morons in grocery stores is another example of this sort of behavior. And it may be over the top to do so, but I consider this behavior to be somewhat sociopathic. It almost seems as though some people don't realize that there are other people on this planet sharing their oxygen.

I try to bend over backwards to make sure that I don't inconvenience others with my actions. Sometimes I fail. But I always try. Obviously I find that sort of thing to be of a certain high value. And yeah, I wish everyone else felt the same. But they don't.

Okay, so I had to take a detour. Calm down. In through the nose, out through the mouth. So what?

In and of itself, the detour would not have been a problem, but this is becoming endemic. You see, my errand that I was taking the detour for was a complete bust because no one was in the office I was visiting during business hours. Or worse, there was someone in the office, but rather than help me, she closed her office door and drew the blinds. A very nice non verbal "screw you very much" signal if ever there was one.

I had gone out of my way on this errand, rearranged my day to get this done, and they were not holding up their end of the deal.

Big problem for me.

Last week I was dropping Max off at the vet's. They were supposed to open at 8:30. I had a 9 am meeting. I was at the door at 8:30, but it was locked. I waited 5 minutes. Still locked. Finally at 8:40 I called them.

"What time do you open," I asked as innocently as possible. I can imagine that they heard me standing on the other side of the door, and heard the traffic on the street from my phone.

"We open at 8:30," came the reply. Followed immediately by the "click" of the door lock.

It's a damn good thing I wasn't late to my meeting. Or I woulda been pissed.

Posolxstvo Light

You know what really bothers me? All those comedy routines and articles that talk about how different men and women are. I mean, yeah, we're different. End of story.

The laughs and observations are just a bit too facile for my liking.

At the risk, then, of sounding like I am writing one of these, I would like to mention that this morning, I cooked my eggs in a substance that looked like butter, but did not behave like butter. It was Land O Lakes Light Butter. A quick scan of the ingredients lists close to ten substances not found in regular butter. Food starch. Maltodextrin. Etc.

And my eggs stuck to the pan. My usual "over easy" eggs became "country scrambled" in a flick of the wrist.

"Well, Pos. If you have nothing good to say about this 'light butter' why were you cooking with it?"

I'm glad you asked. (It was almost as if you were prompted.) Simple. It was the only butter in the house.

When Mrs. P goes to the store, she is drawn in by the bright shiny lables that say "Fat Free" and "Light." When I complain, she stares me down. She honestly thinks I couldn't tell the difference, I suppose, if the label were blank.

Light mayonaisse. Tastes like wallpaper paste. Forget making egg salad or tuna salad with it.

Low Fat Triscuits. Rhymes with "Dog Biscuits." Funny thing about that.

All of these light and low fat and fat free options sound great until you read the ingredients or taste them. Then, not so wonderful. Inevitably they cover up the lack of flavor from fat by increasing the sugar or starch or even the sodium, making them unbalanced in another regard.

Instead of buying low fat or light or fat free, I have another idea.

Why don't I simply eat less?

Let Them Eat Bacon...

Not a big fan of walking into a public bathroom and seeing a bunch of writing on the walls. Shows a lack of class in the usual patronage of the place.

But every now and then I see something that makes me laugh.

Push button - receive bacon. Have truer words ever been spoken?

I'm going to leave you with two thoughts about this...

1. It's bad enough that someone thought the heat diagram looked like bacon. But this dude felt compelled to write it on the hand dryer. A sure sign of mental illness.

2. In order to bring you this, someone had to break out a digital camera in a men's room in a Chili's in New Jersey. Another sure sign of mental illness.

Not Clear on the Concept

Ya'll, look at this picture:



You notice that there's a sign on the shelves in front of which is piled all that crapola? I bet you can't read it, can you?

Here let me help. I have a close up shot...

Respect the Office

She was still livid as she recounted to us the story of the woman at the grocery store who referred to President Bush and the First Lady as President and Mrs. Moron. Or something like that.

"Well. I think that you may not respect the man, but you still must respect the office."

I could picture her uppity bristled demeanor as she delivered that line to the poor woman.

I decided not to respond, as it would have only made the conversation awkward, but my take on this is, "Oh give me an effing break. You have Bush stickers on both your cars. You don't give a crap about the office. You're pissed because this woman is challenging your choice. You're an apologist!"

This has had me ruminating on the whole notion of "respect for the office." I have been hearing that phrase all my life, and for the life of me, I don't know what that means. Not really. I used to think I did, but that was back when I was still buying into the belief that all holders of positions of power are respectable and have earned that position.

I couldn't have been more wrong, I'm afraid.

I mean, if by some miracle Hillary gets elected, would my friend above be completely respectful to the office? Or would she be dropping references to her alleged sexual orientation? Would she be making comments about hormones driving this decision or that? I think I know the answer to that. I could be wrong, but I saw her during the last Clinton presidency. And her snide comments about cigars. And what "is" is.

"Respect the office" is an antiquated saw, meant for a time when there wasn't as much transparency as there is now, but it is not applicable to the world we live in. I have no problem showing respect for an office truly earned, but the presidency is not earned. Not by way of anything presidential, that is. In this age, presidential authority is decreed by a mandate of the people (who by the way are the same people who in general don't know who their elected and appointed officials are, let alone where South Africa is), not earned, which makes presidential authority along the same lines as castes or nobility systems.

And I gotta play the "bullshit" card on that one.

The way I see it, if a president wants my respect than he/she should show respect for his/her electorate. W hasn't done that, bypassing checks and balances in the system and abusing executive power left and right. Even Clinton didn't respect the electorate, lying to us and manipulating language to suit his purpose. These two have completely dismantled the sacred trust between electorate and elected. And we aren't even getting to Reagan's Contra dealings, or even Nixon's deceit. (For the record, I have no memory of any disrespectful acts perpetrated by Ford or Carter. But I was pretty young at the time.)

Hillary is showing the same dishonest manipulative tendency as her lapdog/husband did. Obama and McCain, not so much. But McCain more than Obama. In my opinion.

In the military, we were told to respect the rank, even if we didn't respect the officer. This is an apologist mentality meant to deflect or bypass criticism of poor choices made in the promotion process. And it is meant to keep the chain of command intact in the event that a crisis were to occur.

Sometimes in a crisis, though, feigning false respect and being marched toward doom is actually the ultimate in disrespect.

I Suppose the Right Spelling Was Taken

"Celular said...
Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog
is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If
possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Celular, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://im-a-big-dumb-idiot-spammer.blogspot.com/.
A hug."

Hi Celular. Thanks for the compliment. Having reviewed my stats it appears that you haven't actually viewed any of my pages, other than the comment page, so I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that my blog is enjoyable. But, hey, maybe you can just tell.

And thanks for adding me to your blogroll. I suppose, being a narcissist, it would make sense for me to follow your link and see my Blog name in your blog roll. I suppose that should give me a big thrill. But something is lacking there. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it appears that you are merely trying to trick me and both of my readers into going to your site. Where we will be inundated with attempts to sell us something. What we're going to be sold is unclear. My first inclination might be Cell phones, but then I wonder, seeing as you spelled "cellular" wrong.

Now, when you say "If possible gives a last there on my blog", I have to be honest and tell you that I have no idea what you are talking about. Given that it appears you are from Brazil (or as they say there, Brasil) I should cut you a break on the whole English language thing. But I'm not feeling all that magnanimous. I mean, let's face it, you posted SPAM on one of my articles, which means, in my eyes, you're lower than scum. Brasilian or not, I don't care. You're scum.

So, please don't be hurt if I tell you I am not enjoying your site. And your unwelcome advances in the form of pushing a hug on me are making me very uncomfortable. And I would ask that from now on you respect my personal space and keep 50 feet away at all times.

Thank you,

Posolxstvo

Childish and Silly - Just Like Me

There's a story behind this video, but I am not coming up with any clever ways to introduce it. Instead, you get this.



It made me smile. Which is good enough for a Friday afternoon.

The Only April Fools Joke I Played This Year

ME: "Hey Max! C'mere Max... Wanna go for a walk?"

MAX: "pant pant ... wag wag."

ME: "Ok boy, come on."

(walk walk walk walk walk)

ME: "Why, hello Dr. B. Max is here for his neutering appointment."

MAX: "??!!"

DR.B: "Why hello Max. You ready to come with me?"

MAX: "????!!!!!!!!"

Everything went fine. He's back home today. Seemingly not the worse for wear.

But apparently he won't take treats from Dr. B anymore.

TechnoGrousing

I haven't bothered to look*, but it seems to me that last year at about this time I was beginning to experience some serious technical glitches in my life -- Google being unavailable, my wireless connection in my laptop barfing out on me, etc.

So maybe it's cyclical?

Last night, I was trying to watch something using Netflix's Watch Now functionality. About ten minutes into my selection (an episode of Heroes from season 2, if you care to know), the playback stopped and an error message appeared on the screen telling that there was a problem with my DRM. That's "Digital Rights Management" for those of you who are acronymically impaired. They suggested I call Netflix customer support, or that I run a DRM Reset Utility.

Being a techie guy, I chose the latter. I downloaded and ran their little utility, and from that point forward, every time I tried to view a movie through Netflix, Internet Explorer crashed.

I reinstalled the Netflix Viewer plugin. Same problem.

I tried to see if there was a way I could uninstall and reinstall Windows Media Player, but in Vista, you're not qualified to do that.

At about eleven, I gave up and went to bed. Frustrated and exhausted.

I woke up this morning and went to the gym. The gym I go to uses these little electronic keys. You hold the key up to a sensor and "click" the door unlocks and you go in.

Except that this morning, I held the key up and there was no click. Just a prolonged "Beeeeep." I thought it was a misread. I tried it again. "Beeeeeeep."

You know that saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result? So, yeah. That was me this morning. A bit insane.

"Beeeeeeep."

"Beeeeeeep."

And finally "beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep ..." which I interpreted to mean "I told you your access has expired, and you wouldn't listen. I was nice, and you wouldn't go away. So now, I'm gonna get a little rude on you. Get the **** out of here and pay your ********* membership, ****head!"

Oh yeah, and my car has reached the time for it's first service appointment, so yesterday I went online to schedule the appointment. Filled out a form. Hit submit. And heard .... nothing. All day. Nothing.

When I got to work, I was feeling a trifle thwarted.

I called the dealership and scheduled my appointment, being careful to let them know that I tried their online form, but hadn't heard anything, so assumed that it failed. She asked my name. I told her. She said - "No, I have you right here. I just hadn't gotten back to you yet." I held my tongue about the expectations that are set with an online form. I didn't mention that waiting 24 hours to respond without warning people that it may take some time to get back to them is just plain rude and bad user experience design.

I then called Netflix. Turns out that their online instructions leave out an important step. After running the DRM Reset Utility, you have to reactivate your DRM store (don't worry, I don't know what that means really either) by going to a Microsoft site and clicking a hidden link. Can't believe I didn't think of that.

So, now I am back up and running with Netflix. And I have my service appointment scheduled. But I still can't get into the gym.

Oh well, can't have everything I guess.

*I just checked. It was last August. So, not quite a year ago. I just remember that I was annoyed and hot and sweaty. In Pennsylvania, that's not specific enough.

Shopping with Sheep

I'm feeling a little cranky today. I don't really have a reason, other than it's rainy and I have work to do. And I'm a little hungry.

I don't know why, but it put me in mind to write a column* here about "things that piss me off." And I didn't get very far in that thought process, because the first thing that popped into my head sent me off on a wild, other-directional tangent. See, the first thing that popped into my head that pissed me off was "oblivious people standing in my way." Which really does piss me off, but it reminded me of a recent trip to the grocery store.

In my neighborhood, they opened a new Super Giant in the building that used to be my local Home Depot. Now Home Depot is three miles further away from me in all new digs, and there are now TWO Giant Grocery Stores in a one mile radius of my house.

I like all new grocery stores. They smell nice. They look nice.** And management still cares about curb appeal, so you are greeted with pleasant lighting and a clean store. Go in there in a year and I bet it ain't so clean and pleasant. But what I don't care for is the fact that new grocery stores always draw a crowd. And whenever you get a crowd, you get people who are overwhelmed by the experience and just stand there, mouths gaping open. Stupid, selfish, idiot people.

Right in front of the soup cans you want to look through.

They aren't even looking at the soup. They're looking at the ceiling. Or talking on their cell phones. And you stand there. Patiently. Trying to stay pleasant until they see you. And get the HELL out of your way.

Or better yet are the people who park their carts and wander up and down the aisle. I actually don't mind that, except inevitably there will be someone who has just so happened to halt their cart alongside the abandoned cart, effectively blocking egress in either direction.

These people won't look at you no matter how patient and pleasant you are. Their attitude is "Screw off, get your own aisle. This one's mine."

This new store, the aisles are really, really wide, and I still was blocked in 18 out of 20 aisles. I have to ask, how hard is it to slide your cart down a couple of feet and move it to the side so that people can get around you? Hmm? But they don't. I can only assume that the food they are buying is coated with a toxic chemical and they are trying to keep the amount of time that they are actually handling the food to an absolute minimum. Therefore, the cart must be right next to the food that they are selecting.

When I am in that situation, I try to park my cart in front of the prune juice or something that I just know that only 1 in 1000 customers will be looking for while I wander up and down the aisle. Another technique I use, as much as possible -- never let the cart stop. This works for packaged dry goods and certain canned goods where you don't really have to look too hard at varieties. And no one ever has to wait for you to get out of the way for very long at all.

* I have decided (since I hate the terms "blog", "blogging", and "posting") that I am going to refer to these entries as "articles." That way I can pretend that I am a real life writer and not just chucking pebbles into a waterfall.

** Have you noticed that all grocery stores are using the same BS tricks to try to lure yuppies? Take a tired old refrigerator storage unit, throw down some fake wood flooring, and point some track lighting in there, and voila -- Yuppie Paradise. While you're at it, take out a Sharpie and write "Organic" on all the food, and you'll sell out in an hour.