Reception

This last Thursday was another chance to engage in the most reverent of holiday traditions. I've thought this through carefully and I do believe that I now favor Thanksgiving for its events more than any holiday. To expound:

Christmas - Not the thrill it used to be. It may just be that I'm still single at 33, with no dwelling of my very own, and no immediate family to "gear up" for Christmas with. So I don't engage in the post-Thanksgiving decorating, no tree, no lights, to get me in the mood. No Christmas shopping with loved ones, I don't much like Christmas music, and I honestly don't even really attend many Christmas parties or holiday get-togethers. When Christmas finally arrives, for most people, it's the culmination of a month of anticipation. For me, it's a day off.

Easter - Another day off. Church + dinner. Maybe someday I'll color eggs with my kids. Even that is a 50/50 proposition...

4th of July - Why have I lost my appreciation of fireworks? I'm really not sure. Can they "all look the same" when you only get to see them once or twice a year? Evidently so, because when the city of Lansing was shooting them off at the lighting of the Christmas tree last week, I was only a block away, but was more interested in vaccuming my store then going outside to view the spectacle.

So now I'm in a place where the most sacred of holiday traditions occurs on Thanksgiving, as family gathers close and dinner plates are passed. Everyone comes together to count our blessings.... and I remove myself to participate in the holy holiday ritual of Lions football.

I remember fondly, even in the golden days, the smaller customs that accompanied this tradition. My mother imploring me to quit isolating myself and come downstairs for dinner, my brothers joining me for all of about five minutes (the most football they could handle), banging with frustration on the TV for better reception out on the farm, and of course, Lion deficits of 10, 17, or 24 points. All of these cherished memories add up to incite even more excitement for the new chapters I will add to this annual rite each year.

As a final demonstration of how truly magnificent this convention has become, I will leave you with the most innovative and humorous of the new beer ad campaigns debuted on this year's games:

Right vs. Left

Reading the subject of this post, your mind might instantaneously bring up political images and wonder how I might pit one against the other. But I will not. Instead, I thought I’d share a little about an article I just read – you can read it here.

If you don’t have time to read the article, I’m happy to give you a synopsis: Rhode Island Hospital – 3 brain surgeries – wrong side of brain. In the article, the Director of Health at the hospital expressed his concern and then stated, “While the hospital has made improvements in the operating room, they have not extended these changes to the rest of the hospital.” To what degree must changes be made in order for a neurosurgeon to know his/her right from left - or more specifically, the right and left of a patient on an operating table?

Further, the article indicates two of the patients were okay after the wrong-sided surgery – which begs a couple of questions: What exactly did the neurosurgeon do on the wrong side of the brain – just haphazardly poke around? And, at what point did they realize the error? “Mrs. Smith, your surgery went better than expected, we accomplished all we needed to – what’s this? Black marker dashes on the left side of your head? Uh oh.”

The article further states, “In addition to the fine, the state ordered the hospital to develop a neurosurgery checklist that includes information about the location of the surgery…, and to put in place a plan to train staff on the new checklist.” I’m sure these people ordinarily do great work, but what might a checklist look like to make sure you are operating on the correct side of a brain?

REMINDER: Today you are operating on the LEFT SIDE of Mr. Smith’s brain.

1. Do you see the patient’s head (circle one, not the head – to clarify, circle ‘yes’ or ‘no’)? Yes No.

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: Assuming you answered ‘yes’ to question 1, face the patient nose to nose – your right side is directly in front of his left side, and vice versa. Please mark the side of the patient’s head which is directly in front of your right side.

NOTE: Although you have completed medical school and an additional 6-8 years of residency, new hospital policy stipulates you must confirm your choice with one of our elderly volunteers.

Imagine the dinner conversation: “So how was your day honey?” “Well, I operated on the wrong side of someone’s brain today, you?” “Fine.” “Mmm, tasty chicken.”

my bi-monthly constitutional

This weekend I saw two elderly gentlemen out for a morning jog. I can only hope that when I’m older I have a) the energy and b) the ability to go out for a run. The energy comes and goes even now. Physically, my back and knees are already going so who knows. But tonight I went out and enjoyed a stroll in the crisp autumn air, which was ruined from time to time by unleashed dogs. Now I understand that by their nature dogs like to roam free, but do you, and by you, I mean dog owners, think you might leash them when you take them for a walk? First dog runs at me and does the whole jumping at me. Rule #1, don’t touch me. The next dog tried to hump my leg. I’ve never experienced that and don’t want to start now. Again, see rule #1. Then this dog comes flying off the porch and starts sniffing me. Leave me alone.

Now understand, I have a very harsh, anti-pet stance. Didn’t have pets growing up, don’t want them now. Larry will probably want to have pets. Simple responses: go get a job at the pet store, which is down the street; go to the zoo, which is within walking distance; and when you’re out of the house, you can do whatever you want. But back to my point, when pets and pet owners encroach on my personal space and time, I get a little perturbed.

In keeping with the pet theme, am I the only who thinks that the Michael Vick thing has been overblown? This guy is going to jail and has lost his livelihood because of dogs. Is it really that big of a deal? Sports radio was filled with rants and accusations and a lot of what seemed like PETA talking points, all fired squarely at Vick and his inhumane hobby.

Jim Rome coming to the fore for dog rights? Are you kidding me? These are dogs. It’s their property. Do what you want. Vick is done with major professional football, (he’ll probably play CFL or Arena League), because he didn’t treat his dog like Lassie. So what? Jason Williams probably killed someone. Ray Lewis may have killed someone. They’re not in jail. And these were human beings. Other athletes are out there raping and driving drunk and having a bijillion kids with a bijillion moms and they keep on going. Yeah, maybe a little suspended sentence or some community service or outrageous child support checks, but they’re still in the game. Vick tortures dogs and he’s done. As in stick a fork in him. Yeah an NFL team will probably throw him a bone, but the big time is over.

And for what? Help me see where the crime is.

bonus Britney

Will the real Britney Spears please stand up? Yikes!!

more disappointments

Tomorrow the final qualifiers will be determined for Euro 2008. I have vented my spleen many a time on Sven and can I say I was wrong? He wasn’t the worst England manager. Frustrating, yes. Disappointing, sort of. Failure, no. The worst England manager is “Macca.” They were given an amazing gift by Israel and I just hope that they don't blow it against Croatia, althought it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they lost. I will spare you my rantings and just say I’m glad I’m not English. Between the manager and the performances of the players, it’s just pathetic. But hey American citizen, the Americans are terrible, especially at 2006 World Cup. Peformances, horrible. Management, every thing that could go wrong, did. But America sucks. Let’s be fair. Despite what the FIFA rankings say, the USA is not a world futbol power. The 2002 World Cup was a pleasant surprise, a taste of what is to come. Meanwhile the English stumble, I would say drunkenly, but that’s a harsh generalization, from failure to disappointment back to failure, while bumping into a moments of success only to be denied on penalties. Sorry I’ll just stop now.

Keeping on the soccer theme, I checked out a movie from the library with a bunch of Real Madrid players on the cover. I was like, cool, a Real Madrid highlight video. Let me just say, read the cover before checking out any movie. Turns out it was a Madridilista propaganda piece. Shows how Real reaches out and unites the whole world, blah, blah, blah. The acting was positively dreadful and there was very little in the way of highlights. I immediately went to youtube to cleanse my palate with some decent highlights.

I had another horrible experience, this time with music. I checked out a recent Black Keys release, “Magic Poison.” I’ve heard some previous albums and have a couple of singles on my iPod, but this CD was really bad. I can find at least one or two songs on almost CD, but no go. I’m not saying I could do better, but I know enough not to try. Wow.

One more negative comment and then I’ll move on. OSU/UM last weekend was one of the most pathetic football games I’ve ever seen. UM was only able to move forward on OSU pass interference penalties. Hey O co-ordinater for UM, YOU CAN’T RUN THE BALL!!! How about some quick passes. Oh that’s right, your receivers can’t catch the ball. Just horrible. I’m sure that me and a couple of friends could have done better. Seriously. And thank God that Carr is gone. Hopefully, UM will take this opportunity to join the 21st century and play attacking football that utilizes the speed of the skill players(read SEC).

Finally, I was watching the CBS Morning Show while getting ready for work. Julie Chen and her ever present smile let me know that the People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man of the Year” was about to be announced. Some editor lady tells the audience that Matt Damon is the winner, and Julie’s next words are, “Congratulations to Matt Damon on this honor.” Don’t want to burst your bubble there Julie, but he didn’t exactly earn it. He won the genetic lottery and honed his latent talent to become a very successful actor, and therefore put himself to win a subjective, superficial and meaningless award. He didn’t win work hard to win something meaningful like Big Brother. Of course I’m sure Matt is going to put the cover next to the Oscar he won for Good Will Hunting. How fake is Julie Chen anyway?

Moving on to something a little more positive, Reno 911: Season 4. Not the most edifying thing ever, but it is funny. The funniest episode was when Hooters’ rip off “Hotties” was the Reno PD corporate sponsor. You have to see it to believe it. But the best parts are the community adverts. HILARIOUS!! Visit the Reno 911 page at comedycentral.com. (Not suitable for work in some cases.)

Mr. Harris' Wild Ride -- Part TWO: An Increasingly Endearing Narrative Concerning the American Railway System

In which the train she keeps on a-rolling, people from all over the world are crammed into a wee booth, and Mr. and Mrs. Harris continue to sleep the sleep of the innocent:

If you recall, Andy the Drunk bid us adieu, never to be seen again. Me, Kate the MSU freshmen, Mom, and Pop chatted idly as the train swayed from side to side. This lasted but a few moments. Katie was not tired and wanted to return to the observation room (club car in lower level) to play cards and wile away the hours as we approached her hometown (the midpoint on my illustrious train trip). I was not feeling tired yet, and she seemed to be of a sweet temperament and possibly enjoyable to spend a little more time with before sleeping off the remainder of the journey.

We stumbled on up a few cars and entered the observation room (club car in lower level) in order to, indeed, play some cards.

It is at this time that we are about to meet two key characters, and one person from Oregon who is barely worth mentioning.

Jeff and Nazy (this is not pronounced (though it may appear similar) like the nickname for the National Socialist German Workers' party (unless you are Winston Churchill, in which case, you would pronounce both exactly the same)). These were the two lovebirds who traveled all the way from California, almost certainly specifically to meet me. Jeff is a typical American who, upon meeting him, could have been from almost anywhere. A WASP with a made-for-TV accent and no discernible origination. Nazy on the other hand, could have come from no where but California and if it were possible, I would think that she was born on celluloid. Very goofy, not distractingly attractive, and with a voice that took me back to my youth with visions of The Joker's female sidekick Harley Quinn from the hit 90's animated serial: Batman Adventures. She was quite endearing, and they were both my kind of people.

I actually have to thank Katie the MSU freshmen for my ever having met them, as I was feeling anti-social (this is common for me when enduring any long form of travel) and would have just gone to sleep if only she would have been satisfied playing solitaire. She chose to sit in the booth directly across the aisle from the California couple and as they did turn out to be my kind of people, they, quite naturally, enfolded us within their conversation.

Turns out, they had taken a plane from Cali to Chi-Town, but, Nazy had never ridden a train before and dearly wanted to try it out. Jeff had business in Philadelphia, but also had time to spare and decided to give his dear wife of 3 years (did I mention they were man and wife? MAN AND WIFE!) the thrill of a lifetime, slopping along in too-tall train cars, dodging the Gestapo tactics of the Amtrak personnel, and eating "gourmet" pizza from the microwave in the club car (observation room in upper level).

We spent 2-3 hours attempting to play cards, but found all of us much too interesting to stop talking long enough to get that going. Jeff told us all about his job (can't remember off the top of my head exactly what it was he does) and Nazy clued us in on her half-Persian background and how to say several key insults in Farsi. We discussed subjects ranging from real estate opportunities across the country to politics to religion to what kind of flooring works best when you have a couple gigantic dogs and live five miles from the beach (an hour and a half by car). We took turns guarding the upper level while two of us would go downstairs, open the "do not open" windows, and send smoke hurtling out of our lungs and into the open air. Nazy wanted to go below and get stoned, but Jeff was much too nervous, despite the kind bud calling to him from their sleeper car.

Oh! Remember when I mentioned previously that apparently all train personnel are DICKS!?? I found out for sure via Jeff and Nazy. Think back also to when I said that the Kindly Kitchen Manager and the Nutty Conductor apologized profusely for not being able to show us what the sleeper cars looked like due to a full booking. Turns out it was all lies and they were all lazy!! Katie the MSU freshmen (still obsessed about seeing a sleeper car (turns out when she purchased her ticket online, she had struggled between choosing a seat in coach, and paying the extra $70-100 for a cozy mattress)) had mentioned our earlier exchange with said Amtrak employees and Jeff didn't hesitate for a moment to fill us in on the fact that more than half of the sleeper cars were totally unoccupied. Jeff and Nazy gave us the tour of the sleeper cars that Andy the Drunk had been unable to give us (did I or did I not tell you that in that part of Andy's tour, we had been turned away by the very same laborers who would 10-15 minutes later tell myself and Katie that there were no available rooms?). Most of them were quite tiny and seemed fairly unaccommodating, but there was one that was gigantic by comparison. Bigger than my apartment, but smaller than most people would like to stay for more than a few hours. The regular ones, such as the one rented by our new friends from California, consisted of the door to the aisle, a mirror and sink, enough room to stand up in front of two chairs with a table between them, and two pallets that folded down as beds (the lower one came down on top of the table, and i assume that you had to stand outside the room, in the aisle, in order to lower the bed and thusly crawl inside). Pretty neat though, really, if you were on a semi-romantic trip, such as I was not, and had plenty of time on your hands. We did go all the way up to the front of the train (where the locomotive is located) and peered through a window in the doorway to the control room. The interesting thing about this was that it was completely NOT interesting. It was like sitting in a glass bottom boat on a sidewalk. Interesting only because I can't explain why it this view looked so bland as I did not have the time to examine it further (the conductor's cabin was between us and the rest of the train and two in our group had gotten a bit jumpy (I don't want to come off as sexist, but, of course, I am talking about the girls.....))

We returned to the observation car (you know) where we finally settled in to several rousing hands of Bull$#!T. If you could hear me say the previous sentence aloud, you would catch the sarcasm when I uttered the word "rousing" for it was almost anything but. If not for our masterful conversational skills, this game may have become number one on my list of world's most boring games (up there with Risk, Settlers, and Scrabble) because the initial pile of cards would grow so quickly that we were all too panic-stricken to call anyone out for fear of collecting the bulk of the deck of cards into our shaky hands. After a few hands and a few verbal observations of the above sentence by various members of our party, the game did get a little more exciting, but then swung in the opposite direction -- in order to not let ourselves get stuck with an enormous amount of cards, we pretty much called out every attempt leave even one card on the table. Anyway... if you made it all the way through this paragraph, then you have a pretty good idea of the exact emotion we were feeling in regard to the game.

¡viva conversación!

I could go on and on about Jeff and Nazy (INVESTMENT BROKER!!! YES!!! That's what Jeff is!) but I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to mention how Katie the MSU freshmen was becoming more and more tired throughout the last few hours and reverting in age exponentially. (I actually almost forgot about this entirely thanks to the calming affect of the presence of the California Kids) Turns out that, basically, she becomes one the most annoying slap-happy people you could ever meet and so foul-mouthed for her innocent looks that it even embarrassed me a little bit (she wasn't bad by modern standards, but it was shocking in the way that seeing a 5-year-old strangle an injured puppy is shocking). If more than a few pleasant moments of silence went by, she would compulsively void this silence by whistling about 5 and half bars of Grease tunes. Also, she became very sassy to Jeff and me. And not in a way that is humorous or cute, but in a way that made us wait till she looked away so that we could raise our brows, eyes gaping and snort laughter to deal with the pain and suffering that we had somehow become forced to endure. Eventually I took it upon myself to make simple, snide remarks that made her feel foolish for behaving in some of her more obnoxious ways and she settled down. Although, possibly this had less to do with me and more to do with the fact that we had arrived in an area very close to Katie's hometown and she became distracted from her task of annoying us and more interested in playing to her better qualities (one of which is an impressive love of her hometown that I regret to realize few possess) and pointing out familiar landmarks that were important to herself and to Pennsylvania as a whole.

Jeff, Nazy, and Katie all got off on the next stop, never to be seen again.

Thus ends chapter two. Be with us next time for the pulse-pounding continuation of this ever-lengthening tale wherein I sleep off the remainder of the journey, we arrive at yet another train station, I mention a few things about this and that, and potentially some things that you may not have been expecting might occur.

The American Dream

It's my turn again? I know I'm the one that
picked Friday because it's my day off and
I could make sure to get it done without having
work interference. But for some reason on fridays
my body and mind work about 70% slower than they do
on a work day.

Anyway, every so often I try to come up with
interesting things I could sell on ebay to make a
couple extra bucks. I think about the piece of toast
with the face of Jesus and the grampas haunted cane
that have sold for ignoramus amounts of money. Why
can't I sell something like that? First, you have to
have something like that. What do I have that people
could possibly want? That's when I came up with the
perfect idea.

I'd like to sell my vote.

Yeah, you heard me. I'm going to sell one perfectly
legal American presidential vote. Somebody must want
an extra right? This is America, what's more American
than greed? Heck, I'm not using it, never have
(yeah, you heard me) I have never voted, until this
idea came up, I never had any intention to. However,
cash might be incentive enough to get me moving.

Of course, I have a feeling it might be a little bit
illegal to sell my vote, which in my mind is silly
since people sell their votes for measly promises.
Hillary is making a spanking off immigrants who are
hoping she will make it easier to get citizenship.
Everyone is hoping to get something out of their
vote, like a better America. But since I am not
that foolish, Just give me cash!

So I might have to sell something else like....
The Opportunity to Persuade Me To Vote For the
Candidate Of Your Choice With The Clear Understanding
That I Am Easily Swayed.

The winner would be allowed to email me, call me,
invite the candidate of their choice to my house to
meet with me. As long as I don't believe your candidate
is the devil incarnate, I'll probably vote for them.
Because in the end, I'm just disillusioned enough to
understand that no candidate really gives a rats flatus
about a middle class white 20 year old, nobody is making
promises to me.

I'm not an immigrant, I'm not a baby boomer, I'm not
interested in marrying someone of the same sex,
I have no real opinion about Iraq, and I am not in
need of health insurance or anymore education. I'm
not worried about my freedom and I'm not really worried
about my safety, I'm not worried that they'll outsource
my library, and sadly I don't really care if psychological
torture is still torture.

In the end, I'd like a president to work towards
alternative energy, cleaner environment, secure
economy. You don't have to be a democrat, republican,
liberal, right wing, fundamentalist, or a compassionate
conservative. You just have to be a president who cares
more about the job than about the politics, about getting
something done instead of playing the game.

Ah, but in the end we all must put away the childish
things. And since my dream president simply doesn't exist,
just give me cash and I'll vote for your dude. Heck, give
me cash and I'll pretend I still believe in Santa.

Cry Freedom!

While people in Taiwan and Darfur are still living difficult lives without some of their most basic rights as human beings, I'm experiencing a bit of the pain here on my side of the pond. My liberties are threatened by a political sandstorm, and I'm beginning to fear that my future will soon look as bleak as that of my brothers and sisters in South Africa.

I refer, of course, to the Hollywood writers' strike which has darkened the halls of the Ed Sullivan theatre (where Letterman's late night is taped), cut off my supply of Stephen Colbert, and seeks to stop new episode airings of "Chuck" as soon as December.

I really don't have a side in this squabble except for my own. Lost in the great debate on Capitol Hill about national health insurance, is the fact that millions are still uninsured (and in poor health) while the policy fight is going forth. So is the case here. Who's looking out for my best interests, while the two sides are deciding (or currently, not deciding) how to split their billions?

Some out there are saying, "Look, how hard can it really be to script a television show?", and in response I only need point in the direction of Bionic Woman. It is a rare gift exhibited by those in the WGA (Writer's Guild of America), and we should not expect to have any sort of meaningful existence until this dispute is resolved. For America, Hollywood! For America, WGA! Cease this bloodletting!

Sidenote: Another consequence of this great disaster will be a sharp increase in reality programming, the longer the strike goes on. Apparently "writers" aren't needed to film a strong reality show (that phrase seems like a contradiction in terms), so the networks are upping the orders for more unscripted, boring-as-hell reality drivel.

podcasts and cutthroat bitch

How great are podcasts? Subscribe, refresh, experience great entertainment. I guess they are millions of podcasts now and there’s no way you can ever get to them all, but I’ve found several ones that I can’t live without.

Best Night Ever. Daily snippets that funnel into the Best Week Ever on VH1. Watching these makes you wonder how many reality shows can exist and how long this niche programming will last. It may be that is here to stay. Sitcoms, drama, documentary, reality TV. This show gets an A for snarkiness.

World Soccer Daily. This is heaven for a soccer fan. Informative, passionate, interesting. Yes they are biased but who cares? They way they turn a blind eye to “their” teams’ deficiencies, while ripping everyone is great. One of the best parts of the show is the nickname they gave to Landon Donovan—Landy Cakes. Hilarious. Every day at 2 hours is hard to keep up with. The Soccernet podcast is only an hour or less twice a week. Anyway, this is a great show. I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to keep up with this and the Tony Kornheiser show when he comes back from Monday Night Football, but I’m willing to try.

Roots Rock Radio. A monthly show dedicated to music that you will never hear on radio. Blues, rockabilly, country, folk, anything that isn’t POP. Has a very homey feel and I’ve already heard some great music. As I have time, I’m going to go back and get older shows. I’m still looking for a podcast for American Routes on PBS but haven’t found it yet. This will do for now.

I’ve sort of given up on the Dennis Miller podcast. He’s on locally now, so I feel I can get a fix if I really need it. I don’t know. TK is ok with the guest host, but it’s just not the same. Notes from the Underground is back. The last one I listened to, I didn’t like a single song they played. Hopefully the next show is better.

If I could listen to podcasts and watch soccer all day, I might be happy. It would definitely be a step closer. Add cigars and beer, a box of Krispy Kremes and then we’d be talking.

Watched the latest episode of House (11/6/07). Two medical cases, some interesting interplay between characters old and new. Cutthroat bitch. How can she still be around? She doesn’t do anything. She waits for other people to make a mistake and undermines them in such a way as to present herself in a better light. She's like Sanjaya from American Idol. Her little schtick is old. I’m done with the hiring shenanigans. Let’s pick a team and have them battle it out with the old team. Anyway the exchanges between House and the CIA doctor were classic. The show is a lot better. But I’m right in saying that House doesn’t pop pills every 5 seconds, right? Is that because that tic is not as important? Or does it mean he’s overcome his addiction? His line two episodes ago about knowing what Vicodin tastes like while Cuddy might not know what her birth control tastes like was hilarious. By the way, Tom let me know about a great blog that deals with the medical aspects of the show, politedissent.com.

Coming Soon

Sorry for the delay in Mr. Harris' Wild Ride -- Part TWO
Pending approval, you will see this installment in it's appointed spot for Monday very soon (likely tomorrow, since i don't think Brandon is set up yet, you guys will need SOMETHING to read.....)
again.... big apologies from right here

Home Economics

I would have said a year ago, maybe even 6 months ago, that I can't stand living in a messy place. I don't like clutter and I don't like dirt. I do not often frequent my husbands office because it's usually the messiest place in our house and since I have no idea how he would like things organized (which after 5 years I must assume that he doesn't) and so much things are in piles on the floor with only a small path to the desk and the closet. However, I think my priorities have changed with working full time and commuting so far.

The small amount of free time I have nowadays, I don't care to take up with doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen (which unfortunately you have to do when on those rare occasions you choose to cook). I like to read, I read a lot, but I'm also actually a pretty slow reader so it takes a lot of time. So when I'm home and I'm finally relaxing after a day of trying to be an extrovert when I am naturally an introvert (which is exhausting) I have to choose between folding the laundry that's been sitting in a basket for a week, or reading my book in the bathtub...hmmmm

I understand there are an awful lot of single guys on this website so you might be reading this thinking to yourself "Who cares? I couldn't care less if you lived in the back of your garage without plumbing!" and to a point, you're right. Most people who visit us don't care if there are dishes in the sink or a basket of laundry in the living room. But I have to admit, it's gotten a little worse than that.

Up until this morning there has been two loads of laundry on the floor in our living room that was slowly co-mingling with a growing pile of dirty laundry for the last 3 weeks until we could no longer tell where one pile ended and the other began and there was no longer a floor but only a small hiking path up the side of the mountain.

Along with that, our kitchen was beginning to have a distinct smell to it (hint: when you make broccoli it's best to do dishes right away, broccoli smell is invasive).

And the last thing I will mention, and I'm am NOT proud of this. Our toilet has certain things growing on the inside that I'm pretty sure are related to the mold family. I can't be positive, but mostly I just don't look and get out as fast as I can.

What's really interesting is the conversations this situation has led to.

Ben: "You dumped the clean clothes on the floor!"
Crystal: "You put them on the bed. I wanted to go to sleep."
Ben: "So why didn't you put them away?"
Crystal: "Why exactly did you pile them on the bed?"
Ben: "So that you would put them away."
Crystal: "Is that why you make nice neat piles of all the dirty dishes?"
Ben: "Yes"
Crystal: "Instead of just loading the dishwasher?"
Ben: "...Yes!"

There have been times when I purposely didn't clean up stuff just to see at what point it would start bothering Ben. I have never actually found his breaking point, I think I would go insane before that ever happened.

Ben: "The garbage is getting full"
Crystal: "Is that why you're so delicately laying that on the top of the pile that's already overflowing?"
Ben: "Yeah, as long as it doesn't fall..."
Crystal: "How much more are you going to put on top?"
Ben: "Until all the garbage magically disappears and the can is empty again."
Crystal: "Hmmm"

Ben is actually fairly good at helping around the house, but again, communication is key. And when communication is working then normally all is well. But considering my schedule and his hectic school schedule, we are blind, deaf, and apparently willing to put up with the smell of our habitat.

Sometimes, when it's really bad, I think to myself, "Maybe we can just move and leave everything dirty right where it is".

Boxing

I don't understand all of this fury over the release of the new game "Manhunt 2". The game has been banned in Britain, and this week Target announced that they would not carry this video game in their stores because it was "too violent".

Part of Target's reasoning is that Rockstar Games (the same company that gave us Grand Theft Auto) hid much of the game's more gruesome content in an area of the game code that has to be unlocked to be viewed, a process that is apparently a lot easier to do than it should be. It was the hiding of this content that enabled the game to earn an "M" rating from the ERSB (the video games ratings counsel). Many believe the "M" for Mature rating is too mild in light of the existing and hidden content of the game.

The Nintendo Wii, for example, allows you to use motion-sensing controllers to simulate different game actions, so "therefore to stab you're gonna mimic a stabbing motion, to swing a sledgehammer or a shovel you would do the same." So what's the big deal? Kids are going to need to learn how to swing sledgehammers one day if they are going to learn the kind of handy-man work ethic that contributing members of society should be. Maybe if games like Manhunt 2 had been around when I was a kid, I would be better able to help out around the house when we're, say, digging a trench or something.

Furthermore, I don't see what's so wrong with allowing potential criminals to practice their craft at home before they take it into the real world. They deserve the chance to hone their vocational skills just like many other workers. Do we protest Richard Hamilton the opportunity to shoot jumpers at the gym when he's not playing in regular games? Personally, I would prefer an educated and practiced criminal on the streets than the sort of reckless thugs that are now all too common. Better that my mugger knows the precise points at where to hit me so that I am only incapacitated rather than accidentally murdered.

Finally, the quest to unlock the hidden game code will teach younger players how to search effectively on the internet for information, a skill that is becoming more and more valuable as our technological age progresses. Why would we deny our kids this "teachable moment" when they are at their most eager to learn?

Join with me in insisting that Target recant its stance and offer this important cultural milestone for sale throughout its chain of stores!

Besides, if my friend RB can have this much difficulty becoming a boxer by using the Wii, how many future slayers do we really expect to create with a game like Manhunt 2?

futbol and movies

What a weekend of soccer.

Saturday morning was Arsenal v Manchester United. 1 v 2, the biggest game of the year so far. The first half was dreck. Hleb was the best player for the first fifteen minutes, but then Anderson shut him down. Adebayor was left 20 yards from goal and was ineffective. Ronaldo was, how shall we say, muted. The goal from Rooney, or Gallas, came from good build up and wing play. It wasn’t the cleanest of finishes and I’m not sure that United even deserved it. Fabregas’ equalizer right after halftime was sweet. Great effort from Arsenal. The second half was much more open. Arsenal’s best opportunities came from outside the penalty area, and United was dangerous with the few chances they created. The game changed with the introduction of Saha. His past to create the second goal was exquisite. Truly a magical moment and a glimpse into yet another level United could hit if he stays healthy. Arsenal pushed forward and drew level at the death. They deserved it and both teams earned a share of the points. What a season it could be. It could ’99 all over again with United and Arsenal fighting for the domestic prizes.

Sunday afternoon was the big Italian clash between Juventus and Inter Milan. Without going into an extensive record of Italian soccer, let’s just say there’s not a lot of good will between the two teams. Inter is in first and has not lost this season. Juventus came in a couple of points below, and this same served as another measuring stick for their return to Serie A. The game started and stayed at a frenetic pace. Rarely do you see an Italian game where the game is played end to end of the entire 90 minutes. It was what I expected from the English game, with the Italian game expected to be cautious. The roles were reversed and both teams threw everything forward in the search for 3 points. Figo had a nice game for Inter and Javier Zanetti worked really hard. As for Juventus, Cheilleni owned Ibrahamovic in a match up that drew the attention of the match. Del Piero had an OK game, but Nedved was diabolical. Not a very good performance. The substitution of these two players changed the game for Juve, as they were able to finally cancel out Julio Cruz’s clinical finish at the end of the first half. Camronasi came right on and took the game to Inter and Iaquinta threw his body around as only he can. 1-1 was the final and a share of the points was fair.

So two games in two different leagues between the two biggest teams. It was awesome and it’s on to the Champions League in midweek.

That euphoria was tempered by two movies that I saw recently.

Lonesome Jim. Directed by Steve Buschemi and starring Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler. If you ever need to get depressed, watch this movie. If you need to compare your life against some loser's to increase your self esteem, watch this movie. Ugh.

Taxi Driver. Supposedly a classic, but I have to say that I wasn't that impressed. The pace of the movie was unbearable. Robert DeNiro did a great job of playing an unhinged, desperate Vietnam vet, and the interplay between Shepard and Brooks was good, sort of a sitcom vibe, but that was about it. Reading several reviews, it looks like I missed out several key aspects of the film. That is entirely possible. Maybe I need to see it again to catch the nightmarish isolation of Bickle as he wades through a hellish urban existence. Or maybe I can just say the world is full of evil and that some people snap because it.

Mr. Harris' Wild Ride -- Part ONE

So... I just rode a train down to Maryland, USA. If you've never tried this mode of transportation before, I highly suggest it. It was the most comfortable I've been on a long trip and by FAR the most interesting. Let's see how interesting you find it by the end of this novella. (I'm gonna get fired....)

It all started at the bus station in East Lansing. I should mention at this time that my parents came with me on this trip. So, we're at the bus station waiting around for the bus. We're standing outside because the waiting area was hot, muggy, and smelled subtly of urine (and you know that wet air is full of molecules that... well, even now, I shudder to think of it) -- Anyway, here we are, outside ... waiting... this young girl comes out of the station and sits on a bench near my mother. She turns out to be Katie the MSU freshman travelling to "Picksburg" to see her mama. She's travelling alone it turns out and on a train for the first time (I informed her that Heimlich's Chew Chew train at Disneyland doesn't count) and was a bit nervous. Understandable if you've ever been to a bus depot where you can hardly tell the pending passengers from the hobos (the trick is to look for luggage (not always 100% accurate though)). So we adopted Wee Katie for this bus ride.

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to the Toledo Train Station, but others on the bus felt that the driver could have spent more time concentrating on driving, and less time popping pills, eating coleslaw, and talking on his cell phone.

Now, on to Toledo, where we met Andy the Drunk and his mother, Marge. Andy the Drunk spotted us as the train-newbies we were from the moment he laid eyes on the eight of us. (For the sake of factuality, i now mention that both Mom and Pop have been on many, many trains before.... but this did not stop Andy the Drunk from taking us under his wing.)

Regardless, Andy was incredibly cordial, informing us of all the in's and out's of train travel. He even watched our luggage for us while we had dinner at a nearby table. Once on the train, he insisted that we allow him to give Pop and me a tour of the train. This was a bi-level train with most of the passenger seating on the top level. The front cars contained the sleeper rooms, next were the bar car, diner cars, and observation room (club car in lower level). The rest of the passenger seating was located in all but the final car, of course, the caboose (did not get to enter the caboose). He showed me how to open the doors between cars (it's actually fairly obvious, but he insisted that he has witnessed innumerable amounts of people who lacked the presence of mind to press the large black button labeled "PRESS" that opens the door). He located the bathrooms for me and pointed out sleeping passengers and almost got in a fight with a guy who said, "Nice shirt" to me (Andy the Drunk was certain he had heard "Jerk".... hi jinks followed).

This seems as good a time as any to mention that apparently, all train personnel are DICKS!

Anyway, we got back to my parents and Katie the MSU freshmen had found her way to them (did I mention that she was separated from us when we boarded? Oh... well, she was separated from us, when we boarded, by the conductor...). Andy the Drunk was going to head down to find his mother and grab some of the beer that he had stowed away in his luggage for us all to enjoy. He made lewd gestures around the tuchas of young Katie as he stumbled toward the stairway leading to the lower passenger area. (This stumbling was related to train movement.... as I have said, he's a drunk, so he's very good at walking a straight line whilst inebriated). Katie then asked me to give her the tour of the train. So we headed back up toward the front. In the bar car, we bumped into the head waiter, the conductor, and another rail employee. Katie very much wanted to see what the sleeper rooms looked like but they informed us that all the rooms were taken, or they would gladly show her what they look like. So we headed on back to the family to see what was what.

When we arrived, a new person had been added to the cast without my knowledge. Dan the Amish. There sat Dan the Amish with Andy the Drunk and Pop, beers in hand, supplied to them by ... well, you know.... Andy the Drunk welcomed us back and handed me his beer for a sip. (If you know me at all, this was a somewhat horrifying prospect) But I didn't want to be rude, what with being under his wing and all, so I tipped my head back with the hope that the low alcohol content of this tall can of Miller Light would be sufficient to kill whatever may be lurking within Andy the Drunk's mouth. (I haven't gotten sick yet, so... well, hopefully I'm okay...) I couldn't help but notice however that Dan the Amish hadn't even opened his tasty beverage (Do they have a rule about that? (by "they" I'm referring to the kind of Amish who are allowed to indulge in transportation not pulled by horses (I know the rules differ from sect to sect)))

Dan the Amish though was very pleasant, and, woah! Talk about a weak handshake for the roughest hands I've ever felt. I don't hold this against him though. I'm positive he does not have a lot of contact with outsiders, and that would make anybody nervous, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt that within his community he is a confident individual and a pillar or their society. Dan the Amish promptly fell asleep....

We all chatted for a bit longer and Andy the Drunk made a few more lewd gestures in Katie the MSU freshman's tuchas region (all the while mischievously grinning at me, searching for my approval for a late-40's man "molesting" an 18-year-old).

All of a sudden like, Dan the Amish woke from his nap, said "Goodnight, English" and sauntered back to the car with all the other Amish people (did I mention there was a whole passenger section full of Amish??) in it, holding his beer inside his vest as he stumbled (this also was due to train movement.... as I have said, Dan the Amish did not open his beer)

Join us next week for the continuation of this story wherein Andy the Drunk leaves us forever in search of his mother, my parents fall asleep for the better part of the train trip, and some new characters are added to the tale.

Black and White and Read All Over...

I have never paid much attention to news or to politics, I'm trying to do better but I still don't know half the political names that get thrown around. I know Obama is half black, Romney is Mormon, Clinton used to be a woman, but Bloomberg? Huckabee? Kucinich? Not a clue.

And as for the rest of the news, well, it's just depressing. I find myself reading Newsoftheweird.com and the Pecular Postings of MSNBC.com because it makes me giggle and doesn't make me feel like humanity is not worth saving.

However, the older I get, more I feel as if I have the right to air my opinion about every news article whether it be political, criminal, educational, entertaining or whatnot. I didn't used to think my opinion was so very very important but since I don't hear anybody else saying what I'm thinking, I guess I have to speak for myself. So without further ado:

Dividedwefail.org
If you've seen the commercials you don't really know what it is (this could be said about 89% of all advertising in America). The commercial is a bunch of kids talking about how politicians should be more honest and should be held accountable to what they promise. I agree whole heartedly and even like their little half donkey half elephant mascot. However, if you actually go to the website its the AARP!!!! What the crap! The fact that the American Association of Retired Persons uses children in their marketing automatically makes me suspicious of their motives.

The basic platform is health care and social security, ok, kids need health care I understand that, but social security? Don't for one second try to make me believe that social security is something more than a specifically "retired persons" interest. By the time the kids in the commercial need it, it's most likely going to be gone. Other than saying it should be "strengthened" for the future (which doesn't really mean anything) they just want to make sure all those baby boomers get their own. Sure, they paid into it, but probably not as much as they plan on taking out, and definatly not as much as I'm paying into it.
Anyway, enough of social security...

Don't Tase Me, Bro!
Puh-Lease! Yeah, he's breakin' his silence. He plans on writing a freakin' book! I've also included the original clip of the "incident" where he flips out but doesn't exactly know why they "tazed" him. This is the type of democrat that should make all other democrats cringe. Personally, I think the tazer was the best invention since the toilet! Of course, now there is all this discussion about whether or not the tazer is somehow interfering with our constitutional rights. I think if an officer of the law asks you to do something and you don't do it, then getting tazed is a lot better than getting shot, and a heck of a lot easier for the officers than trying to argue with idiots like this.

In Case You Need a Reason to Hate the Government.
I don't think there's anything I can say about this article (from newsoftheweird.com) that any reasonable person wouldn't already be thinking...whoever wrote their orders is an evil evil person.
The 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard returned recently from extended duty in Iraq, which was reportedly the longest consecutive deployment of any outfit (22 months, counting extensions). However, the Guardsmen still do not qualify for government education benefits. The law allows the benefits only for those on "active duty" at least 730 days, but the Minnesota Guard's orders (as well as some other outfits' orders), were specifically written for "729 days." [KARE-TV (Minneapolis), 10-18-07]

Someday I'm going to write a newspaper with nothing but good news.