Stuck in the middle with U: Dancing Trashcan Mice, Nanny Nanny and Princess Jasmine

Stuck in the middle with U: Dancing Trashcan Mice, Nanny Nanny and Princess Jasmine

Stuck in the middle with U: Dancing Trashcan Mice, Nanny Nanny and Princess Jasmine

Stuck in the middle with U: Dancing Trashcan Mice, Nanny Nanny and Princess Jasmine

Dancing Trashcan Mice, Nanny Nanny and Princess Jasmine

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Snakes on a Boardwalk

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Boo!

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. And you don't even get off for it, unless it's a Saturday or Sunday and you don't work a job where you're company is run by ghouls who make you work those days. But I digress.
I guess it's just the pagan in me. I like the whole ritual. It comes as no surprise that it started with the Celtics - no not the Boston Celtics, although they've been terrorizing the Seventy Sixers for awhile. Again of track. The Celtics  (Irish) are a dark race. You don't believe - read their literature. As far as Halloween - they believed that on October 31st, they believed that the worlds of the living and dead overlapped, and that the dead would be free to come and cause sickness and crop damage. Talk about dark thoughts, but I guess if you live in a land that's hard to grow potatoes.. but again - I get loss in thought.
So somehow this dark festival of the Irish gets us to modern day Halloween  (All Hallows Eve - day before all saints day - ah those Christians - always homing in on the festivities). Little kiddies going door to door looking for goodies. Don't say trick - could get your windows egged or worse. Now the Adults have Halloween parties - they dress up - going person to person - looking for treats - hoping they get .... well you know.
It's just the fun I like - there's little expectations - you're allowed to be someone your not and it's OK to be different. As a matter of fact - it's expected. In an era where homophobia is rampant - it's OK for men and women to dress up in the opposite sex's garb. I imagine - you could even wear Muslim clothing, although don't try to get on a plane or move into an apartment near ground zero.
And look what it's done for politics. Christine O'donnel admits she dabbled in witchery. Of course now that it's Halloween and it's close to election day, she proclaims in an ad - that's she's not a witch. Sad - probably could use a witch or 2 in politics - there's already a lot of vampires sucking our blood. But again I digress.
So the bottom line is I like Halloween. It's fun. You get to dress up and eat candy. And it makes the radical right cringe!

Stinkbugs

I'm sitting inside after cutting the grass and putting the x-cargo on the SUV. While I was outside - a couple hundred stinkbugs annoyed me. When I tried to go inside 20 or 30 of them were on the door waiting for me to open it. And now while I'm sitting here cooling down - there are 30 or 40 of them walking all over the window screens.
Yeah - we've been inundated with news about bed bug infestation, but I have yet to hear one story about stink bugs. Maybe the bed bugs are just red herrings for a stink bug invasion. They got together and said Bed bug you take all the heat - feast on the humans at night and then when they're too weak - we'll attack during the day and annoy the hell out of them.
 Well - it's working!

Wardrobe Malfunction

It's not what you think. It's not a Janet Jackson event. I just ripped one of my favorite shirts at work. The fact that it was one of my favorite shirt probably contributed. Worn and washed too many times, the material probably wore out. I lifted my arm up - it caught in my armpit a bit and ripped a big un-fixable hole in the sleeve. This happened as Iwas talking with a bunch of guys about nothing (baseball, work and other absurdities). After the rip I absorbed all the comments about my "ripped arm muscles" causing the tear and other similar inane remarks, I saw that I did not have another replacement shirt at work, and since I am vane - decided to go back to my place and change.
I told the guys I was with, that if anyone was looking for me, that I had a "wardrobe malfunction" and would be back in about 40 minutes.
I got to thinking while I was driving back, that prior to that infamous Janet Jackson news cycle (much ado about nothing- again) I would never had put together the words wardrobe and malfunction together. It's the fluidity of our English language that amazes me. I'm not sure that other languages with their idioms and slang changes as much as ours. It seems that our promised freedoms are reflected in our kind of "stream of consciousness" American language.
So while I was looking for a shirt that matched sufficiently the pants I was wearing, I thought - "I need a phrase that reflects my activity to remedy my "wardrobe malfunction"". And I all I could come up with was "Wardrobe Restoration". I wanted it to end in "tion" like malfunction. The poet in me I guess. But guaranteed it will never be popular vernacular - not much news - except of course at work - where stories of my non-existent muscles abound!

Let me complain about a few more things related to flying.

First - water. You can't bring a bottle of water through the Security Line. So what did those patriotic Capitalistic vendors located in he terminal do? - Quadrupled the price! It's bad enough to pay a buck for a bottle of water - but $4. Come on. Highway robbery without a gun - Get yourself a stainless steel bottle and fill it up at the fountains. I'm all for free enterprise- I just object to getting gouged. I know it's whatever the traffic will bear - but fair is fair.

Second - Remember phone booths? Those small tight spaces in the city, where you'd squeeze into - lean back and close the door, stick your quarter in the slot and have your claustrophobic conversation with someone. They became extinct with thee advent of cell phones.  Did you ever wonder what happen to them? They use them for rest rooms on airplanes.  It a misnomer though - cause cause you don't rest in them and there is no room!  If they get much smaller you won't be able to get  a quarter out of your pocket. I'm generally considered an average sized male, but going to the airplane rest room has become a bruising experience. I think - what would I do in an emergency? Aside form the panic, I'd have to get the door open, - the folding one - just like on the old phone booths. If I couldn't do that, I'd be stuck cause I wouldn't be able to get the cell  phone out of my pants to call for help.

One last thing. Electronic devices. Is it really that critical? Are the planes that susceptible to EMF - radio waves - Brittany Spears on IPODs? Text messaging from the rest rooms - if you can get the cell phone out? If it's that bad shouldn't we be worried about 4 or 5 terrorist listing to Brittany on their IPODs? or Blackberrying text messages to Osama?  Can you hear me now?

Wiped Out!

Here's a burning question I've been thinking about... well regular-ly. When did companies think that going to single ply toilet paper (or as I like to call it - single ply sandpaper) was a good thing? I know they think they're saving money, BUTT..

Let me ask all of you - please remained seated- you're sitting on the toilet - ah relieved- and you reach for that finishing wipe and what do you do? Of course you grab 2 or 3 pieces of that single ply or do you wrap it around your hand to give you a softening rub against your posterior exit?  YES - instead of using a few careful piece of cuddly soft 3 ply tissues - you use 30 or 40 singles.

So how much money are these companies really saving. Zippo - it's getting flushed down the drain. Same with these cheap paper towels that have that newspaper like quality. They're like drying your hand with plastic wrap. So you keep on pulling on that roll until your hands are dry.

So how much money are these companies really saving. Well if you ask me - they got their heads up where the toilet paper breaks apart!

Happy Anniversary Harper

I really don't have a for sure favorite book.  I have about 6, which I recycle through my optic nerve. They are in no particular order, Lord of the Flies,  Catcher in the Rye, Night, Inherit the Wind, Hamlet and of course last but certainly not least To Kill a Mockingbird.  If you held me down and threaten to tattoo me with the words, "you know" on top of a picture of Sarah Palin, and said what's your absolute favorite. The one you want on that desert island with you, I'd have to say To Kill a Mockingbird.  It's also one of my favorite books that were made into a movie, although Inherit the Wind is a close 2nd.

And here it is the 50th Anniversary of the release of the book.  I saw on television this morning, that high school students also don;t mind reading this book as required reading. Might be hope for us yet.

What's great about this book? It tells a story about racism in a small town. But it does it from the perspective of Scout, a pre-teen tomboy.  The book is suppose to be semi-autobiographical at least as far as the town Harper Lee grew up in and her family and girlhood friends, including one Truman Capote.

I won't say too much more about the book. Anything I could say has been said many times before. It is a great American book, written by a lady who is suppose to have said something like - she couldn't write another book as  goos as that - so she didn't write another book.

So to celebrate the anniversary, I will read it again this year and maybe rent the Movie - after all it won 3 Oscars also.

A good story is still a good story - read it for yourself.

Of skateboards and hummingbirds

I was out for a walk yesterday in the bright sunshine. I was keeping a brisk pace, going up a small incline, when a boy on a skateboard came towards me zigging back and forth at a pretty good clip. He straightened out and zipped past me, as I stopped to ensure no injury to my fragile dignity or bones. I watched him scoot past and just as he did, I saw a hummingbird zoom by and stop, hovering in mid - air and then speed off through a garden packed with native Californian plants and flowers. I saw him sip from one beautiful blue flower, and then he disappeared into the garden.

I started walking again. I thought of what I had seen that day. Cars flying down Route 5 at 75-80 miles and hour, while the motorcycles (suicycles) made the cars look like they were at a standstill. Walking, I had seen joggers checking their pulses and surfers trying to catch that perfect wave rolling quickly into the beach.

I thought back to the day before when I was going to the check out lane of a store, and a lady dashed in front of me to get into line. She turned around, shrugged her shoulders - I smiled. Everyone is in a hurry. For what?

There seems to be this frenetic pace that everyone is living to. Could it be my old age wanting me to slow down? I thought back to when I was younger - I don't think I raced around like there was no tomorrow. Is it the fear the government, news and preachers shove down our throats daily that makes us feel like there is really no tomorrow, or is it just the pace of change that makes us feel we need to keep pace.

Are we all just like that hummingbird zipping around in the air, briefly hovering then lighting off again. No - I don't think so - at least he stops to smell and taste the flowers.

Wheel Chairs

I've been flying fairly regularly. I've whined before about what a pain in tail wing it is, but I noticed something the other day that got me thinking about the near future. They called for the people who need help to get aboard the plane and 5 wheel chairs pulled up. And I thought - man baby boomer getting older - the chairs will be lined up half way down the terminal. Not only that, but some older people who aren't in wheel chairs take an awful long time to find their seat - get their bags just right, argue about whose going to sit next to the window - what's it going to be like when all 60,000,000 or so baby boomer are well into our seventies. It will take them hours to load a plane. But I got a solution. Don.t put any seat.s on the plane - just have spaces that wheel chairs get locked into. Have special wheel chairs that have a place to store your stuff. then wheel them on - snap the chairs in place and go.

And then I thought - hell I'll just stay home.

March Madness

Well it's March again. That means I'm glued to the TV watching hour after hour of college basketball.  I watch very little TV, usually, and although I really enjoy college basketball, I don't watch an inordinate amount.  So how come in March I find myself playing a "bracket" even though I don't know that much about each of the 64 teams that start in this tournament. I usually play local teams and am usually disappointed.  I know that Duke usually always has a good team, and I also play teams I've saw in the last few months. This does not lead to a successful bracket.  So what's going on? Am I susceptible to the hype? hmm probably - but it's more than that. My wife watches even though she claims you just have to watch the last 5 minutes. I don't agree - I like basketball. I played a lot as a kid. It was a cheap game to play - just needed a ball an a pair of black Converse.

So I decided they reason that they call it March Madness - cause for some reason I go crazy in March.  But at least I don't dribble.
 

Spam

I get a lot of Spam. I figure between 20 and 40 of them a day. My Spam filter takes care of most of them, Puts them in one folder for me. The majority of them fall under 3 categories:
1. The lotteries I won
2. Offer to buy drugs like vicadin and others
3. Meet Singles

I win 4 or 5 lotteries a day - for millions of dollars. It's amazing - I just have to send them all my personal information and/or some money for handling.  Is there anyone out there who believes that they won that many lotteries?  There must be - the Spam keeps on coming.

Buying drugs on line. The new pusher Big Daddy Spam.  There's a Credence Clearwater Revival song that has lines like
"Down On The Corner, out in the street,
Willy and the Poorboys are playin';
Bring a nickel; tap your feet."
The nickel was for a bag of "weed".
Now you can buy some "legal drugs" on line with your credit cards. I've re-written the verse

Down on laptop, out on the net
You Tube's  playing Credence Bytes
Bring your credit - all the drugs you can get.

As far as me meeting singles - I meet them all the time in real life.  I liked it better when we met them in a bar. At least you could see the packaging for real. On line - you never know.

But I guess as long as some people keep responding - I guess I will keep my Spam and BS filters on!

"There's one thing about living in Santa Cruz I never could stomach - all the damn vampires."

"There's one thing about living in Santa Cruz I never could stomach - all the damn vampires."
That the famous line from the "Lost Boys" that the grandfather says after crashing through the house with wooden stakes attached to his car killing Max, the head of the vampires. He says this while popping open a beer in the kitchen.

One of  the grandfather's movie grandsons, Sam, was Corey Haim. He died this past week due supposedly to a drug abuse. Legal drug abuse. Similar to many Hollywood stars (think Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger etc.) It's an epidemic. Like the movie, it's everywhere like the vampires in Santa Cruz, but it doesn't affect you until it's biting at your own personal space.  Sometimes you're lucky and someone crashes through and helps you before it's too late. Corey, Michael, Heath weren't that fortunate.

"There's one thing about living in Hollywood I never could stomach - all the damn drugs."