Jotting Tittles: Governor Jar-Jar and Paranormal TV

I realized it had been nearly a month since I had checked in here, so I thought I would emerge from my post-Noel hibernations. Actually, it was a combination of logging on to the internet and watching TV this morning that spurred me on to a couple of brief observations.

First up, I saw a Yahoo! News teaser on the "worst people of the year." In that teaser story was this picture of Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. My first thought was "Who IS that?" My second thought was: "Look at that freaking wattle!" And then my third thought made me do a quick internet search. Tell me these two were not separated at birth.... Maybe it is just me but the Governator looks distinctly Gungan to me. If you still cannot see it, look at Arnie's neck and mouth. He's Gungan with hair. And sunglasses.

Second up: I came downstairs and found the Horde watching something called "Destination Truth" on the SyFy Channel. [Aside: I trust I am not the only one out there that STILL cannot stand the 'new' spelling of their channel name. I keep wanting to call it the 'Sissy Channel.' Of course, the stupid spelling somewhat indicates the quality of their made-for-TV movies. I love 'B' movies and monster movies as much as the next man, but that dreck is purely unwatchable.] Apparently this "Destination Truth" is another in a long line of what I call "Paranormal Television." As much as I would love to believe that creatures like the Sasquatch are out there somewhere, I find it impossible to call this brand of television "Reality Television." [Aside: I suppose that for accuracy's sake I should say that the technical term for these creatures is 'cryptids.' And now you know.]I sat and absorbed this television peripherally, from the Sasquatch They hunt to the hunt for the Ahool to the hunt for a massive 8' x 3' eel-like creature in the Philippines. As I watched I asked myself a question: "Do these people really believe in what they're doing? Really?" It is the same question that I ask when I see an advertisement for a ghost-hunter series. "Really? They're spending money on this?" But then I had a realization. Just once, I would love to see one of these cryptids (or spirits) actually exist and come out of the dark (because these people are always filming with night-vision cameras) and just bite the face off of one of these "investigators." Chomp. That's all. Ratings boost. SyFy wins credibility. Instead, I am reminded of Dean Yaeger's comments from Ghostbusters:

Dr. Venkman, we believe that the purpose of science is to serve mankind. You, however, seem to regard science as some kind of "dodge" or "hustle." Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy and your conclusions are highly questionable. You're a poor scientist, Dr. Venkman, and you have no place in this department or in this University.

Third up: The New Years' celebration quickly approaches. As it does every year, the "year-end" countdowns and "best-ofs/worst ofs" have begun to fill the airwaves. I am compelled to ask: Am I the only one that is utterly and completely IRRITATED this crap? I loathe these programs. I detest them with a passion. I dislike them even more than I do the "human interest filler" stories on the local news. I cannot believe they have any use or value other than to kill time and keep writers and producers from actually doing their work and writing real stories. Ugh. Thank heavens for the DVD collection. I think I will wear out the DVD player between now and Sunday.

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble. Feel free to leave me your own thoughts. I will try and check back in before the last year-end countdown airs. If I do not connect with you again, may I extend to you my hopes that your Christmas was wonderful, that your New Year will be prosperous, and thank you for your readership and friendship. Shalom and God Bless.

Jotting Tittles: Urinals

One of my attorney buddies over in Salt Lake City just reported the following story to me.

Apparently the "high class" little building that houses their firm has four restrooms, but only one urinal. That urinal became, errr, "non-functioning after use" last week.

(Aside: for you women who have never ventured into a men's room, the urinal is a strange little toilet bowl that is turned and mounted on the wall for those members of the public who typically stand while.... well, you get the picture.)

It is bad enough that this men's room is in the basement of the building; a cold, dank, dark little room with a perpetually-sticky linoleum tile floor and an odd smell that has become part of the paint, something of a mixture of old person sweat, mildew, and stale "broken wind." (Aside: I have been there; I can testify to the foulness that is the men's room.) On top of the usual foulness, it took three days for the so-called "maintenance man" on staff to provide a bucket so that the firm's resident males could dump several gallons of water into the urinal to "manually" flush the (by then) funky-smelling semi-solid liquid out of sight. To make matters worse, it took the cheap landlord a full week before he accepted there was something wrong with the urinal that the "maintenance man" could not fix. During this time, the men in the building were left standing sitting out in the cold.

Shortly after the repair was completed (by a plumber not found in the Yellow Pages), my friend told his secretary that he was "going downstairs to see what he could break."

Reportedly he paused on the landing, stopped, and said, "I'm sorry, Jill. That sounded a lot better in my head."

Yeah, dude. Really? It sounded that much better in your head? I think my buddy needs a bit more sleep and a little less work in his life.

Jotting Tittles: Microwaves and Zombies

I want to explain the title of this post to you, "Microwaves and Zombies."

I really want to tell you exactly what it means to me and my life.

But I can't.

You see, I have a page of notes in my little notebook, a page titled "Blog Thoughts" with a date from last month. Under that is a bullet point labeled "Microwaves and Zombies" with no further explanation.

And the rest of the page is illegible. I must have been writing (a) in the car while driving in rush hour traffic; (b) on the bus on a bad road; (c) in the dark while half-asleep; or (d) (c) and either (a) or (b).

Take your pick.

First, on the subject of liberty. Remember in the coming week that Liberty--true Liberty--is the ability to choose for one's self, researching, studying, and learning about yoru choices. True Liberty does not come from blindly following the media.

Second, how blissful it is to lie in a tent surrounded by my LW and the Horde, on a crisp summer morning far up in the mountains in a quiet, secluded valley, the only humans for miles. How wonderful to lie there and read aloud the words from the Declaration of Independence. How marvelous to see the looks on the Horde's individual faces as they hear and understand the words written 232 years ago. It's dawn and the words leave my tongue with clouds of vapor in the cool air. THAT is Heaven.

Third, just a quick thought from one of the Presidential debates last month. A statistic was cited that deductibles (in looking back I think it may have been premiums and I wrote it down incorrectly) have increased by 30% and families are going bankrupt from health care.
(A) Very few of my clients are going bankrupt because of their heatlh care costs; most of them are going bankrupt from bad housing loans or high tax debt.
(B) I am struggling myself to pay my own health care costs. But you know what? I do not want it from the Government. It's not the Government's place. Period.

Fourth, O.K., one more thought from the Presidential debates. All of my readers know that I really do not like John McCain. He may be the lesser of two evils. That is yet to be seen, I suppose. However, one cannot deny that he has not performed very well since the Convention. Heck, he has not performed well since Mitt dropped out of the race, for that matter. One wonders whether McCain is so scared of being tagged with the "attack dog" label that he has held back. The one line that stood out from the debates for me? "I'm not going to set the White House visitor schedule before I'm President. I don't even have a Seal yet." I think that if he had spent the last nine months talking like this, he would be so far ahead in the race as to be nearly uncatchable.
As it is, I am afraid he looks like an old man weakly swinging his cane at a young whipper-snapper. (Aside: I can just hear him saying, "Sarah! Help me subdue...this beast." {while panting and flailing weakly) a la Montgomery Burns.)

Fifth, my LW and I just endured a Mormon ritual that normally comes about every five years or so: the reorganization of the Bishopric. Actually, that's just the event; the ritual is, in my household, not-so affectionately referred to as "Mormon Lotto." That's the phenomenon that has its genesis the very moment that the reorganization is to occur. From that moment on, the phone lines, back fences, and now e-mails are on fire with speculation about "who's worthiest?" "who's old enough?" "who's too old?" and so on. And then, when the announcement is made, all the gossipers look at one another and nod sagely, with a "I knew it all along" look in their eyes. Not my favorite ritual, by any means. It is a painful time. Pain. Mental, emotional, spiritual.

Sixth, It's nearly November again, and do you know what that means? Yep. Cranberry-flavored Sierra Mist is available again! I had my first bottle sighting yesterday! Hooray! Cranberry-flavored Sierra Mist. Mmmmmm.......

Seventh, It's nearly November again, and as I have recently said, that means NaNoWriMo! That means 1,667 words a day. Ugh. From now until the end of the first week of November, I am going to be questioning myself, wondering whether I can really do this--whether I really WANT to do this. I have been through this before and I can sense my reluctance starting again. Somehow I have to move past the self-editing-while-writing mode and move into a writing-for-the-sheer-pleasure-of-it-just-put-the-words-down-on-paper mode. I need to be ever-vigilant for a negative attitude (as opposed to ever-viligant, which does not make any sense whatsoever).

Now.... Where's my bag of fun-size Snickers bars?!?

Jotting Tittles

Just about every blogger I know has "Random Thoughts" now and then. Today I dip my foot in the Pool of Perambulating Posts and meander through a morass of miscellany. These thoughts may not have anything to do with one another, or may be connected on some subconscious level. We will just have to wait and see what comes out, I suppose. Who knows, they could even lead to longer posts. I just have a bunch of stuff rattling around in my head this morning.

First: A shout-out to the woman I passed at the bus stop this morning while I was walking to work. She was nicely dressed and professional looking, so I do not believe she was one of the many homeless people that congregate around the local mission in the mornings. She was just standing, waiting for the bus; as I approached her, she threw up her arms and sang out, "Holy! Holy! Holy!" and began to sing some Gospel music as I passed her and continued down the street. I could hear her for almost the next two blocks. What a completely unexpected, but certainly positive and uplifting way to start your day. Thank you, ma'am.

Second: I noticed on the news that John McCain made a promise during Debate #2 last night, a promise to have the Federal Reserve buy up all the so-called "bad loans" and to renegotiate the terms so that people can afford to pay their mortgages. I have heard a lot of this the past few months since the housing market really started to tank; people on both sides of the political aisle calling for mercy for those who "got roped" into "bad loans" and were "taken advantage of" because they "did not know what they were doing." Now, I certainly appreciate and agree that there are many of those people out there; I see plenty of examples every day. However, there were a lot of gamblers and risk-takers that certainly knew exactly what they were doing. Oddly enough, the politicians calling for "mercy" for these poor citizens were the same politicians that, three years ago, refused to acknowledge that mercy was necessary for the "poor people" who were "suckered" into credit card use who "did not know what they were doing." These are the same people who refused to listen to calls for mercy while meddling with castrating criminalizing destroying amending the Bankruptcy Code. Hmmm. Mercy for abused home-buyers, no mercy for abusive credit card users. Anyone know what the difference is between 2005 and 2008? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller? That's right, 2008 is an election year. I checked last night: McCain voted for the Bankruptcty reform bill; Obama voted against it.

Third: A very conservative friend of mine--let's call him "Bob"--was talking with me and others the other day. As we talked, our discussion turned to politics. Unfortunately. This very conservative friend--Bob--voiced his stance: "I'm voting for Obama. No question in my mind." As we all knew his typically-conservative stance on life, we were all taken aback. Bob said, "I just think he's the candidate that can 'bring us all together.'" {Aside: This one is definitely a post topic of its own.} As another of my friends began to badger Bob, Bob merely shook his head and said, "Don't bother me with facts; I already know who I'm voting for." I became frightened. Now: I have not yet made up my own mind as to who will be receiving my vote, although I do know at least one person that will NOT receiving my vote, and while I have strong feelings about Senator Obama, that was not the source of my fright." Don't bother me with facts." Ugh. The very thought that people can and do exercise their right to vote without wanting to know any facts about the candidate, the issues, etc.... THAT frightens me. Sure, you have the right to do so, but the rest of us have to suffer for your stubborn stupidity! Ahem. Sorry. Lost control there for a minute. In all truthfulness, I really do not care whether you vote for Obama, McCain, or Joseph Stalin for President, so long as you do informed while you do it. This is not March Madness, where you can pick a team based on its school colors or the designs of the uniforms. Just get informed. Please.

Fourth: I found out this morning that, for the first time, this blog came up in a Google search for... well, what can only be described as "bviously puerile and titillating information." I shuddered. Actually, I may have thrown up in my mouth a little bit. Yeah. There's a milestone.

UPDATE: And then I go and name today's post what I did. The first one was an accident; now I am just looking for trouble, aren't I? Well, maybe someone will look at one of my blogposts instead of their naughty pictures and I will have done someone some good today.

Fifth: Not to sound too goulish, but I have to express a little bit of gratitude for the economic downturn. I truly feel sorry for those who are suffering, particularly those who are completely innocent in the fate in which they find themselves. That being said, I have been nice and busy for the past three weeks at the office. "Frantic" may be a better word. Maybe now is the time to find out just how much the Boss values me. Heh. If only he was in town.