Posts from — October 2004

Folks, it’s just a few days away now. Please vote. And before you do, think. You’re smarter than these people. Look at the facts, look at the events, and think.

“Go back to bed America, your government is in control.” —Bill Hicks

Politics in America are fairly well fucked up right now, but the graver situation is that we have an unintelligent radical in the White House, and he is the biggest problem in America today, he must be relieved of his command, and the only way to do that is to vote for John Kerry. I’m all for change in the system, but changing this system cannot happen in one day. And a vote for Nader or Badnarik or Popeye the Sailor Man this year ain’t gonna change a damned thing. Please, people, I’m begging you. Think about what you are doing. Let’s solve the immediate — and very grave — problem on Tuesday and then work toward change from there.

“The house is on fire and when your house is on fire is not the time to talk about remodeling.” —Arianna Huffington

The airwaves are filled with rhetoric on both sides. The way I see it, the problem is that most people listen to one side or the other, or nothing at all. What you need to do is listen to all of it, so you can see how these people work. That way you can expose the lies & manipulations that both sides use. The advantage here is that you can see how much more serious the lies from the right are. Those are the ones that are getting people killed. But they will have you believe that Kerry is untested, unfit to lead. When you think about it, it seems ludicrous that a President who is unable to have a conversation or even make a clear speech, a President who skipped out on his opportunity to serve this country and a President with less political experience than his opponent could suggest that his opponent is untested and unfit for the job. When you think about it, it’s insulting, isn’t it? But people are buying it up. Please don’t. Think.

“It looks like I’m going to be forced to vote for Bush. I mean, at least I know what I’m getting with Bush; you don’t know what you’re getting with Kerry.” —Garry, my mailman

See, he’s not thinking, and that’s bad.

This is the most important election in my lifetime, and it’s exciting, but I feel a deep sense of sorrow when I look at the polls, and read & hear the rhetoric that is driving these campaigns. The only thing more upsetting than listening to that is hearing someone tell me they aren’t going to vote in this election at all. If I believed it’d help, I’d pray for this country right now.

Read, think, decide. I can’t stress the need to think enough. Rational thought will guide you through the bullshit. See you on the other side.

You have three days.

The most pathetic losing streak in all of sport is over. Finally. I’m sick and tired of hearing about it. To be honest, it’s a bit of an anti-climax — for this Yankee fan, anyhow.

Damon still has less brains than Paris Hilton — and when you are as ugly as Damon is, that’s not a good thing. Pedro is still a jerk, and Ramirez proved tonight that he is an idiot and slow around the bases to boot (and it pains me to see him collect the MVP trophy right now). [uh, Manny? What the hell does “you make your own destination” mean? You looking for the word destiny, perhaps, you stupid idiot?!?]

OK, I’m all done with the ad hominem attacks now. I feel better.

I suppose the best news of all is that Sox owner John Henry is so excited that he seems to have finally risen from the dead. There’s something about those too-close-together, purple eye sockets that still freaks me out, but there’s something about winning a world championship I guess, because he actually looks like a human tonight and not something that crawled out of a coffin and threw on something from the remainder racks at Today’s Man.

OK, now I’m all done.

I only hope that tomorrow I wake up to find the city of Boston still standing, and not a smoking ruin. And of course next year, all bets are off. Go Yankees.

Recently, I reached my one-year anniversary of aircraft ownership. I always said I’d give it a year and then look at what this is all costing me, and then decide if it was worth it. When the milestone was passed, I tallied up all the hours I flew in the 12-month period, and divided by the total outlay of money for the same period to derive a “cost per hour”, which all aircraft owners know is bullshit. I’m no accountant, but even accountants can’t agree on how to assimilate all the costs of owning and flying an aircraft and boil them down into an accurate cost per hour. I thought maybe I should look at things differently.

I flew nowhere near the number of hours I had hoped to this year, but I still managed to fly about ten times as much as I had in the preceding year. In fact, I flew more hours this year than I had in the last four years combined. So right there, I figure I’m ahead on points.

I could lay out all kinds of analyses and projections, to try and make sense of exactly what I have gotten myself into. To be honest not a day goes by that I don’t think about how lucky I am to be able to own such an extravagant toy; I also wonder if I should keep it just about every day. “Can I really do this?” has become my mantra, and every time a fair weather weekend day slips by without me flying the plane the guilt piles on. But today, I decided it has all been worth it, and as an added bonus no math was required.

I went flying today. I didn’t go anyplace, just stayed in the airport traffic pattern, practicing my takeoffs and landings. The wind was totally calm, which was not really what was forecast, which is perhaps why no one was flying when I got there. I had the entire airport to myself for most of the time, and I totally lost myself in the joy of flying and trying to nail each and every aspect of each trip “around the patch”.

Meanwhile, two hawks were circling just off the departure end of the runway today. At first, they were viewed as menaces, possible collision hazards. But after a few takeoffs, I learned where their thermals were, and I let them have them. I adjusted my upwind leg a few degrees to the left, threading right between them, watching them glide and swoop in the rising air off my wings. My wings. Working with the hawks, sharing the airspace, they became my friends, and I never felt like I belonged in their company as much as I did today. Today I flew.

Today’s experience made the cost of ownership worth it.

I think that when you appear in the release notes for this software, you are officially a geek.

Scroll down a ways, through all kinds of compu-lighting-geekery, and you will discover that yours truly has added a tiny piece of functionality to a fantastically complex piece of software, software that excels at modeling the ultimate complexity, light.

While I realize that in comparison to all the work done by Greg Ward and several other giants in the Radiance community, my contribution—comprised of nothing more than a little copying and pasting from a shell script, I might add—amounts to the equivalent of a key grip credit on a Hollywood feature, I’m still pretty happy to see my name there, and I appreciate the credit.

Nyea nyea ne nyea nyea, Boston won, the Yankees lost. Ha! To the smug faces of New England, I say: “eh, so what.”

That’s what we do. You beat the Yankees? So what. Avenged your 2003 Game Seven meltdown? So what. Absolutely hammered our pitchers, sent Kevin Brown off to go punch another wall, maybe breaking the entire left side of his body this time? So what. Hey, It’s about time. It’s going to take a couple of lifetimes before Boston can build up the kind of World Series experience that takes away that out. We can always fall back on the time-tested comebacks like “It’s about time”, “took ya (youse) long enough”, the elegant single-word “Buckner”, etcetera. So you see, Yankee fans are above all the petty nonsense.

I guess the upshot of all this is that Mel Stottlemyre will now be instructing his pitchers that walking the leadoff hitter is now the second worst cardinal sin in pitching. From now on, the first cardinal sin is giving up towering home run blasts to the goddamn leadoff hitter(s).

But now it is time to get some sleep, let the Lesser League fight out their own little showdown, and then settle in for a World Series that should be great, although I don’t know how it can match the drama of these two playoff series. But Fox keeps telling me that you can’t script October, and since they are fair and balanced, I must blindly accept that fact and hope for the best. And when the WS starts on Saturday night, who to root for? As much as I hate Boston, I gotta go with them. First off, the American League rules. (I’m not going to get into a debate about the zero-weight argument of how the DH weakens the strategizing in AL games, so just shut up about it already.) Second, the Red Sox are the ultimate underdogs, and everyone loves an underdog. People seem to forget that in 1996 the Yankees were underdogs, and what a great series that was. Besides, with the Yankees out, Boston takes on a new status. They are now the Team That Must Beat The National League, and so I must root for them.

It won’t be easy.

I’ll still cringe when Johnny Damon’s cro-magnon man face appears on the screen, but I’ll be pulling for him to get a hit. But I can’t escape the feeling that Damon would be scared & bewildered if he saw an airplane flying, or say, fire.

Manny Ramirez is another one who may induce occasional channel surfing. Hey Manny, the amount of pine tar on the helmet, while indicative of your let it all hang out philosophy, is now officially over the top, and your pals are following suit. When John Wetteland had the ‘96 WS patch sewn onto his sweat/salt stained cap, we all thought it was quirky and cute. But in your case, you look like a friggin’ slob, and all that gunk is covering the esteemed Red Sox logo to boot. A little Simple Green oughta clean that right up, bucko. Wax on, wax off.

Oh, let’s not forget that needy little hooligan Pedro Martinez. Matter of fact, the love train stops here. I’m pulling for at least two Red Sox defeats, at the shaky hands of Pedro. Sorry, I just hate that guy.

On to the World Series. Let’s go… Red Sox?

Yesterday’s American League playoff game was a study in contrasts. It started at 5:00PM Eastern time, so I had to listen to it on the radio, which meant getting re-aquainted with my old pals John Sterling and Charlie Steiner. I still miss the old team of Sterling and Michael Kay, but the Sterling & Steiner show is not bad either. There is something about the radio guys, the good ones, that adds a whole other layer to baseball games. Their ability to verbally paint you a picture of the action, the repartee that evolves after 162 regular season games, and the feeling that you are a part of their little gang, all help to make listening to a ballgame just as much fun as watching one.

Around 6:30PM I headed for home, with the game 2-1 in favor of the Red Sox. I brought my portable radio, but apparently it’s useless on the train—presumably the catenary wires cause the interference. Whatever the cause, I listened to half an inning of this before giving up:

“Mussina gets the sign, he stretches, he deals…ssshhhhZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZssshhhh…and, there’s one away.”

I rode along, silently wondering what was happening up in Boston. The conductor was good enough to inform the passengers that the score had changed to 4-2 Yankees, and as I walked home from the station I got to listen to an inning of scoreless baseball on the radio, dutifully reported by my friends John & Charlie.

Then I got home, and put on Fox.

There was brilliant green Fenway Park, the second greatest ballpark on the planet, in stunning clarity. Unfortunately, there too were Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, the Heckyl & Jeckyl team of Major League Baseball. It’s not that Buck tends to say idiotic things to break the silences, it’s not that McCarver is didactic to the point of extreme annoyance. It’s the fact that Timmy is a card-carrying Yankee hater that annoys me about that team. McCarver dislikes the Yankees and it affects his ability to be impartial, and Joe Buck—in his never-ending quest to burrow his nose up Tim McCarver’s ass—is also starting to show bias. And the national guys are supposed to be impartial.

All night long, balls that painted the inside corner of the plate were strikes without question when thrown by a Boston pitcher, yet suddenly pitches to the same location—I mean, the exact same fucking location—are “borderline”, “close”, or “called a strike” when hurled by a Yankee. This happened all night long, and it’s been happening for years, and I’m tired of it. And I’d be just as pissed off if the Yankees had won last night.

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, get a room already. There are plenty of people who can do your jobs. Jim Kaat, for example, is a master at teaching the art of watching baseball, and he does it in a way that doesn’t feel like he’s talking down to you.

Again, bias on the part of your team’s regular broadcast team is to be expected, and is in fact all part of the fun. But when the show goes into the postseason, and we have to endure people like Joe Buck and Steve Lyons, the least they can do is try to call the game and stay the hell out of the way.

Not to slight the third guy in the booth last night, I think Al Leiter has been doing a good job up there and is settling into a groove. Maybe when Tim & Joe go on their honeymoon we can get a couple more smart commentators that can be impartial viewers to join him. Like, say, Jim Kaat and Joe Morgan.

P.S.
“Why don’t you listen to the radio and turn the volume down on the TV?”, you may be wondering. Well, I used to do just that. But ever since I got cable, the TV and radio are about three seconds out of sync, making that an impossibility. Believe me, it’s upsetting. Besides, I’m not sure which is worse, listening to the radio ads for Geico auto insurance or watching the incessant pitches for the latest piece of crap “reality show” that Fox has cooked up.

“All you have to do is tell them you are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for their lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” – Hermann Goering

Indeed. Two weeks to go, people.

(Hey, did you get goosebumps when you read that quote, as I did? The saddest part is, Germany’s citizens had so much less to worry about at the time than we do now. And yet the same tactic is working.)

My friend sent me this today. She lives in Boston. I think this encapsulates the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry about as well as anything:

This image tells many things:

1. Yankee fans are everywhere, even in Boston.
2. Yankee fans are rude (note how the Yankee fan covers his neighbor’s window with his signage).
3. Red Sox fans have lousy grammatical skills (and potty mouths, to boot).

Go Yankees!

Hey, have you been wishin’ you had a weblog, so that you could vent about this administration, but lacked the computer geek skills? Or perhaps you just think bloggers are vain idiots? Well, then how about taking some cardboard and magic marker, and goin’ bloggin’ on the Interstate?

Four weeks to go, people.

(And a shout out to my sister for this link. Geah.)

Did you ever notice how the largest-breasted women on the sales staff always seem to work the petite section of the women’s clothing stores? What’s the deal there? Is it some kind of global conversion conspiracy? Let me tell you something people, it ain’t gonna work.

I was birthday shopping for my wife yesterday and I noticed two alarming traits in our retail sales staff. One is that the more packages you have, the faster people come over to see if you need any help. I call this the sugardaddy principle. The other was the aforementioned cup size coincidence, which I shall call the cup gap.

Brenda, the love of my life, happens to be somewhat flat-chested. This is a trait that I’d never noticed when we were busy falling in love with each other fourteen years ago, and quite frankly is a trait I find sexy. But living in boob-nation I am constantly bombarded with evidence that cleavage is our one true national currency. So I suppose it should come as no surprise that the boob-haves should descend upon the boob-have-nots whenever possible.

“Do you need help finding anything?”, a pair of 36Ds said to me, as I perused the 0P selections on the rack. “No thanks, just looking.”, I offered. And dispatch those things with all speed, woman, I’m busy here. The breasts skulked away, pendulously. This is life as a man married to a smallish woman, trying to live in Boob Nation.

After I had made my selections I approached the counter, and the 36Ds bounced and swayed to the counter with the speed and efficiency that said: these employees are working on commission. Of course, I had already figured that out, based entirely on the cut of the sweater she was wearing.

The next charade was predictable; the hangar/security tag disposal bin was located directly in front of me and under the counter of course, which forced my friendly assistant to bend over frequently. I can tell you this: she had a nice pair of tits, no doubt about it (I’m still a guy, after all). I paid for my items and left, smirking with the grin of a guy who had just hit the trifecta: I got some good gifts for Brenda, I got some good material for a story, and I got to see some titty.

Long story short, Brenda came home early this morning (theatre is hell), and since technically it was her birthday at the time she opened her presents. She liked a lot of them. We’ll rectify the mistakes after the show opens. Meanwhile, for the rest of today it is Brenda’s BIRTHDAY, and to her I say Happy Birthday, I love you baby.