Another Random One

OK, so I've been really damn busy. Sorry. A few things that are on my brain from recent events:

1. Ms. America - She had an opinion, she voiced it. Grow the fuck up. I disagree with her opinion too, but it's hers and I like people who voice their own thoughts. Not that Ms America is something to be taken very seriously, but why is Perez a judge anyway?

2. Swine Flu or N1H1R2D2 or what ever it's called - Stop whining! The regular flu kills a lot of damn people on its own. The media needs you to be scared of something so that way you'll watch the news. I'm curious, how many would really know there is a recession if the news didn't tell you? I bet not very many. Until we are living in shanty towns again, stop acting like it's the great depression. It's not even close. People are still bitching if their HD signal isn't all that HD. I know, because I am one. The same thing is happening with this flu. Wash your damn hands and don't worry about it.

3. Twitter - I think the idea is kind of lame, but I really don't care about it. It's not much different than blogging I guess. John Mayer's is pretty funny though.

4. Penguins lost to the Capitals. Heartache.

Peace, Love and Happiness!

2005

If you have twenty minutes or so to kill, I suggest you enjoy the following video. I first saw this in '05 when I was in TAD (temporarily stationed) in Mississippi. That was probably the second best time I ever had in the military.

In other news I've been giving you videos to watch because I'm in college and I write a lot and I'm a little writing fatigued. Look at the bright side, you can have something to entertain you while you should be working. Because, that is the true reason that man created the interwebs!

John Mayer Has A TV Show

1995

This was my theme song when I heard it. Plus, it was from the era that rappers were good for shooting each other. Even Mom could listen to this one.

Skee-Lo - I Wish | Music Videos | SPIKE.com

Wexford's Target

Two of my favorite things have now combined forces. Wexford, PA's own Christina Aguilera and Minneapolis' own Target. I hope they use this power for good. Too bad I have to buy this from iTunes and not Target. Sorry, but who needs CD's anymore? Christina, you are as hot as ever though...Even if the freeze frame of the youtube video isn't that flattering. Oh Nooooooo!

Fun With The Interwebs

Create your own Muppet I don't think I've had this much fun since the Simpson's character and the South Park character creators. The only downside is that it won't let me save the image so you all could see. I'm sure there is some computer nerd way to do this, but I don't care that much.

The Internet inventor approves this message.

My Thoughts On Tim Russert

You all know what happened so there is no need to reiterate the details. There were also a copious amount of tribute shows this weekend telling you what a great man he was so I'm not going to repeat that either. I'll just say that I didn't watch Meet the Press every week although I should have. I always enjoyed how brilliant he was in hiding his own agenda. He was "tough but fair" to folks from both sides of the aisle. When he took over the show he called the show's creator and asked what his vision was when they started and he told Tim to, "learn as much as you can about the guest's views and opinions; then take the opposite side." In doing this he was quite possibly the best interviewer I have ever watched.

If you've never had the pleasure of seeing any of his interviews I would urge all of you to go to Youtube and watch some of the videos. Don't pay the comment section too much attention. Those guys are assholes of the highest degree.

If you would like to read more, you can start with the Wikipedia entry. There are several links and references on that page to other sites. He was an interesting man who worked in politics, journalism, and even showed up to Woodstock "wearing a Bills jersey and carrying a case of beer."

Russert questioning Stephen Colbert as to why it's pronounced Bert and not Ber.

Sergeant Hannah Montana's Playboy

There are a few things on my radar today and they are actually similar in nature so bear with me for a bit and you'll see my point.

First up is this little Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus picture drama. When I look at these photos, and this one, I don't think that they are that bad (then I immediately search the room for Chris Hansen) but, this leads to a few other questions. The first is: did she do anything different than what any other teen does on their MySpace and Facebook pages? That question leads me to this question: have we whored up our teen culture that much that we don't find these alarming anymore? When my generation was sixteen we were horny just like every generation before us, but the difference is that we didn't have the Internet to share our teases. In this light, I don't think they're different in what they're doing, but rather how they do it. We had to wait until no adults were around to see green bras and if we took pictures we had to then wait to get them developed, but then we ran the risk of our parents finding them.

The thing that bothers me most about these photos is the reaction of certain conservative groups who called for her to apologize and wanted her taken off the air. This is nothing more than a few trying to impose their morals on the many; I didn't find them a problem, most people that I talked to didn't care either, and I certainly didn't stop my son from watching her show. This is a problem not limited to teen pop stars however, it has spread all the way to the federal government and we now have something called the Military Honor and Decency Act, this act would, basically, ban the selling of Playboy magazine on the military installations.

What really drew me into this debate were these two blog postings by Skippy, who is against it (1 and 2) and this one from a conservative Army wife named Amy Proctor, who was very much in favor. As a former military member I despise this law, mostly because it seeks to take away some of the few freedoms our troops have and it is, again, trying to impose a select group's morals on the masses.

I don't care if it's Christianity or Miley Cyrus' green underwear, because either way, I am free to decide what offends me and what doesn't and I don't need the government, the media, or the aforementioned groups telling me what to think. If the selling of Playboy in the military stores offends you, well maybe I'm suffering from lung cancer and the selling of cigarettes offends me. Why are you not calling for those to be barred from sale also? At least Playboy doesn't cause cancer; however it may cause blindness!

Whether you are for or against this bill, write to your Representative and let them know. They may not read it, but at least you will have spoken up and not kept your thoughts hidden. If you are for it though, I hope you don't write.

Until next time: Cheers, Beers, and Playboy Bunny Ears!

I've Got This Idea

I'm here in the living room watching a little late night television and I just saw a very corny commercial with some sort of four piece band that was playing and singing one of the worst jingles I've ever heard. My first reaction to this was that I couldn't believe how horrible this song was. I then got to thinking that I can not imagine the executives of this company sitting in a board room with the big polished wood table with probably 12 or so chairs around it. The glass pitcher and crystal glasses of water that no one ever seems to drink from were stationed in the middle of this table on a faux silver platter. There are doilies under the cups that are there to act like coasters so that no one leaves rings on the polished table should they decide to drink from the unknown source water.

At one end of the room are a few young men in suits who have a laptop hooked up to a projector that is shining onto a screen. They are young and enthusiastic and are doing their best to close this deal and get some steak with a side of beer before they head back to Chicago. The eager young men start to perform this very tacky and off key rendition of the proposed song with a sense that this is going to fail. This song has been written once on their way to Manhattan. They didn't bother to revise it because they stayed up late trying to soak up the New York scene. They may have even gone to a Rangers game and drank a little too much and got up a little too early. Nevertheless here they are, Chicago's favorite sons, ready to land this big deal and get back to the Windy City in time for their girlfriend's dinner party.

They start the song, which they know is horrible, and a strange thing happens. The executives don't throw them to their pink slips in Chicago, instead they nod their heads, tap their feet, snap their fingers, and the CEO stands up and yells, "That's it! We've found it, the song of XYZ Company!" I hope that doesn't happen, but I have a feeling that I'm closer to the truth than I want to be.

Now there is one more quick thought that follows the previous James Michener type thought is that the most annoying thing is also the most memorable, may that is the true reason these things are the way they are. I've been typing this little story for about half an hour now and the song is still stuck in my head.

Now could you imagine being the band who is so down on their luck that this commercial and this song are a good option? We'll revisit this thought later, Gentle Reader; I've taken enough of your time. Good night!

Maury Baby Daddy

I'm watching Maury and I got to say, it's setting black and white people back more than Jerry Springer ever did. I don't know if these folks are actors or not, but if they are I don't know how many takes it took to do it with a straight face. I can't help but ask, are there that many women who are this young and have no idea who the father of their children are? I'm sure Maury will do paternity tests all the way to the bank until every momma has a baby daddy.

In case you've never saw an episode, here are the Cliffs Notes:

Maury: Here we have Woman who needs to know who the father of 9 month old Baby
Woman: I'm 100% positive that he's the father of this child!
Man: Woman, you aint nothin' but a ho who (Bleeep) everyone in sight. I know that aint my kid! He doesn't even look like me! I don't want anything to do with you or your damn kid!
Maury: When it comes to 9 month old Baby, Man, you are...

Now here is where it gets interesting, either he is or he isn't. First here's what happens if he IS the father.
Maury: ...you are the father!
Woman: What mother(Bleep) I told you! I told you!
Man: Oh, well, I want to take care of my child. I knew that was my child. I love you Woman!

And if he's NOT the father:
Maury: ...you are not the father!
Man: Yeah bitch I told you. You aint nothing but a dirty ho. (He gets in the girls face and sometimes his mother or maybe his new girlfriend is there doing the same) I hate you bitch! Nasty ho!
Woman: (Doesn't say anything and runs backstage crying and hides in a closet)
Maury: We'll find the father, we'll help you!

5 / 27,506 / 3,728

5 Years
27, 506 Injured
3,728 Dead

This is a subject that I've been thinking about writing for a while now and with my recent separation now is as good a time as any. Those three numbers sum up our current operation in Iraq and the numbers will keep rising.

The thing that finally pushed me to write this is a show that I just watched on HBO called Alive Day. The term is something that we used to describe the day that you could have died, but didn't. I was a little skeptical about watching this show because I had a fear that it would be degrading to the service members and it would have a message attached to it; it didn't do either. The producer of the show, James Gandolfini, of Sopranos fame, did the best thing he could do. He shut up, took the focus off of him, and let the Marines and Soldiers speak for themselves. We didn't even see him except for a shot of every interviewee getting their picture taken with him. In doing this he gave the best publicity that any show could ask for, we tuned in to watch something with James Gandolfini and stayed to hear these amazing stories. The injured told their story of what happened and then moved on to their attempts to move on with life. They spoke of the confusion that comes along with their recovery and trying to figure out what to do with their lives.

In this hour long show I saw in those people the faces I've seen for the past eight years. I saw the face of friends that have gone and others that have yet to go. I saw the face of one of our students who didn't come home. I saw the face of a friend, with whom I spent many nights in Pensacola smoking cigarettes, talking about women, and wondering what was going to happen in our futures. He too did not come home.

The point of this is that I don't care what you think of the war. I don't care what you think of the government. In the end there are the people on the ground doing the dirty work. They are people just like you and me. "Without people we are nothing." Ponder on that!

Joe Strummer - Redemption Song

Days at Home

While I am waiting to hear back from another job before I make the jump to Virginia Beach I have made some very interesting observations. The biggest one is TV, and I've been watching a lot of it. The commercials are not geared towards housewives like I would have thought, they are instead trying to get the attention of retirees and disabled. While watching Jeopardy on Game Show Network there was an add for Hoveround which was invented by a guy named Tom Kruse (pronounced like the Scientologist). That was immediately followed up by an add for catheters, and that was actually not something I needed to hear. The Life Alert is back complete with "I've fallen and I can't get up!" Drew Carey still isn't on Price Is Right, they're showing the Barker stock pile. I was a little bummed about that. I really wanted to see how Drew did.

Quentin seems to be doing very well in school. I haven't had a bad report and that gives me a little relief, because I was sure he'd have some sort of listening problem, but the reverse has happened, he's actually better at home than he was before starting school. I was hoping that school would be good for him.

I've gotten some reading done as well and I must say I rather enjoy having no where to go and nothing to do all day. I am looking forward to starting work soon though. I can only do this for so long before I go completely nuts!

Full Fuckin' House

I'm watching Bob Saget's HBO special and I've got to tell you so far it isn't funny at all. The biggest selling point is watching Danny Tanner drop F-Bombs. Once you stop laughing at that, it loses it's humor. I heard him on the Howard Stern Show last week and he was just carrying on a conversation with Howard and the crew and he was funny, but here he's almost like watching a really bad Robin Williams impersonation. It's very erratic and a lot of swearing, which doesn't bother me, but he's banking on the fact that we will laugh for an hour at watching a family TV show star suddenly talking "dirty" and it doesn't work after about five minutes. He should have just come out and said "Fuck" and then just walked off stage and it would have fulfilled what everyone wanted to see and hear.

I just realized he's the "Voice" from "How I Met Your Mother". Interesting.

Big Love/Big Hate

I just finished watching Primetime on ABC and this week they focused on polygamists in Arizona. Towards the end of the show they did a segment about a group of the women who are taking action to end the laws that make polygamy illegal. Me personally I agree. Why not make it legal? What's the problem. They're marriages in the community last and are, at least on the surface, happy marriages. Some groups say it's demeaning to the women, but it's their believe system and who are we to question it? People are real quick to preach tolerance until it clashes with one of their principles. In my opinion these folks may be a little skewed in why they feel that God encourages plural marriage. It seems very mid-evil to me, but like stated already it's their believe system and they are still in America and could leave if they wanted to.

I'm not a big fan of bringing freedom with a gun, but at the same time we are trying to make the world live like we live and in my experiance that lifestyle isn't that bad. So here we have groups saying get out of Iraq and the Middle East in general, but then turn around and say the way those people are treated is horrible and someone should do something about that. So now what? I think most of the people in those parts of the world are kept stupid to prevent them from rising up and overthrowing their governments and making a country that will be sucessful and not get caught up in a leadership vacuum that is filled by some crazed dictator. In the end are we any better when the day is through?

Tupac Cobain at Live Earth

I realized my age the other day when I found out that most folks starting college or, in my case, just joining the military don't much remember life without computers. They also don't remember seeing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" interrupting the "Hair Bands" and their control of the charts and video air play. This is so strange to me because I still think of these things happening last week. I can still tell you what I was doing when MTV News told me Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur where gone. Up to 9/11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars this is what my young "Y" generation thought of with the highest reverence. I swear as soon as I turned 18 time went in fast forward. Now my parents don't seem so dumb when they told me it would!

I'm watching Live Earth concerts today and while I love the music, I keep wondering what is really going on. I've got one side telling me the world is fine and the other telling me that the world is out of control. I'm guessing we're somewhere in between. We've got issues that we need to address, but if we don't we're going to have some serious problems. I really wish this country would stop pointing fingers and just tell the folks the truth.

Speaking of Live Earth, I found out two things today; Dave Grohl is an amazing entertainer who pours out his passion on stage and Alicia Keys is one very talented and sexy woman.

UPDATE: Dave Mathews dropped the "F-Bomb" on Bravo's coverage of his set. How's that for freedom of speech? Actually he dropped about 10 "F-Bombs" during the song "Too Much".

Tennis Porn

I went to the barber shop today to get mine and Q's mop chopped. While I was there they had the Wimbledon Championships on and I swear if I wasn't looking at the TV it would have sounded like lesbian porn the way the ladies where grunting and moaning. I watched one women's match and the start of a men's match where there was no grunting or moaning. I know that during sporting matches you're bound to make noise of exhaustion, I've done it my self. It was made worse because of the stadium being so quiet. The question still remains; why are the guys quiet?

Don't Stop Believing

Tony Soprano went out to the sounds of Journey last night. In case you missed or don't care, the show ended with Tony, Carmella, Anthony Jr., and Meadow all together at a diner where the screen went to black and we where left with no idea what happened to Tony, Paulie, or Sil. I think this ending did exactly what it wanted to; make people talk. All I heard today from ESPN to the View was how the show ended. The ending was very "artistic" with the black screen and the unresolved plot lines allowing the viewer to make up their own minds, but it was still a little disappointing.

Arevederci Antonio!

Lockdown de Paris

Paris Hilton got out of jail after three days of a three week sentence. Everyone is making a big deal about this, but really, how is this different than getting released after seven years of a 21 year sentence? Maybe Paris had good behavior and they sent her home early. Now she gets to hang at the house and must wear a Lowjack for the next 40 days. Now, I know when I've had to sit in the house when Q was sick I got a little cabin fever, so maybe she will too and that will not be fun, but then again, she could have a house party and for Paris; "That's Hot!"

Do It Like They Do On The Discovery Channel

Ever since I was a little Adam I have been fascinated by the likes of the Discovery, History, National Geographic, and Learning channels. I will sit and watch a two hour feature on migratory birds with out even flinching. If there is a "Modern Marvels" marathon, I'm in my glory. Call for pizza and wings, because Daddy isn't cooking tonight! I can't dare miss this program telling me how the Empire State Building was made. Granted it isn't that bad, but you get the point.

One of my favorites was a BBC documentary series done about five years ago called "Blue Planet" that looked at all the ocean life at the different depths and how there is life on this planet in even the harshest environments. So when I saw the adds for another BBC and Discovery project called "Planet Earth", I had my DVR set and ready. This one is an eleven part series that covers every climate and continent on Earth. The thing I liked best about it was that unlike other wild life docs it stressed the beauty and complexity of our planet and not the state of it. There are a few conservation messages throughout however and while I do support protecting the planet as much as we can, I don't want to get bashed about the head and face with it.

Over all you'll be happy to know that it's business as usual in the woods and while there are a few hang ups here and there most of the species are doing what they do on this planet, come and go. There are a few species that are endangered and while some of that may be contributed to us it really is what has been going on for millions of years. Animals evolve and some of them get left in the dust called extinction. After all when did last see a dodo bird?

Doped On TV

Starting this past Saturday I started the annual Spring cold. I always get at least one of these this time of year when the weather starts to act unpredictable. I went from wearing shorts to wearing my parka in the course of a week, feels like I never left Buffalo. However Saturday was fine and I even managed to go out that night. Sunday was the storm before the calm. I was stiff and would go from cold to hot and back to cold. All I wanted to do was pop cold medicine and watch bad TV. Unfortunately couldn't do these things because I had to drive to the great town of Breezewood, PA to pick up Quentin.

The drive up was alright but the drive home was horrible! I was drinking so much water and orange juice that I had to stop twice during the two hour trip. I got home and unleashed Quentin to the toys and I dozed on the couch while watching the race and then the hockey game. Those events didn't bring much relief from my non-breathing misery, Fat Tony spun twice and broke his racecar and the Penguins lost 4-2 to the Senators. My only joy came from taking Sudafed and having some of the strangest dreams and half conscious thoughts throughout the night. It was a long night of waking up and trying to sleep again.

Tonight I'm going to try NyQuil and my sleep should be much better!

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

I'm here with my coffee and watching a "chick flick" (Boys on the Side), and I swear the longer I don't have a woman in the house, the more I'm becoming one. Maybe I'm slowly transforming into a schizophrenic, with my alter ego being the long lost woman companion. If I start dancing in front of a mirror in Silence of the Lambs style then there is cause to worry ("Hey mister! Your dog's hurt real bad!"). Now I'm wondering, do schizo's know they're schizo's? If they don't then I'm not a schizo I'm just strange. The other thing we'll have to watch out for is if I start watching The View, that would be pretty bad. I'll keep you posted.

There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't a train. I met a girl. Her name is Lorena and we met last Fall at the work place and we talked when we saw each other there, but nothing more. There was always innocent flirting between us and finally we exchanged the usual phone numbers and e-mail. When we would call each other at night we'd talk for no less than an hour. We see each other at every possible moment and we talk every night before we each go to bed. Now all is going very well and I am absolutely crazy about this girl, but because of my past burnings, I am very hesitant to jump into this relationship and I'm always waiting for the world to cave in and get hurt again. It's my own sad little defense mechanism, if I know she's going to hurt me and I plan for such event, when it happens it'll be easier to deal with. I'm trying to tell myself that she didn't do this to me and I shouldn't be so guarded, Lorena tells me that too. She has got to be one of the most understanding and patient girls I've ever met, as hard as I'm trying to be open to her, I still regress on occasion and she doesn't get mad and argue with me she just tells me that it's alright and that helps a lot. I also told her up front that relationships scare me and I'm nervous. I also told her that I want to be open and vulnerable to her, and I am willing to work as hard as I have to to overcome my own fears and I think that helps her in coping with my brick walls surrounding my own Attica prison of my emotions. So yes, I am that crazy over this girl. I just hope that by me writing about it it doesn't jinx it!