Proper Etiquette For Laughers

I had a question last night about ethics and etiquette, what a person's supposed to do.

I was at the exercise place, on the treadmill, listening to my Ipod. Less than four feet away, probably three feet, is an exercise bike and a woman sat down to exercise. We're over in the corner alone. No one else on the treadmills, but there is another woman behind us on a machine, probably six feet back.

The woman sits to exercise on the bike and she's watching TV. She's watching something that is extremely funny because she's laughing loudly and persistently. Even though I've got the Ipod going and it's clear that I have earbuds, I can hear her quite well.

So I'm suddenly wondering if there's an ethics and etiquette issue, unforeseen or I would have taken a different treadmill. Do I look over and see what's so funny? Is it a case where I need to take the earbuds out to share in her happiness? Would it seem like I was encroaching in some way, since we're so close? Is it kinder to ignore her and pretend like I'm absorbed in my music.

To complicate things, my coats and possessions are on the floor in the space between us, a narrow space. When I get done (I started before her) I'm going to need to get in that narrow space and get my things, meaning my butt might be in her face, moderately so. I don't want to look like I'm invading her space, etc.

The laughter continues. I glanced over once, ready to smile if needed, but she was looking at the TV, just laughing. No eye contact. I'm very uncomfortable, but kept going. Finally I decided not to do the whole cool down routine but cut it off so I could get out of that corner.

Getting my coats and stuff, I muttered "Excuse me," and noticed that she was watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, an interview segment. She never seemed to notice my presence there, although she had to have.

Laughing, laughing, laughing. Hard to believe I could feel so consternated at someone else's happiness. But it made for a weird feeling, since there actually are numerous social issues going on.

Wasting Bandwidth

I hope I'm not wasting bandwidth here. I probably am. That sounds funny, to waste bandwidth. Are we supposed to be saving it for future generations? Or is your use of bandwidth more important than someone else's?

I haven't heard that phrase for quite a while. But I remember a few years ago it was like everyday, someone at a blog, message board, IRC, somewhere ... worrying themselves gray over the idea that someone somewhere might be "wasting bandwidth."

They were the Bandwidth Puritans, scared to death that someone might be having a good time with some illicit bandwidth, maybe driving it over state lines to get their jollies.

Today I was looking at some comments at Huffington Post and someone, who apparently disapproved of the entertainment-nature of a particular story (they get that at Huff Post a lot, for some reason, people complaining that certain stories aren't serious enough to post), fretted that it was wasting "storage space." Storage space? What do you care? Isn't memory cheap? Is this a person who holds his/her breath 20 seconds out of every minute so he/she doesn't waste air? It's funny.

So here I am, frolicking around with someone's else's bandwidth. La la la la. Using it up like the Prodigal Son, wasting it, flushing it down the pot!

Post Office Mailing It In

Hey, in this country aren't things supposed to get better, not worse? How in the world could we have managed to have six day mail delivery all this time but now we're expected to cut back to five to save money? Then what, four, three, two, one?

The post office doesn't want to do away with Saturday delivery, where the post office is only open till noon anyway. They want to do away with Tuesday. One full day. That stinks.

The way they've kept raising the rates, and now they want to cut service. It's ridiculous. Let's get some "can do" guys back in there who are able to take America forward, not backward.

They already have every other day for a holiday, like Columbus Day. The post office is run by pansies.

Day Old Pizza

I'm heating up a day old pizza. I should have eaten it last night, since pizza doesn't keep very long, in my experience. It gets like cardboard and starts to look like it's taking on an extra coat.

The oven's halfway heated and I put the pan in. So I'm typing fast, because it's downstairs and I don't know exactly how long it takes. I try to get it good and heated on the bottom, then turn the broiler on to singe the top a bit. That takes some of the refrigerator chill out of it, assuming the bottom up approach isn't a hundred percent.

They haven't come up with a way to make day old pizza as good as fresh. The closest thing, like I said, is to eat it the same day. So there might be a bit of planned obsolescence.

For other day old food I've come up with a system, which is to put it in a plastic container immediately, right off the stove. Then get it in the fridge soon and it keeps for a few days in pretty good shape. You can do that successfully especially with spaghetti, just keep the sauce and the pasta in separate containers. That's very important.

If you do, then heat it up, it's about as close to fresh as you'd ever want.

Goddess Seahorse Bacon

A seahorse swims by the relics of ancient goddess worship.

All bacon is presented as it was actually cooked in the microwave. Absolutely no cutting or rearranging.

Materials used for this work: Oscar Mayer Hearty Thick Cut bacon, three slices, plus seahorse and goddess found through Google images.

Jester Scorpion Bacon

Who needs to go outside and see shapes in the clouds when you can stay in and look at your breakfast? This was what popped up today on my plate, a weird shaped piece of bacon that somehow felt worthy of a picture. That's rare!

This was a premo brand, too, and it came out of the pack kind of messed and twisted around. It was Oscar Mayer Hearty Thick Cut bacon, the first time I've ever bought it. It's usually higher priced, like about a dollar a pack more, but it was on sale this week.

Good bacon, maybe packed a little haphazardly!

Aeon Flux

One of the Blu-ray discs I bought, and the only one that was an actual movie, was Aeon Flux. This is a movie that I had never heard of, which is not surprising since I'm not a film buff at all. Since getting it, I learn that it is based on an MTV cartoon series from a few years ago. In addition, I learn that everyone else has heard of it and has an opinion on whether the movie had any business going where the cartoon went. It appears it was something of a beloved cartoon series and people have actual feelings about it.

Where do I get all this information? The various Amazon reviews that experts in that field write. Look up any movie and there's someone who knows it all.

As I said, though, Aeon Flux was a completely new title for me. But I needed a few discs, it was in the cheaper range, $14.95, had an appealing cover, looked like it might be visually compelling, and so forth. Then I came home and looked at the reviews and it was in the 2 to 3 star range, not getting rave reviews.

But this is where it helps not to be a film buff. I watched it with very fresh eyes. I haven't seen a thousand sci fi films, I have very little to compare it to. I never saw the MTV cartoon so I don't care how it measures up to it. I'm just happy to see it ... if I don't have to watch a lot of very gruesome violence and medically uncomfortable situations. There was some, but the violence wasn't really so terrible, just a lot of swift kicking and mowing down people with guns. Faceless and for the most part at a distance, so what do I care? As far as medical scenes, Aeon Flux removes some bullets with her fingers, so that was a little painful.

My verdict, I loved the movie. I thought it was a very nice experience. The pictures were crystal clear, the pacing was fast, the actors seemed like they were into it, the colors were nice, and for me everything was good. I even watched all the extras, the making of it, the wardrobe, the stunts, all that stuff. Very interesting.

I recommend it. 5 stars on my scale.

Yellowstone (Blu-ray Disc Review)

In getting a Blu-ray disc player, of course I needed a Blu-ray disc to watch. Most of the movies for sale, to me, either looked like pure crap or were too expensive. I'm finicky.

On the other hand, I'm not much for documentaries. Not that I don't like to learn, but they're not usually something worth watching more than once. That's a big problem for most video, in my opinion, unless it's something classic like The Three Stooges or five star movies.

But it didn't make much sense to buy the player and not have something to play on it. So I bought a few discs, including this one, Yellowstone, part of a Scenic National Parks series produced by Bellevue Entertainment and distributed by Questar.

It was filmed and mastered in High Def and is approximately 98 minutes. It is divided into two programs, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, with the latter being labeled a "Bonus Program."

There's quite a bit of scenery, wildlife, shots of geysers, and so forth. This is all stunning in appearance and quite nice. I liked to see it. The downside would be the documentary format. They're actually trying to teach you things about geology, the history of the places, etc., which means park rangers standing there explaining things. That's a big downside, because I do not want to see close ups of park rangers and geologists. They have one guy, apparently not filmed in high def, going on in between five to eight shots, and I just had to throw back my head in disgust, "Saints, preserve us!" Then we're going along nicely, watching the geysers, and suddenly, Park Ranger So and So is back for another teaching moment, which sucks.

The high def part on the park rangers has this benefit, you can clearly read their badges, so if you have any complaint about their boring information, it wouldn't be too hard to Google them and tell them about it. But they blurred out most license plate information, so if you have a complaint against a particular scene of a tourist van, you're on your own there. I have no real complaints against the park rangers. Their information is no doubt beneficial to most sixth graders. But for me, I'd like to see the scenery, hear the birds, watch the moose, thrill to the geysers without a lot of blah blah blather.

Great pictures, disappointing teaching crap. By the way, not everything is High Def. As I said, the one geologist guy. And other film they show along the way is not as clear as High Def. Historic footage, like Mt. St. Helens erupting, that's understandable, but non historic footage, just to make some geologist's point, that's not so understandable.

Give me scenery and wildlife and lots of it. None of this other stuff.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I've been listening to a CD by an electronic, ambient, found-sound, whatever, kind of artist, Ryuichi Sakamoto, called Soundbytes.

This is someone I had never heard of before, but, as always, when looking him up on the internet, I discover that he's already quite well known. All these artists are well known if you check with the right circles. For me, never being in the right circles, you have to be pretty famous for me to know you, or, like Ryuichi, to have your CD in Goodwill and to have it look sufficiently appealing for me to buy it. Sometimes I'm in the mood for something different, sometimes I'm not. In this case, I was, and I liked the sounds of the titles, the artwork, etc., making me take a chance on it. I'm glad I did.

When I say "I've been listening" to it, I mean I heard a few tracks last night and I heard a few tracks this morning. It's actually something pretty good for my state of mind in the morning, which is to be contemplative yet willing to be iconoclastic. I like a good drone, really I do, or anything more typically contemplative. But I also like things that go stranger, more unpredictable directions, sometimes. Today was one of those days, where I'm willing to branch out and engage different thoughts.

The liner notes compare Ryuichi to Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, two that I'm familiar with, but I'm rarely concentrated on any one individual or act so that I'm an expert or afficiando. I'm always more general than that. I've had an album or two or three by each of them.

But, whatever, I've heard once now the first eight tracks. They have an interesting, quirky electronic sound, a found sound kind of feel, yet with a lot of thought behind each one. In a way, they sound like something you'd imagine, then simply do, and let the feel along the way determine where it's going to go.

I looked up this album and believe they gave it only 3 stars at All Music. For whatever reason. But it's not really an album (as one work) but a compilation of tracks off several albums. So it's, to me, a good sense of Ryuichi's solo work from those albums, and whether it's 3 stars or 1, that doesn't make any difference. If you want to sample several things at once, this is a good CD, just going by the first eight songs.

One of the songs, I think it's "Variety Show" has a voice synthesizer in it that sounds precisely like one I downloaded between 1996-1998. The one I had then was downloaded from a source in Hawaii, and worked like this, you typed in your words, not according to actual spelling but according to the way it was likely to be produced, then a monotone guy spoke it. I have a soundfile of an example of this somewhere. But Ryuichi has a longer series of words, like paragraphs, typed in and coordinated it with music.

Guantanamo

It was great to see President Obama signing the order to close down our famous prison camp at Cuba, even though it will take up to a year.

Already the Republicans are bellyaching about how unsafe that will make us. As though these prisoners, unlike other prisoners, will be prone to prowling our peaceful neighborhood, exacting their revenge on us, as well as other crimes on top of that. Why they think this? Because they're Republicans, they're stupid.

I am sick to death of the Republicans in Congress and their obstructionism. Already we're hearing of anonymous holds on appointees, all kinds of backstage skullduggery on the part of these cretins. How come the Democrats weren't holding back Bush's appointees? Or did I not hear about it? They're in the minority, the R's, and yet no matter how far down they are, they're still right there, baldfaced, obstructing and carrying on like they're lords of the manor.

As for Norm Coleman and obstructing Al Franken from taking his seat, this is ridiculous. I want someone to step in there and put an end to it and say, the election is over, the votes are counted, you lost, step aside. We need a judge to end this mess. We've come a long way from the time Coleman said he would step back if he found that he had fewer votes. But of course that was when he thought he had won. Now that it's obvious he lost, no amount of obstruction is too much!

Republicans. Bah.

American Idol -- Louisville

Last night they had American Idol at San Francisco. I watched it on tape because I had something else to do at the time. I was a little preoccupied due to personal issues at the time, so it seemed like the show was interminable, even skipping commercials. They had the usual range of worthless dogs howling all the way up to potential superstars.

Tonight I was feeling quite a bit better, so I sat and watched the Louisville auditions and enjoyed myself. Again, some real crazies out there, thinking they can sing. (I know how that goes though, because I used to be between the ages of 18 and 25, and you think you're the center of the world and can do no wrong. Don't worry, you age and then realize you yourself are one of those worthless dogs howling.)

One guy was a math whiz or something, called a super nerd. They promoed him as drinking out of Paula's glass as a shocking thing. But in the context we clearly heard her tell him to get a drink. Whether that meant her glass, probably not, but she could have pulled it back and said, I don't mean my glass. She didn't. He went for it. Big deal. His singing was bad.

They had a hardluck story at the end. And she of course turned out to be really good and made it through. That was touching, aww. The young guy who came in whooping it up and shouting. He was a total moron, because he actually had talent and sounded great. And he would have likely made it through if he would have piped it down a bit and sang a song in the normal way. Or maybe he'd rather not make it and still be able to say he did his own thing.

Some of the ones, like the enormous guy, were just there for comedic effect and had no chance. But you have to know, don't you? No, you don't know. See what I said above about being between 18 and 25, thereabouts. You really do not know.

John Roberts

How in the world could John Roberts screw up the oath of office?

It was terrible that he had to get the words all twisted around and mess up the niceness of President Obama's swearing in.

Practice makes perfect. Next time he needs to read 35 words, perhaps he will review his notes in advance. What a dip.

Bush's Last Night In The White House

Clean out your drawers. Have someone at the door to make sure he doesn't steal any towels.

It's my sincere hope that he's not in the war room about to invade China or some other country.

I heard that he was going to have a quiet dinner in the White House with his wife, daughters, and parents.

It might be worth going to bed extra early tonight just so his term will speed by that much quicker.

We might not have Bush to kick around much longer (thank God), but we'll never forget how much of a miserable failure he was.

It's Really Happening

I only caught moments of all the coverage taking place in Washington, D.C. But what I saw tells me that it's really happening.

Bush came in on Helicopter 1 from Camp David, returning to the White House. I hope he went straight to his room and packed his stuff.

Obama has had his magnificent train ride and is at the Blair House. They've got people everywhere, tomorrow is MLK Day, that'll be big. Security is everywhere. The stands are up. The speech is ready.

There's a countdown on the number of hours we still have left to suffer Bush. I don't know what the total is. But around 1 p.m. I heard them say less than 50.

Getting Down To It

Our long national nightmare (George W. Bush and company) is almost over.

It's going to be exciting, in a good way, to have Barack Obama as our president. Finally, someone who comes in looking like someone we can trust. Better than the crook we had, who seemed bad from the start.

I wish I could've seen the Inauguration train go speeding by. But I saw pictures at Flickr and also the more official press photos, including some great ones from the inside.

One of the interesting ones at Flickr had Obama all blurry, like they had a second to snap the picture and didn't get it steady. But even blurred you could still tell it was him, and recognize the smile.

The guy makes me smile. It's going to be nice to wake up on Wednesday knowing we've got a president again .... and not that skunk.

Middle Names

Rep. Steve King of Iowa is complaining that President-elect Obama plans to use his middle name during the inauguration. Since it's Hussein, this is some kind of big deal to Steve King, called a "whackjob" at Talking Points Memo, who understate the case.

Rep. King is still functioning in life with a fifth grade brain, no offense to actual fifth graders, but most of us once were there. We remember the playground taunts and bullying, making people's names alone into a bludgeon against them. Grow up, sir.

There's nothing wrong with Obama's middle name. Just because it happens to be the name of some guy who was our enemy for a while, big deal. It's the name of millions of people. And of course it had nothing to do with our enemy.

For the most part, a name is a name. There's nothing more to it. You get it when you're born, you have nothing to do with it. So whatever.

On the other hand, did anyone happen to see the other day that someone named their kid "Adolph Hitler"? Seriously. I'm not saying any old name should be appropriate, although it's their business. You wouldn't want to be named Scumbag or something.

But Hussein, that's a proud name around the world and not bad at all.

Plane Down

I hated to hear about the plane landing in the Hudson River, the whole thing that could have been a massive disaster. But it was great to hear that everyone got out safe and sound.

I feel sorry for the pilot, having to ditch it like that. But everyone's giving him rave reviews for doing it in a great way. He took it down and no one was killed, so that right there is a great day's work done. Still, to think a bunch of geese would hit the engines, whatever it was, that's an unfortunate thing.

They had the show, called something like "Completely Destroyed," on one day and we were watching all the disasters at which people had video cameras. Houses blowing up without warning, cars blowing up, planes crashing, etc. On there there was a problem with birds hitting a plane, two planes at an air show, and they crashed. They had zero time to do anything, yet somehow the pilots of each plane did an ejection and lived. Amazing.

If you ever see some of the old serial movies, in which each episode ends with certain death for the hero, the next week they have experienced a miraculous ejection. It's like that.

Hopefully the pilot will be totally vindicated and will continue on as a great pilot. Good for the people surviving. That was amazing and it's a happy thing.

American Idol Tonight

OK, I'm watching American Idol this season.

But I got an emergency call from an acquaintance before the last half hour, so I had to go help get her out of jail. (I don't associate with criminals, really I don't. But when you know people, there's no telling what they might do.) So I missed the last 25 minutes or so.

The parts I saw were good, in the usual audition sense of things. There were some good singers and some out and out disasters. Nobody looked really great. But you figure they're out in the hot, they're sitting in a stadium or a holding room all day, they're not dressed nicely, whatever.

Some of the ones who are out and out freaky you can spot a mile away. But they put them on anyway. A certain amount of that's good ... entertaining ... but of course it can be a disaster for them. Because they think they're really good. I remember being that age, though, and you really do think you're something special. Because you haven't exactly seen the world, you don't realize how big it all is, you've been sheltered, and people tell you you're great.

It would help some of these characters if they had honest friends. Or if they sought out a few honest strangers to ask them, Am I Really Any Good? I was amazed at the guy who said he was classically trained, that he was an opera singer. Then he comes out and it's a disaster.

Obama's First Veto Threat?

Good grief. The Democrats in Congress rolled over for Bush for eight long years. There wasn't anything that bozo wanted that they weren't there to give. Spit polish his shoes, no problem. He had them in his back pocket and pulled them out occasionally to dangle them before the public. We ached and squawked and begged them to stand up "for once" to Bush. Come on, you morons, don't you know he's 28% in the polls! Get a backbone!

Now we have the rare pleasure of having a Democratic president and what are we constantly hearing? That the Democrats in Congress want the president to know they are a co-equal branch of government and that their demands must be met. If Obama wants something, let him come over here and beg. We'll listen to him whine for a while, then vote against him.

This is absolutely ridiculous. We have a Democratic president, or we soon will. The Democrats in Congress need to be on his side. Give him what he wants for a while. For crying out loud. Work with him, not against him. There's zero (ZERO) reason Obama should have to be threatening his first veto before he's even sworn in!

What is it about the Democrats? We have exactly what we want. Let's do something good with it, not disintegrate. Sickening.

Bush To Give Farewell Address

Hey, idiot, we don't even want a forwarding address from you! As for your "Farewell," how about saving your breath?

There has been no more disgusting public official that I can think of in my lifetime than George W. Bush (and his various minions and superiors, like Cheney). They're busy trying to build a legacy for the guy now. He spent eight years running the country and the world ragged and now he wants a legacy.

He's going to be gracious toward Obama, or some such malarkey. Well, why not? Obama's the guy in charge of cleaning up Bush's many messes. I clean up after my cats all the time and overall they're pretty gracious to me. I'm always right there with my dog when she poops, cleaning it up, and she has a nice attitude about it.

What else do I recall about this event? 10 to 15 minutes, about 10 to 15 minutes too long. He's going to have someone else there ... special needs people or something. Don't tell me he somehow accidentally helped a few people in his eight year reign of terror.

When Bush leaves the presidency, it is a cause for celebration. Like in the Wizard of Oz, when the witch is finally doused. He's had eight years to do good for us and he refused. What he deserves now is nothing but shame. Go away. Rot.

The Monkees Show on Smithsonian

Someone called me last night to say they had a Monkees documentary on the Smithsonian channel. I remember seeing a note about a documentary over at the newsgroup on the Monkees, but hadn't opened it or read it.

That's the first time, actually, that I ever heard of the Smithsonian channel, but I didn't process it till I got this call. The Smithsonian has their own channel? Not on my TV, but I don't have digital cable, just basic. So I couldn't have watched it if I tried.

But at the newsgroup, someone had been invited as a "VIP" to preview it, and this person posted the URL and the password to do that with. So I went there and, sure enough, it was the entire show. So I watched it, even though my computer is mildly halting. It worked OK.

As I was watching it I noticed it was all familiar, leading me to conclude that it was a rehash of the same interviews as was on the Biography show one time, or somewhere. Then I read the other couple posts on the newsgroups and that was someone else's sense too.

They did what you do with a story like the Monkees in a brief amount of time, 46 minutes, you make it a big conflict with Don Kirschner, you divide it up into success and sliding toward failure, and, in the show, that was the pivot.

As to that being historically accurate, I don't think it is entirely. Obviously the Monkees phenomenon had a shelf life, and it wasn't going to go 10 years if they had Kirschner running it. It was going to have an arc, a beginning and end anyway.

There were things that had to be left out, and they let you draw conclusions that weren't necessarily true. Item, it was said that Headquarters was number one for a week, but that the public preferred the Monkees under Kirschner to the Monkees on their own. But I was there, dude, and it wasn't that way at all. They were still raging strong with Headquarters, but when you have Sgt. Pepper coming out the next week, you tell me who was going to be number one that week! Headquarters came out before the '67 tour was in full force. That was a big deal. It was out before the second season. They had enormous hits still to come, plus the Pisces album. That wasn't mentioned on the show.

There were obviously tensions, weird dynamics within the group. It was a TV show and needed a TV show to sustain itself very long. It was a time like now. You keep going or you're crushed by shifting tastes and competition.

As to Don Kirschner, his stuff was great as stuff. But the more interesting stuff is stuff without him.

Good ARRiddance, Pirates

There's good news! Five Somali pirates drowned. Yea!

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and port town resident said Saturday.

Went down with their share of $3 million in ransom money. Good! Hope they enjoy their booty at the bottom of the bay. Enjoy yourselves, morons.

4 Minutes

"We only got four minutes to save the world." I like this song by Madonna and Justin. I got it as a free download the other day, from a sticker on a CD I bought.

I hear it on the radio once in a while and think how great it sounds. So now I can listen to it any old time. Ya-ha!

Four minutes is the amount of time we used to get on a Super 8 movie cartridge. I used to think how cool it'd be to have more time, so you weren't rushing through taking a movie. Little did I know four minutes was about right. Anything more than that you've got long, extended boring movies instead of the quick cuts and rushing from one subject to another.

I've had video cameras over the years, including a black and white one in 1979. It needed to be hooked up to a home VCR at the time, so it was impossible (for me) to be dragging it anywhere besides the apartment where we lived. The few videos that still exist are boring, the kids, I don't know what. But at least they have this to their credit, they're short.

My next video camera was a color one, and it seems like we could put a VHS tape in it ... or maybe it too was hooked up to a VCR. Now that I think of it, I don't remember taking videos around outside. The ones I took were inside. Someone broke in and stole it, so it's long gone.

There's the video feature on my Olympus camera, but it barely counts because the videos are just small crap. And the video feature on my phone, worse yet. Those don't count.

Now I have a Flip Ultra, and it takes video for around 55 minutes before it's filled up. I was just videoing the dog and thinking I should keep it around four minutes. I videotaped a thing yesterday that was 50-some minutes. The file is huge, hard to handle. You make a copy of it and it takes forever to process, like trimming it. Although it was a lot faster with the Flip software (still crappy) that came with it than with Windows Movie Maker.

Facebook

Is Facebook really that interesting? Whether you or your relatives are watching a video, ordering food, taking a bath, or sweeping the floor ... is this something that can be sustained over the long term, as far as checking on it?

The saving grace for all such questions when it comes to the internet is: It doesn't have to be sustained over the long term, because there's isn't a long term. Meaning, there's always something else to come along to take its place before it gets overly boring. And what is not cool is passe and ignored. Like My Space.

For me My Space was worse, because of all the switching of backgrounds and instantly playing songs, then they loaded it up with ads and it slowed down to a crawl, you could barely get logged on. So many glitzy blinking, garbage looking graphics ... I lost interest fast. I was helping some of my "friends," (relation), try to get their code in the right place. It's a mess.

Facebook is simpler, more attractive. But is it interesting?

Burris

I wish they'd seat Roland Burris and get it over with.

Yes, Blago seems like he might have a crooked side. But I do believe in the rule of law. If he hasn't been convicted of anything, and there's no evidence that Burris did anything wrong, then whatever the rule is in Illinois for appointing senators ought to be followed.

To me this is just common sense and it's difficult to believe they're dragging it out with these phony reasons like his paper is missing a signature.

Maybe he's not the best guy for the job -- I have no idea. But if we have a law that senators are appointed in that way, follow it. If you don't like the law, change it through normal means.

The ER

I experienced firsthand today all the excitement and pacing that is the modern ER. Meaning, of course, that we sat there hour after hour with very little actually happening.

You'd think some of this stuff could be expedited in some way, the labs, the reports you get back (or don't get back). Don't they use digital technology? Have access to modern methods?

First there's all the laborious stuff of getting (the person's) allergies, medications, past surgeries, etc. The fact that she's been to the hospital a dozen times in the past doesn't lead to pulling the files and having this information.

Then everything else meanders along. Finally they took a CT scan and we sat. A nurse came in to check on the pain level and said the CT scan didn't show such-and-such. But the doctor never came in -- never came in -- to say what the conclusions were.

An hour or nearly two passed and two new doctors came in and basically started over. When did the pain start? Where's it at? What did you have for lunch? etc.

Being at the ER is a real drag!

Minnesota

I'm glad Al Franken finally won the election in Minnesota. It's unfortunate it took them two months to count the votes. Now if he could just be in Washington and get seated as he should. But Norm Coleman is tangling it up in legal red tape. Which is kind of weird because he said two months ago that if he were behind, he wouldn't bother with a recount but would "step back." Maybe he wasn't telling the truth?

The way it looks, though, is that eventually -- sooner or later -- Al will be a senator in reality. That'll be cool.

I used to get Al Franken's mail. True. Sort of true. I had a page about him on the internet, and for some unknown reason business credit card places took Al Franken's name for mine and would send me credit card offers addressed to "Al Franken" with my mailing address. I haven't had one for quite a while.

Way to go, Minnesota, finally. Remember, that's the land of 10,000 lakes. But if there's a recount they might find it's only 8,500.

Napping

Napping is good for you, according to sleep experts. Say that at Wikipedia and it'd tell you to site a source. So my source is just my experience of hearing these things over the years.

Sometimes napping is good for me, though, and sometimes it isn't. I love it when I can doze off, as has happened numerous times, then wake up 10 minutes later and have the feeling that I've slept for hours. What's worse by far is to sleep for hours and wake up feeling worse than before.

The other day -- maybe it was New Year's Eve -- I took an afternoon nap and woke up feeling queasy. Nothing sounded good to eat till some hours had passed.

Yesterday I laid down and after 10-15 minutes the phone rang. So talk, talk. Then 5 minutes after that the other phone rang. Which meant getting up and writing something down. By now it was frustrating, so I got up. Plus I had a cat behind my leg, the dog on the other side of my leg. My leg was so tightly pinned down from their weight it was like wearing medically necessary stockings. Skin tight.

Today I have all the time in the world to take a nap but don't really feel like it. And I got up at 5:30 a.m., so that's hard to figure.

Final Bush Countdown

We have -- today's the 3rd, 20 minus 3 -- 17 days -- 2 weeks and slop -- left of the disastrous Bush presidency.

What a long, terrible journey it's been, having this out and out crook as our president. The guy has been one miserable, devious scalawag from first to last. He has been without a doubt the absolute worst leader this country could ever have gotten, unless it was his chief henchman, Cheney.

It's like a nightmare in so many ways. I know my poor body's black and blue from eight years of pinching myself to wake up. Then I realize -- till I forget again -- I am awake, this is reality, we have scum in the White House.

Now they're trying to salvage a legacy for the loser. Ha! And it's funny, they're going about it the same way they ran the entire presidency, by lying, by devious means, underhanded, crooked. Like we're going to forget. I'm not going to forget. I know what Bush was, worthless.

Hallelujah that we have Obama coming in! I was at the exercise place and he was on CNN. They don't have the volume on, so he was just up there chatting with someone, an interview about his upbringing. I had to stop and just look at him and watch for a few minutes. The guy is a breath of fresh air all by himself and on his own terms, of course, but after Bush, he's an entire atmosphere of fresh air.

Bush has been a walking, talking, complete and total disaster. May he and his memory rot.

Charles Barkley

This is disgusting at so many levels. If you've got a hot date, Brainiac, and you happen to be a rich guy besides, get a room, an apartment, a suite.

It's incredible that this yahoo would be caught in a deal like this. How much of a challenge would it be for a millionaire celebrity to make it home without getting pulled over?

Jimi Hendrix

I've been enjoying a personal marathon of the Electric Ladyland album today. Starting last night, especially with the songs 1983 and the one following it, melded together.

I've liked it for years but never listened intensely. So that's been going on. Those are beautiful songs.