I caught a couple glimpses of Ringo Starr. He must've got a good seat.
I thought I saw Weird Al Yanokovic when Beyonce was coming out.
I just saw Eric Clapton on a commercial for a phone that looks like part of a guitar, a Fender.
When I lived in Iowa City starting in 1973, there was a bookstore right next to the bank downtown. Iowa City had a bunch of temporary buildings down the main street at the time. Among these was an early incarnation of Little Caesars Pizza, including a big statue of the Caesar. There was a sub store called "Bushnell's Turtle." And lots of other cool little shops.
At the main corner, where the bank was, just catty corner from the Pentacrest was a bookstore in one of these temp buildings. Corner of Washington and Clinton. Some brothers ran it, 2 or 3 brothers. Their last name, I think, started with B, but I can't remember the name of their store. I used to go in there all the time.*
Sitting by the door several times there was an old man on a chair. I heard people whispering that he might be J.D. Salinger. I looked at him several times and wondered. But I guess it probably wasn't, since J.D. lived out east somewhere (I heard since). He died today or yesterday. I heard about it today.
President Obama was half joking at the State of the Union when he said he didn't take on health care reform "because it's good politics."
Because we've had lots of problems with it in the last year, I guess.
The truth is, It would've been good politics to actually get something positive done for us and to sell it right. But they chose to muck it up and get it tangled up in one corrupt special interest after another. No, that's not good politics.
If we had some sense that they were on our side, that would've been good politics indeed.
Get it done.
I thought I heard some yelling at the State of the Union address.
But still ... no sign yet of the gatecrashers from a couple months ago. I was halfway expecting them to have chairs up by Vice President Biden.
And wouldn't it be great to have Balloon Boy sitting by Mrs. Obama, as an example of ... something. An example of a kid whose dreams were as big as his dad's ego.
I hope they have the Joe Wilson Cam ready tonight for the State of the Union speech. So we'll be able to see and hear any outbursts without missing a single thing.
He says he won't shout out this time, because "I'm a gentleman." Yeah? What were you last time? Did you become a gentleman since then?
UPDATE: You know he's sitting there saying to himself, "I can't make a peep. Everyone's waiting for me to mess up." By the way, the Republicans are a bunch of schoolyard bullies, idiots who don't know they're only hurting themselves (and their country.) They're so disgusting.
I try to be efficient. Which means keeping good track of time.
But of course everything you do takes time. You have somewhere to be, like I do in a half an hour, you need to space it out -- your duties, hobbies, tasks -- to make sure that you get them wrapped up and are able to leave in time not to be late.
I'm always thinking about time, it seems. Even when I'm not conscious of it. There's plenty of times when I wake up about a minute before my alarm is set to go off. Some of that might be from habit. But since it's so close, some of it might also be your mind just mentally going over the time it is. Like there's some kind of internal counter, or little sands going through an inner timer.
I get up in the morning and go to feed the cat. And I'm thinking how much time it takes to do that, how much time (40 seconds) it takes to warm my bagel, how leisurely I can go to the bathroom while a cup of tea is brewing (3:20) and so forth. If I get back up to my computer at 7:10 a.m., that's good time, and so I have time to get a few things done...before the time comes when I have other things that I need to leave for.
I was looking at the baby book my Mom made when I was first born. Just the cards that people sent in honor of my birth. She has in there the exact time I was born. So maybe that's where I got it, out of her milk. But it's been my constant thing. Seconds here, minutes there, getting things done. Hoping time will go slowly, hoping it will go fast, depending on what I'm doing.
Time's up. I have something else I need to do .... now.
I don't know about President Obama. I want him to buckle down and do a fantastic job. Then I want him to run for office and get reelected.
The biggest reason I want him reelected is that the alternative is too terrible to contemplate. Because it would mean that one of the Republican scoundrels would be our president, assuming no one is going to subject President Obama to a Democratic primary.
He's all right. Come on. Yes, we're complaining a little, because we want some things accomplished. We don't want to waste a whole year on health care reform just to come up empty handed. You can't blame us, can you? Some of the crumbs on TV are saying we shouldn't have health care reform because the folks of Massachusetts voted for a Republican and thereby sent that message.
But as I recall, we voted for it in 2008 and also sent a message. Which should still be a message louder and clearer than what one state and a sliver of voters at that said. The Democrat didn't lose 100 to nothing. And it was only one state. We voted for President Obama in 2008 and we're still looking for our message to be heeded. Why don't the Republican scoundrels care about our message, if they care so much about what messages the voters supposedly are sending?
The actual truth, of course, is that the Republicans don't care about us whatsoever. They showed that through eight years of corruption in the Bush years. And they've showed it this last year in their cynical obstructionism. I wouldn't vote for a Republican at this point if they were the only choice. I think they are criminals, crooks, and scoundrels. And I don't see a flicker of difference between the various ones. Who would we get? The biggest idiot in the world, Sarah Palin? That's a revolting thought.
President Obama said he'd rather be a really good president with one term than a mediocre president with two. Whatever, good or mediocre, he needs two terms. If for no other reason than the Republicans would be 50 times worse.
I like the signs I'm starting to see, that President Obama is going to get a grip on the Democrats' 2010 electoral fortunes and try to steer us away from the whirlpool of defeat. That's good.
Also he's going to be emphasizing jobs, which is what we need. We also needed health care, so hopefully that's not exactly toast. I sincerely hope he has a better ability to fight for jobs than he did for health care. Because if health care is an example of his ability to get something done, you may as well sign up for unemployment now.
The last year, in my opinion, has been crap. Of course we had the stimulus and it saved or created, they say, millions of jobs. That's good. And had the Republicans had their way, recall, they would've done nothing. So that would've been very bad.
But it was the whole health care thing that made the year crap. He needed to get in there and knock some heads and bust some kneecaps but he didn't do it. And so what happened? The special interests in charge of Congress steered the whole issue straight into the ditch. And our Congress-idiots want us to think they were looking out for our interests. Right, we're completely stupid.
Who was most culpable? The Democrats did a very poor job. But it is the Republicans who did the worst job, since they chose the path of civic vandalism. At least there were Democrats among the rest who had something of the public interest at heart. Among the Republicans there wasn't even one. And that's unforgivable.
Get to work, President Obama. Quit talking about what a "tizzy" we're all in and get something done. I hate hearing that folksy crap he says in speeches. I like him a lot, but it's time to dump the folksy "tizzy" stuff and get something done!
This is a picture from a video on YouTube.
It's a crackling, weird night in the land that I live. Following a crackling, weird day.
What's all the crackling from? The trees were coated with ice in the last few days, then with slightly warmer temperatures today and some wind, the ice is crashing down. But when it's just swaying up there it's making a crackling noise, as it all breaks and snaps.
So there's twigs and some limbs everywhere. It's terrifying for a dog when I take the dog out, because she doesn't know about the source of the problem. It's kind of scary for me too, because a few of the ice nuggets, some of them good size, were landing close to me. One on the head would hurt!
I went somewhere in the car a while ago, and I went under some trees on one particular street, and I got a crash of a nice size ice piece hitting the windshield. Maybe it wasn't so huge, but when it hits you going 25 to 30 mph, it makes a noise.
I wish it would warm up and do some melting. Otherwise the ice (on the sidewalks and streets) is just going to stay. What a mess.
I read an article sometime recently, maybe this morning or yesterday, and I think it was at the NY Times, on the most common passwords.
Without looking at the article, it seems that "123456" is one of the most common passwords, accounting for about 5% of all passwords (or some staggering figure). I don't think they mentioned "abcdefg" as one, but I'd think that'd have to be a natural series for the lazy password maker.
Maybe if you mixed them up, like "a1b2c3d4," etc., you could come up with something tough to guess. You could be even tricker and go down, with the number for the "a" being the original number for the "d" or "e," and so forth, like "a5b4c3d2e1." That'd be a tough one to guess if it wasn't a recognizable series.
It also said that "password" is a common password. That's very lazy. I won't say what mine are or the sequences, etc., except some of them are trickier than that. I have a few that are "easy," but still not as easy as that.
The big problem with passwords is remembering what they are. Sometimes I need to hire a hacker just to figure out what my password is!
Wow, it's been a whole year since Inauguration Day!
I remember how long it seemed from Election Day 2008 to January 20, 2009. We had that infernal, terrible George W. Bush in there. And one day was like an eternity with him.
I see President Obama put Bush in charge of something to do with Haiti. So of course there's no hope now.
But now we've got a whole year since those dark days of the Bush administration. And as it turns out, it hasn't been easy or all that positive.
I still think President Obama is doing a reasonably good job. I just don't think he fights very well. He seems to be a creampuff who doesn't mind getting his butt kicked on a daily basis. But hey, maybe he'll wise up now that we've lost the Senate seat in Massachusetts (of all places).
But even if he doesn't wise up, he's still not George W. Bush. And for that, he deserves our highest praise.
