archived entries for October 2006

Thursday, October 26, 2006
the stench is choking us
Decay. That's the best description I can think of when considering the current American political scene. I'm sure there are parts of it still vibrant and keeping with the actual goal and intention of a "democratic" government our forefathers' hoped we'd strive for after they laid the foundation. But it seems like with every successive round of higher level elections the further we get from the idealized dream of government for the people, by the people. No, no the successive rounds of frenzied political machinations and scheming and tripe just get worse and worse. I see and hear the likes of Ken Melman, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy Jr, Hillary Clinton, Randi Rhodes. I witness the endless charade of debates that never get to an honest discussion of the issues plaguing our nation and the world nor even striving to come up with a fully credible solution. The finger pointing, the name calling, the histrionics, the shameful self aggrandizing and the very worst of it the outright lying. It's disgusting.

I can't help to think that we're wasting the prominence of this great nation. All the hard work, dedication and sacrifice so many of those before and of those who go unheralded today. We stand at the top of the world the only force in history powerful enough to affect real change for the betterment of humanity and we're squandering it on misguided aggression and faulty world vision, bent on self-preservation and accumulation of wealth, no better than the many failed attempts at governing littering humanity's existence.

And as I watched the president make his address this morning and his fielding of questions a deep sadness came over me. Certainly frustration and anger were stirring emotions as well, but overall just this deep depression over what is happening - what has happened in our country and with our government. We're in a mess that will have ramifications we won't even begin to understand until it's too late and for what? This victory the president keeps talking about, this talk of when the Iraqi government can stand on it's own and defend it's self and be self sustaining, does he really think it'll happen this decade? It took us ten years and 500,000 troops to get Germany back on it's feet after WWII and that was without "sectarian" violence. And even then, the result still had a split East and West. This president sold his people a war to profit his buddies and maintain his party's grip on Washington. That's not hyperbole. That is literally what has happened since the start of this war. The wealthy elite got more in larger chunks. The middle class got way less and is in fact shrinking; the middle ground between poverty and overabundant wealth decaying every year bringing back an aristocracy. The poor, well that's there problem for being poor. In such a major elections what are we talking about? Mark Foley did what? Nancy Pelosi will eat your babies? Elect a Democrat the terrorists will win? The president came out and said that there two things of utmost concern to the nation in his mind; this fictional war on terror, the central front being Iraq, so conveniently created by his military action and keeping taxes low. Really? That's it? No reform of social security? Nothing about immigration? Healthcare? Education? National Infrastructure? Campaign financing? Trade deficits? Nation budget deficits? Nation debt? China and India as emerging economic super powers? North Korea? Iran? Darfur? Dependency on foreign oil? Government and corporate corruption? Disaster preparedness? I don't just some stuff our government might want to check into. And Mr. President how do we continue to fund this war on terror if tax revenues are far less than what we spend? Continue to borrow from China? Continue to raid Social Security? Just print up more money?

Mr. Bush a puppet at best a shallow court jester at worst. Yes, harsh. But that's only a minute impression of my disgust at what this administration and Congress has allowed to transpire over these last twelve years. Republicans and Democrats alike. As I've said before, our government is failing us and we're too dumb to realize it. Too cracked out on Brangelinas and TomKats, runaway brides, missing blondes, Bachelors, Bacherlorettes, reality tv, who's dating who, who broke up with who, who adopted what. So focused on entertaining ourselves with the trivial lives of our entertainers and stuffing ourselves with consumerist junk and designer drugs it's no wonder we've been hijacked by those with no intention of serving our interests or the greater good. And why should they. We don't even care to tune in to take care of our own problems.

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Sunday, October 22, 2006
checking in to say...
You see some weird stuff in the airport sometimes. Other times maybe just a little too sureal. For example, Gene Simmons strolling about at the JIA baggage claim. Dude is a tall mofo.

So far things are going well enough at the new digs. Scottsdale is a fine town. You know, I can't recall a more manicured city in my life. Yeah, it's a nice place. Um... yeah that's all I got. I was getting ready to put down some thoughts I had on religion, politics and the state of affairs in our nation at the moment, but it's kinda hard to concentrate with all the sneezing and hacking up of lungs going on up here, 39,000 ft in the air... trapped in recycled air space. Okay, not thinking about it anymore. Not thinking. Oh yuck.

Actually, I should have written down some of the stuff racking my brain as I was watching the celebration of our 300 millionth person (estimated of course) last week. Could have passed it a couple of years ago or might actually have just hit the estimate of nearly a decade ago of two seventy something. But it just seemed very silly to be celebrating something we can only really guess at. But then again if you take a look at what's going on in our country, I guess it really shouldn't be any surprise. Too much guessing and estimating what's going on rather than actually knowing. Oh well. Actually for some reason I thought of the millenium celebration and the fact that when it turned 2000 we still had a year to go before we had actually chronicled 2000 years A.D. according to some emperor's calendar. What, 2001 wasn't as appealing? I suppose it was more symbolic with 2000 even if a little premature. But 2001 had the whole Odyssy tie in thing! Come on man! Anyway, I should probably look into carrying around a notepad or get one of those voice recording pen thingys to catch these random thoughts. Would make my blogging effort a bit more coherent.

Hey I caught a couple of movies you fine readers should check out. Wordplay and Thank you for smoking. Good stuff. Oh and a big congrats goes out to Tim for busting out the Chicago Marathon this past weekend. The little runner tracking thing kinda sucked as I got all the splits pretty much after you had finished. I thought it'd be real time and I could see you running on a little map on the web or something. Hey, maybe we should come up with some sort of live race tracker thing. That'd be pretty sweet. But um not sure if the pace and time was what you wanted so I won't go blurting it out over here. But I was impressed. Of course why anyone would want to run twenty-six point two miles that hard is beyond me so I raise a toast to you my brother. Well done. Oh and happy birthday!

peace... in the middle east?

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Tuesday, October 10, 2006
could it be...
Is it possible that I actually find myself not caring as much about what’s going on at Studio 60 than I do with bespectacled, time shifting Japanese heroes? So far, excepting the pilot episode, I haven’t been able to quite enjoy Studio 60 as much as I thought.

Perhaps it’s the subject matter, but for me I think it has more to do with the cast. I mean, on Sports Night I think I got into more because it was behind the scenes of a Sports Center like show and me being a huge fan, I could dig that. But the cast, by far, was the most captivating part of the show (along with the dialogue). Aaron or whomever he out sources his casting for his productions usually finds people that take his work to a whole other level, but this time around, for me at least, the show is quickly becoming uninteresting. Probably because I can’t stand the two former head “writer” characters. The bald dude (Evan Handler, who I couldn’t stand on the West Wing) and the tall walking doormat that was the Alliance mole in the first two episodes of Firefly (Carlos Jacott). I wish Capt. Reynolds would pop a cap in his face on this show. I like the rest of the cast. Who would have thunk one of my favorite characters on the show would be Amanda Peet’s? Huge fan of D.L. Hughely and can appreciate Matthew Perry’s stab at Sorkinese. Everyone likes Bradley Whitford and Timothy Busfield. I dig Sarah Paulson (her Holly Hunter impression is hilarious).

But outside of that what’s really distracting (and other than the really, really boring lovers’ spat between Perry and Paulson’s characters) is that a lot of the show feels conspicuously rehashed. And that’s probably a fault of my own for having been slavishly watching previous Sorkin efforts. The same themes, same dialogue, same gag humor it just is starting to seem a bit stale on this show. Of course I expected it to be a little like that, but for this go around I think maybe it’s a bit too much.

Maybe a little of my funk about the fictional L.A. skit show is due to the fact that I’m grumpy when the clock runs down on Heroes. Man, I’m really digging that show. Some of it, well okay, a lot of it is preposterous, but I mean, it’s a show about superheroes. And yes Milo Ventimiglia really can’t act and the Simone character is equally annoying, but Hayden more than makes up for that. Plus, you know, all the cool superhero and villainy stuff. At this point, Heroes has usurped Lost in my book. But then again, the season premiere of those wacky Hawaii castaways holds promise. Plus I have a huge crush on Elizabeth Mitchell.

um yeah, have we stepped in it now?
So how safe do you feel now? The land of the flying monkeys (according to Lewis Black) has gone nuclear and is waving around its phallic doomsday devices, Iran grows more and more intent on literally blowing Israel off the map and the death toll continues to mount in Iraq as more terrorists flood the country.

Axis of Evil indeed. I’m just sayin, the irony is strong with this administration.

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Monday, October 02, 2006
and one more thing
Yeah… I forgot to leave one other thing out of my mini rant from yesterday, speaking of common courtesy. To you sick bastards that feel it’s okay to just let loose of your flatulence in a confined, metal tube of death 30,000 feet in the sky – Holy God! What in the hell? I mean it’s recycled air for the sake of Pete. Why, why would you think it’s okay to subject us to your putrid gastronomical perturbance? Why?! I mean, that’s just foul.

Now, I know some of you subscribe to the notion of it being a natural act to just let your inner you fly and it would be against God if one were to keep it in and that’s all fine and dandy when we’re in a place we can, you know, walk away. But, the hell? An airplane. Come on man, have some sort of respect for your fellow man. I mean, is there no shame as you sit there in your toxic anus cloud holding your breath because even you don’t want to inhale the nastiness and you don’t even warn the others that it’s coming. No, no it’s okay as we’re all reclining getting ready to take a little nap, a big yawn and OH HOLY GAWD, WTF IS THAT?! Dude, where’s the humanity? Would it be that hard to get up at least make a break for the lavatory? At least to the back of the plane or into one of those kitchenette areas (don’t worry about the flight crew, they’re trained for that sort of thing, occupational hazard and what not)? Man, I swear the next time I’m getting on the PA system and calling out you ass busters so we can all pelt you with those little bags of peanuts. Hard.

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Sunday, October 01, 2006
travel crazy already?
You know what’s driving my crazy the most right now since I’ve become a full blown road warrior? That there are still some places trying to charge for wifi access in public places! See if the fricken $39.99 a night Quality Inn can offer FREE wi-fi, then why in the crap are places, major airports for one, still charging for Internet access!? Seriously.

Next on the list, the retards that crowd around the baggage claim carousels as if leaving space between them and roundy bout thingy would entail some sort of mortal peril. Typically I put around 4 to 5 feet… OMG CHUCK NORRIS! SWEET! between myself and the baggage claim contraption. It serves the purpose of staying out of the way of people retrieving luggage and not impeding the view of others on the lookout for their precious. But apparently common courtesy and rationality get left on the plane, about two seconds before the ding goes off to let passengers disembark. Yeah, that moment before everybody jumps up like jackals ready to bolt from the cage. People are dumb. The stupid 3 oz liquid rule is REALLY dumb.

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