25 Random things about me

For those outside the realm of AOL, I am fulfilling a journal "assignment"

1. I can make fairly loud noises with my knees and ankles that have been mistaken for sonic booms

2. I was on Icelandic television in 1998 because a pastry chef fell into a pond

3. My favorite CD of all time is Pete Townshend's "White City"

4. I would have given ten years of my life to be a major league baseball player

5. 18 months after quitting the job I had for almost twelve years, I still have nightly dreams of chaos where I am a retail drug store manager

6.  If I ever get a chance to be on Jeopardy, they will have to declare bankruptcy

7. I have a completely irrational fear that I will die from ALS (Lou Gherig's disease) some day

8. When I was a freshman in college, my randomly assigned room was on a floor designated for students with disabilities.  I was only one of three people not disabled who lived there.  It was like being Jack Nicholson's character in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" but it also turned out to be one of the more memorable years of my life

9. I was really, really, mean to my sophomore year roommate in college.  I have regretted that for a long time

10. It's been almost two years and I think I've handled it well, but I still have days where I find it incomprehensible that my father died in 2002

11. It bothers me that I will leave this life knowing that there are places in this world that I will not have seen

12. I have never seen "It's A Wonderful Life" and have no plans to

13. I am 99.9% certain that I have already had my mid-life crisis

14. I was head over heels in love with my kindergarten teacher.  A part of me still is

15. I want to name my first born son "Desmond" and no one who knows this likes the name, including my fiance.  And it is an Irish name

16. My ears are pretty big, and they have been the size that they are currently since I was five

17. I am still enraged that "Forrest Gump" won Best Picture in 1994 instead of "Pulp Fiction"

18. The only reason I eat asparagus is because of the way it makes urine smell later

19. I don't think the human race will last more than another five hundred years or so

20. I am going to cry like a baby on the day I get married, when my children are born, and when the Cubs win the World Series

21. I think it's ironic that a majority of those who favor the death penalty are against abortion

22. The only movie I ever walked out on is "The Poseidon Adventure."  I was seven

23. I have the ugliest big toes in the history of mankind

24. I have a birthmark in an extraordinarily inaccessible location

25. I spent a long time working in neighborhoods where I was the minority.  I learned more about life in those years then all other combined

 

 

More baseball symbolism (and I need to get a life)

You may recall my encounter last week with the St. Louis Cardinal.  Right now, I am about forty five miles northwest of St. Louis, prime redbird country.  My nephew, a transplanted Chicagoan, has fallen under the influence of his father and become a "die hard" fan.  Brian was not a Cub fan when he lived up north anyway, but for him to swear allegiance to the Cardinals at the age of twelve was painful.  Poor, misguided boy...

As I was nearing the end of my entry about spending a few days with my niece I heard a loud pounding noise coming from the kitchen.  I went in there to see what it was, and saw that a cardinal was continually flying into the window located above the sink that faces south.  He did it (plea for help from an ornithologist: how does one tell a male cardinal from a female???) at least ten times, and he seemed to do it harder once he saw me looking at him.

I take this as another gauntlet thrown down from the powers that be who are trying to diminish the buzz I feel about the Cubs this year.  And I can't help but compare the methods of the mascots: a cardinal thinks he can fly through reinforced glass to get what he wants, yet I picture a Cub just ringing the damn doorbell and asking for whatever he wants.

And a quick check of the standings reveals:  Cubs are 4-4, Cards are 4-6; neither team is covering themselves in glory yet.

Of course, the only stat that matters in all this is 0-0, which is the record of these two teams in head-to-head contests.  They don't play for another month or so, I believe, which is plenty of time for me to board my next plane and see a Cardinal sitting in the seat beside me.

Practicing for the future

I'm spending a few days at my sister's place in lovely, metropolitan Staunton, Illinois (population 234 + me...actually I think there's about 5000 people who live here) keeping an eye on my four year old niece while her parents work for a few days up in Chicago.  My niece's name is Erin, and her energy level is just a little bit less than the equivalent of three thousand atomic bombs.  Last night she went to sleep around 10:30, and was waking me up for breakfast at 6 this morning.  She has spent the last three hours showing me every single thing in this house that she can play with, and I'm certain that if she was just a wee bit stronger, she'd be rearranging the furniture in every room as well.

And I'm loving every second of it, because while she has been as active as the sun since I've been here (late yesterday afternoon), she has also been well behaved.  She loves bacon, and as I am standing over the stove this morning with my eyes three-quarters shut cooking on sound alone, she comes up to me and says "So, anything I can do to help?"  Um, sure, could you look over the tax returns and make sure they are correct?

It's pushing 80 here today, and she just got a new bike, so we shall be venturing outside here soon.  I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to the point in time this afternoon where she passes out for a little while (I am one of the best uncles in history when it comes to getting kids to nap) but up until then, we get to do anything we want. 

I cannot pretend that I live a life chock full of stress, at least not for the last year and a half, but there is still a lesson or two in priorities when you get the chance to spend some time one on one with a toddler.  I know that doing this 24/7 is A LOT different than doing it for a few days, but just the idea of having someone so young around you every day is intriguing, to help that person get started, form their personality, and guide them. 

I can't wait.

 

Now that I've picked myself off the floor...

...I'll pass this along (though I should say there is a bad word or two-God, am I part of the FCC now?)

Of course, this may be actual reality in a few months.

Lord, I love the political season!

Make love not war

This little tidbit has me thinking that things are getting a little ridiculous, maybe not for what happened or that these guys lost their jobs, but just for the fact that this whole FCC thing is getting old.

I read a feature yesterday that I now can no longer locate for linking that explained how the television networks are under a lot of pressure to tone down the raunch on their shows for next season.  One of the "casualties" is the Victoria's Secret fashion show (perhaps Bob Dylan can fill in...), certainly no great loss in my opinion.  Though I have never watched that show, it has never bothered me that it has been aired.  I made the decision not to watch.  I don't need the decision made for me.

Through all of this, I want to know why there is no outrage over the violence that is on television instead.  Perhaps you think I am contradicting myself by saying that Big Brother is too involved in censoring sexual situations from us as I appear to be showing my distaste for violence, but think this: sex is an issue for all of us in one way or another at some point in our lives.  Sure, we don't talk about it, but it's out there and everyone confronts it at some time.  The same cannot be said for violence.  I have never seen anything sexual on television that caused me to behave differently,but I can't say the same thing about violence.  As an example for a time when I was a young kid I used to be terrified walking down the street by myself because I pictured a passing car stopping and someone getting out and snatching me away, or shooting me.  Completely irrational?  Of course, but where do you think that irrational fear came from?  I saw it on television a few hundred times probably.

My parents did a great job at keeping us from watching adult themed television shows when we were young, but it was impossible THEN to keep us 100% isolated from violent portrayals, so I can only imagine how tough it is now for the best parents.  Why do we go nuts at an exposed breats but not at the perception of how it was done, exposed against the woman's will?  We would never think of allowing a video game of nothing but having sex, but any kid can play games that do nothing but shoot things to their heart's content.

When I am a parent, I am going to be a lot more dilligent about making sure that my kids are not exposed to unnecessary violence.  That's not to say that family movie nights will feature pornography, but as a family sexuality is going to have to be addressed at some time.  My kids will need to know it, and I won't be doing the best job I can at raising them if I ignore it.  However I feel no need to introduce them to the violence that is much more prevelant in the media (and much, much more unnecessary, I would also say), and I would much rather see the conglomerates address the amount of violence that is aired on their television shows and played on their radio stations than fire people who talk about sex, even if they do sound like morons.

The so-called moral groups who blow a gasket about the sexuality of our society while ignoring the violent aspects practice selective ignorance, which is a heck of a lot worse than uttering any f word on an awards show or showing a remnat of cleavage during an overhyped halftime spectacle.  What's more important to prevent, your child one day dealing with his or her sexual feelings, or the possibility that they will resolve a dispute with a gun?

It's a gas

I'm a little behind in my news commentaries, I realize.  I'm not going to comment on the 9/11 hearings anymore because it's the same as everything else.  No one dares admit to any fault or remorse, because it's not good for one's political bearings.  All I will say is that any rational person knows where the heap of blame lies for 9/11, squarely on the shoulders and psyches of the terrorists.  It wouldn't kill any of these people who go before this commission to express remorse that such an incident occurred.  I'd be stunned and more appreciative of any person that did, regardless of party affiliation.

So much for not talking about it.  I did see the President's latest salvo across the proverbial bow of John Kerry with his latest negative campaign ad, and I think it is brilliant in the scope of addressing an issue that GW promised to handle during his 2000 campaign, the price of gasoline.  Personally, I don't see how any president can be held directly responsible for gasoline prices, but then I also am at the point where I don't think ads such as these are directed at thinkers like me. 

The ad uses images from a Keystone Kops-like movie showing several people having difficulty with their cars, while the voice over tells us that if John Kerry were president, gasoline prices would be higher because he would push through higher taxes.  Note the required use of the words "higher" and "taxes" in the ad, as all GOP attack ads must (I believe it is in the RNC's charter).  So I see this ad and I think that GW is telling us that sure, gas prices are high, but if you think things are bad now, just wait for what you'll get if y'all elect Kerry.  Essentially, he's telling us that he's not done what he said he would, control gas prices, but that we shouldn't be so upset about it because his opponent will only make it worse.

And this is why I think it's brilliant, Bush puts it out there that he has screwed up.  He's spending money essentially to promote his failures on national television, but he also knows that the public has an attention span of 1/100th of a second, and he hopes that all people get from this is John Kerry grouped with higher taxes.

I equate this strategy with two people talking about their individual plans to rob a liquor store.  The first one actually does it, and in the process shoots the store owner in the foot.  When the police come, he tells them to go arrest the second guy instead, because if he had done it, he'd have shot the owner in the head.   

And I implore Senators McCain and Feingold to reconvene committee and amend their campaign finance reform laws to close the loophole that is ruining the negative campaign season for me.  Bush has circumvented the rule that states all candidates must claim in the ad that they have approved its message by doing so at the beginning.  I want the rule changed to specify that this claim must come at the end.  Better yet, let's make it this: any candidate who runs an attack ad must stand before the camera at the end of the ad holding a bucket of mud.  Then they must state their name, toss the mud on the camera, and say that they approved the ad as the wipe the lens clean.

When Kerry starts running ads like these I will be just as critical.  In fact, I can't believe he hasn't started doing so yet.  He must be waiting for scotch guarded boots or something.

WTF?

I just got caught up on the last two episodes of "The Shield", which I think is brutally brilliant, but I digress...anyway, during more than one commercial break of each episode I am fairly certain that I saw a Victoria's Secret advertisement with Bob Dylan in it.

Bob Dylan.  And a few models dressed in lingerie and wearing angelic wings.  Tell me how those two subjects do not scream "mutually exclusive"?

I ain't gonna get dressed on Maggie's farm no more.