Damned If You Do (pt. 3)

"Marissa, I don't want to have that fight now. I'm having THIS fight now." The frustration of trying to convince her wasn't helped by the traffic that was already accumulating around town for the big game in a few hours time.

She sounded unconvinced.

"Look, I don't know what he's up to, but somehow Bill sent me a message, dated tomorrow, telling me to bet on this long shot underdog. I think he's got some inside information or something, and rich older brother finally decided to throw me a bone here. This isn't coming from me, it's coming from the one who always said you were too good for me. Don't think of it as wiring me $1000, think of it as investing in Bill's insight."

Somehow he had achieved a rare small victory. Either from persuasion or frustration, or equal parts of both, she agreed to add to his savings, all of which was now going to be placed on the underdog CF State, and he was for the first time in a while cautiously optimistic because he thought this mysterious message from his brother might be his way out.

As game time drew near, Coach Cunningham sat in the office next to the locker room and gathered his thoughts on what he might say to rally his team. Though he'd seen quite a bit of challenge in his 19 years calling the shots, when not in front of the boys he admitted to himself that this might have been the most mismatched, most pressure-filled scenario he'd ever had to gameplan for. As he went over a few potential words to the boys in his head, he had one inescapable whim of a thought. He picked up his phone and called an old friend from childhood who had the less than reputable hobby of making sports book.

"Mark, am I still looking at taking lambs to the slaughter here?"

"Funny thing you should ask that now," said the entrepreneur, "no one believed in you until a couple of hours ago. Now we've seen a little money come in from someone out there who really thinks you've got some talent hidden there somewhere."

"Guess I have to tear up my 'It's us against the world' speech now", said Cunningham.

"What's that, #3? Just give them #4, 'people out there are counting on you.' Just promise me no one is going to give 110 percent. That's my job."


Jack settled into his seat in the stadium. Twice during the early part of the game he'd tried to phone his brother to get some explanation as to the cryptic message dated tomorrow, but he was told Bill was busy with some damned new equipment they thought might be malfunctioning.

The game looked dismal early, yet just as UCA would seem to get their feet on their rival's throats, the slightest misstep or lack of concentration proved to keep the game close and Jack's anxiety high. CF State was down by 5 but with scant time left and UCA controlling the ball, it seemed nearly done. The only complication being that UCA wasn't controlling the ball, and CF State recovered with enough time perhaps for one last push. One shot to pull off the seemingly impossible --- maybe even to buck Jack Jenkins's fate.

Dontrell sprung off the line, and within three paces had already shifted into a higher gear and left the young man tasked with covering him hopelessly lost. The end of this play would also be the end of the game, the end of the season, and if he could catch it the end of rival UCA's storied winning streak. Thoughts flashed through Dontrell's mind as he charged towards the end zone with short huffs and long strides.

He thought about his two years of running track in high school, before the coaches explained to him that his frame was filling out to a point where the 100 yards of football held more promise for college scholarship than the 100 meter dash. Still, the training of launching out of the blocks served him well here. He thought of how the play was drawn up to depend on him, and how with the final seconds ticking off the clock, the glory and the pressure that would come with this catch. Finally, his mind rested on the words of his coach.

"People out there are counting on you." Yeah, right. People were probably about to make tons of money off his talent. The college, the boosters, the coach, the networks... they were all counting on him alright, counting their dollars. The reason why football was a better career path for him than track was because they could bleed more green blood out of him as a football player. He was sticking his neck out here for some gambler to make a buck. Dontrell brushed away the negativity, he had a task at hand and had better get to concentrating.

The ball was too damned high, he thought as he saw it spin in the air. He leapt, aiming with one last chance to somehow extend his body and pull it down while still landing in bounds in the back of the end zone. With the defender far enough behind to be an afterthought, he reached out, the ball touched the tips of his fingers, and somehow rolled away as he crashed to earth in the corner of the end zone watching the winning touchdown roll off the plams of his outstretched hands. He was a quarter of a step too slow, and the replay confirmed it, CF State had lost.

Most of the entire stadium's 86,000 temporary residents fell silent, stunned and immobile. It was good camouflage for Jack Jenkins. Jack was dejected. "Just my damned luck," he said. He was out $120,000.

Damned If You Do (pt. 2)

Jack turned into the entrance to the parking garage for PERSPECTIVES, his brother Bill's corporate headquarters. The overnight security guard shuffled momentarily, more out of surprise of seeing anyone come in at this hour as opposed to any particular interest in Jack's old ride. Jack mentally scrolled through a couple of responses, finally only half-seriously intoning "BILL wants me." The guard made a quick call up to the boss's office, and then wordlessly reached over to hit a button, the effects of which included letting him in and only temporarily distorting the signal beaming Two and a Half Men to his portable rabbit-eared television.

Jack knew his way around the office building. Though he'd only been there a couple of times, it was the kind of office laid out in such a way that you knew when you were headed in the general direction of the confines of the distinguished CEO and proprietor. It was only because their relationship had continued to be reasonably civil that Jack didn't completely bristle at the glossy displays on the wall heralding the journalistic documentation of his brother's success.

"Jackie, I want to show you something... come on back here to our development area. You want a drink or something? You look like you've been run over."

"Well it is after midnight, I was getting my beauty sleep, don't you know, Mr. Chairman", Jack responded.

Bill walked along quickly, quarter-turned towards Jack, who followed a few paces behind. "So, has Marissa gotten around to dumping you yet?" There wasn't much that could cause Jack to miss a beat but that had done it. He blinked a bit and stared at his brother. "Ahhh. Oops, sorry 'bout that. Fish in the sea, so forth. Anyway this will get your mind off figuring out who to blow your dinner money on."

With that he pushed open the door to a moderate-sized work area. Pristine white computer equipment filled the back third of the room, it looked rather like a medical device hotwired into an auto garage's diagnostics display, with a few random sets of wires thrown in for good measure. One section hadn't even had its cover replaced, and various green and black circuit boards were stacked vertically inside.

"Nice equipment," said Jack, "but I bet it still can't pick the winner of the third race at Pimlico."

Bill smiled. "No, probably not. That's not exactly what we had in mind for her, though. Actually to be frank, even I don't really know all the applications for what we've managed to put together here. You see..." Bill was about ready to launch into his speech when Jack's phone chimed indicating he'd received a text message. He pulled it out and took a quick glance.

"What's it say?" his brother asked.

"It just says 'PROOF'. It's from your office. Did you send this note to me?"

Bill half-grinned. "Not yet."

"What we've... what we've stumbled across here," Bill said, as if confessing a certain degree of success through sheer chance, "is a system that can send a text message to any capable receiver, not only anywhere in the world but at any TIME... present, future, or even past."

"Here... take a look at that message on your phone. What time was it sent?"

Jack said, "Supposedly about two minutes from now. Though I can't figure that out. Must be set wrong or something."

"Nothing's wrong with your phone," said Bill with a smile as he walked over to the operator's chair in front of the system's screen. "It's working just fine. And here... is... your.... PROOF." With that he typed the word in, put in some information, and sent the note to Jack's phone in the past.

Bill went onto explain to Jack that they originally set out to design a new system by which you could write a text message and send it at a later date instead of immediately. So when someone tells you their birthday is July 18th, you can program in to send them a text message of HAPPY BDAY at any time, and set it to send on that day rather than having to remember. He acknowledged it was an admittedly small idea, but then it was a string of those small ideas that had made him a small fortune in patents and product offerings.

Earlier that day, one of his newer engineers was "re-jiggering" the system when she noticed something odd... She mis-entered the date and mistakenly instructed the computer to send a note to the day before rather than 5 minutes later on the test phone by her side. He said she was even more confused when she looked at the test phone and saw it seemed to have received the message successfully the day before.

"I don't understand it entirely myself," said Bill, "but the best as I can figure... the entire computer network, all transmission of data is binary...."

"Ones and zeroes, ones and zeroes..." Jack interrupted.

"Yeah. Well, coordinates in time in the future are all ones and zeroes too, tomorrow's just another date to a machine. Somehow, it seems... in the entire continuum of things, yesterday was too."

"You tried to build a way to save messages to send them to the future, and accidentally stumbled across a way to send them to the past too." Jack summarized. Bill nodded once and smiled.

Jack took a moment to ponder the admittedly weighty idea. He was understandably skeptical. "I have to voice the obvious questions, of course..."

"You mean why don't we send a message back and prevent 9/11, or Pearl Harbor. Yeah. Well, first you need to have the target number you're going to send it to. You don't have the President's cell number on you, do you?" Jack turned up his palms in mock apology to acknowledge the joke. "There's also the pesky little notion of what you would say. 'Hi I'm from the future and I'm contacting you to tell you what evil's about to befall you.' Hmmph. Oh, and you have to do all that, believably, in 8 letters or less. It seems that's about all we can get through. I guess after that you're technically on to the next instant."

"If you're on the precipice of... a new era of unlocking access to the fourth dimension..." Jack began, choosing his words carefully.

"...then where is all the information from the future back in our history..." finished Bill. "I don't know. But then, who would? Edison had more than a thousand patents and no formal education to speak of. Shakespeare used thousands of words no one had ever seen or heard before. They told Edwin Drake he was crazy for drilling in the ground to find oil."

Jack smiled. "You've been rehearsing that last little bit, haven't you?"

"Well," his brother smirked, "I have to have my Nobel Prize speech ready. Anyway, I know whenever I'm standing on the precipice of et cetera et cetera blah blah, I could use a good stiff slug in me. Scotch?"

"Oh hell yes. Yes, yes, yes. Capital idea old chum." Jack responded.

"I'll get some, hang tight here." Bill said, and left the room.

Jack sat by himself in the room in the quiet office, alone with the hum of the machine and the glow from its display screen. Then it occurred to him what he had to do.

He walked over to the terminal, sat down, and promptly sent a message to himself a day before. It said, simply, "BET CFST".

END OF PART 2

Damned If You Do

Dontrell sprung off the line, and within three paces had already shifted into a higher gear and left the young man tasked with covering him hopelessly lost. The end of this play would also be the end of the game, the end of the season, and if he could catch it the end of rival UCA's storied winning streak. Thoughts flashed through Dontrell's mind as he charged towards the end zone with short huffs and long strides.

He thought about his two years of running track in high school, before the coaches explained to him that his frame was filling out to a point where the 100 yards of football held more promise for college scholarship than the 100 meter dash. Still, the training of launching out of the blocks served him well here. He thought of how the play was drawn up to depend on him, and how with the final seconds ticking off the clock, the glory and the pressure that would come with this catch. Finally, his mind rested on the words of his coach. No one believed in them. No one thought they would even make it this far, and certainly didn't think they belonged in this championship game. No one thought they were as good as UCA. No one except Dontrell and his coach. It was the extra push he needed in his step.

The ball was too damned high, he thought as he saw it spin in the air. He leapt, aiming with one last chance to somehow extend his body and pull it down while still landing in bounds in the back of the end zone. With the defender far enough behind to be an afterthought, he reached out, the ball stuck to the tips of his fingers, and he crashed to earth in the corner of the end zone cradling the winning touchdown in the palms of his outstretched hands. The replay confirmed it, CF State had won.

Most of the entire stadium's 86,000 temporary residents roared, jumped, and hugged. Among the few not particularly celebratory was Jack Jenkins. Jack was dejected. "Just my damned luck", he said, speaking only to his left palm, which was covering his face while his head shook in disbelief and disgust. One 20 year old young man's catch had just cost Jack $119,000, his home, his old car, and perhaps all of his very few remaining favors from family and friends. Perhaps as importantly, the improbable win had cost Jack the last vestige of hope to somehow dust off what had become an unmistakeably crappy life. Had Jack been honest with himself, he would have acknowledged that it was largely his own choices along the way that led to him being The Great Bill Jenkins's screw-up little brother. But admitting that would be like admitting that relying on a shady way out of a shady situation often yields only the shadiest of results. Jack had spent enough time biting the slim remains of his fingernails and employing every conceivable use of the F word, the stadium had mostly emptied. Jack slunk out and back to spend what might be the last night in what until just now had been his house.

Marissa having finally left him the week before, Jack sat in a torn folding chair with his two remaining friends on the kitchen table --- a black revolver and a bottle of Early Times whiskey. His thoughts continued to come back to an even darker way to break his seemingly unbreakable spiral. His silence was interrupted by a song.

"Happy Days are Here Again". He'd chosen it as the tone on his cellphone, not because of any optimism, more out of a sense of sarcasm and irony. It was his brother, Bill, calling.

"Jack, I want you to come by my office. I've got something to show you. It's pretty, well... I can't quite explain it but I think I've really got something here. And, well, since you're the only guy I know who's probably up at this hour... anyway just get on over here when you can."

END OF PART 1

stay tuned...

I've been rolling an idea around in my head, and as a result I've got about 2/3 of an idea for a short story "done". Hope I can get it to work...

and how bout that airline food?

I once knew a guy who was allergic to cotton.

Yeah, was sad... he had medicine for it but couldn't get it out of the bottle.

this message brought to you by...

This message is gonna sound like a plant, but anyway it'll be easier to write than "The Shoulder Geography Theory of Relative Queeritude", which I tried to post last night... stay tuned for that one I guess...

Have you seen www.hulu.com?? It's pretty cool. Earlier today I picked from a whole bunch of episodes of Alfred Hitchcock, then I watched some SNL clips. They even have full length movies. Not public domain crap, but Usual Suspects and stuff. Right now I'm watching Firefly. Which sorta defeats the purpose of me ordering it from Netflix, but anyway they get my money at the end of the month regardless. Hulu's free though :)


Just the occasional ad while you're watching. Give it a shot. Or don't, that's fine too.


Drawing to the end-ish of a pretty nice and mostly relaxing weekend. Yesterday I got churched up some with my mom and TLMS. Today was taking it easy, and despite some very minor aggravations (couldn't seem to get an errand run right somehow), all told things are pretty good :)

happens to the best of us

Happy 35, seeester!

I just... I can't even...

http://wii.ign.com/articles/856/856016p1.html

Videogame publisher Mastiff on Friday revealed that it is developing an exclusive new WiiWare title called Major League Eating: The Game. The effort will debut with the launch of Nintendo's WiiWare service on May 12, but the company has not yet set a Wii Point value.

According to Mastiff, the project will make extensive use of the Wii remote to "simulate the fast and furious action of a professional eating contest."

A Wii game that is virtual competitive eating.

Damn. I think there was a mistranslation, and this might be one of the 7 signs.
I think back to those news stories about people throwing the Wiimote through the TV when it slips loose. How ironic would it be if someone was playing virtual Major League Eating and accientally choked on the controller?

Ask yourself... WWPD

I feel silly even broaching this subject because Presidents Day has become so pervasive in our culture, but let me be among the many today to ponder "What Would Polk Do?"

Yes, we've taken one day and used it to combine the nearly four dozen men who have served as President of the United States. Well, that and celebrate 10 percent off furniture.

How will you mark the day? We're doing the usual... a party where you come dressed as your favorite period from the early career of Chester A. Arthur! But please, when hanging decorations that commemorate the achievements of the William Henry Harrison administration. Wheee!

Of course, as you're listening to James Buchanan songs on your local radio station, try to remember some guys like Lincoln and Washington too, they used to have holidays some time around now.

PS, James Buchanan was queer. It's true, look it up.

The Godfather in 2 minutes

Good stuff.

Was the USS Danger Mouse already taken?

So, it appears the Navy announced three new submarines...

http://www.dailypress.com/business/dp-biz_subs_0131jan31,0,3128429.story?track=rss

The Missouri, the California, and the Mississippi.

Great.

So it appears my petitions to name a boat the USS Bring Back Quantum Leap and Max Headroom To the NBC Evening Line-Up continue to go completely ignored.

Ramblings from the S.S. Tempurpedic

Geez, I really hope this blog isn't deteriorating into a running update on my internet status... I can't think of much more boring... I swear I'm going to get to something interesting towards the end, I just have to mentally sort of work up to it...anyway I finally had to give in today and get set up with cable internet access in my apartment. Not going to stay what company it is, because I know (onaccounta it's kinda what I do for a living) that companies sweep blogs looking for mentions of their name. Let's just say the greedy bastards rhyme with Schmomcast! ;-)

One of the things that was stopping me was the regular cost, about $60 a month. I signed a promotional rate of $26 or so that lasts for six months... so I guess this entry is also a reminder to myself to cancel 6 months from this date!

I had to go and visit the Arepa Fairy today. I went over to the South Beach Art Deco Festival... I could say it was to just generally look around and see if I wanted to pick up anything for future decorating needs, or to enjoy a nice day out in Miami, but honestly I just go for the fair food. Hey, walking 10 blocks and back burns off a fried arepa, right? Oh umm and a chocolate dipped banana on a stick. There is one exhibit I like seeing, old ads from magazines and postcards and such, old Coke ads and baseball players hawking cigarettes and whatnot. I didn't see anything worth getting there. I did buy a little elephant made from a Coke can, cute lil' fella.

Then there's the subject I've been kind of avoiding... partially because I'm still not really sure how I want to discuss this... we lost a friend this week. In a way that might be best described as being... confusing. I don't suppose someone passing is necessarily always SUPPOSED to "answer any questions", but this is different. When my dad passed a couple of years back, there was time to prepare. Of the few people who actually read these things, nearly everyone will already know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, maybe you can piece it together by my ramblings. Some of us guys got together last night to try to go through it all a bit, and also just to get out. The way guys do --- which is to say with more than a little libations.

Well then. So this blog does get into things besides where I'm connecting from, or wondering aloud where one goes to buy Franken Berry cereal these days, or why Foreigner songs sound like they were written by an 8 year old.

Please please PLEASE don't throw me in de briar patch!!!

So, seems my options are pay 60 bucks a month for Internet access, or come sit out by the water and look at downtown while I work in the nice soft breeze.

That's fine, ya know, so long as it's not, umm, raining. Then I'm stuck with just the Wii. Which, by the way, I'm now completely ignoring the little thing that tells you how long you've been playing games for. I think soon a little helpful signal is going to chime up and say "Go the F--- outside, kid. And don't take your laptop."

Some sort of record

I guess this means I've been blogging for three years. Wheee! That puts me ahead of, oh, about 10 million blogs or so, including lots of big corporations. You just know that somewhere out there, a bubble wrap manufacturer thought the world wanted to hear the musings and philosophies of the assistant VP of operations on the dinner menu at BubbCON 2007.

Was tough watching the FSU game last night... by all logical standards, Nole fans should be happy to have finished like we did... figure 30+ players didn't make the trip (mostly because of that whole pesky "not cheating" thing). The game started with an ugly flubbed punt (that actually involved all the frontline players anyway), and an opponent FSU probably wouldn't have been given a chance against even if they HAD been full strength... to take it down to the last play of the game IS respectable. And that's with being on the goal line once and coming away without any points...

Still... hard to argue with the immortal and oft-replayed words of Herm Edwards, then Jets coach when asked whether he would throw an end of the year game to get a better draft pick. "You play to WIN THE GAME!"

As such, losing does in fact still suck. And "moral victories" aren't any better English than "it is what it is."

in other news

So, I heard that Michigan finally got their new football head coach, and it's someone they think will really help with experience luring high school athletes. Yeah, apparently they're giving the job to Jamie-Lynn Spears.


Or maybe I shouldn't try reading the news from USA Today over a guy's shoulder in the airport.

Travelin' Uncle Matt goes to...

http://johnspartan.blogspot.com/2007/01/laptop-thing-aka-my-own-personal.html

back to the scene of the crime. I'm going to DC for business... actually a client is flying me up and putting me in a hotel pretty much just to take me to lunch. I'm so sexy.

PS since I never concluded that other story --- let's just say that when you have the time you got a cab, the location you got it, the address it dropped you off at, the cab number and the driver's license #, lost possessions sometimes have a tendency to "appear at lost and found". No thanks to the freaking DC po-po, or the cab company, or the cab authority...

Meanwhile I'm STILL getting headaches from the fact that I reported the checks stolen and then told the bank I got them back. Ugh.

Anyway, this trip should be nice. Up and back, I return tomorrow night. And then a Christmas party Friday and a Christmas party Saturday (one of THREE we were invited to... not only am I sexy and 29 I'm a social freaking butterfly 8-))

Can't actually blame TLMS for the fact I haven't been posting much... blame the mystery neighbor who is no longer donating wireless service to me. Fascists!

technicalities

Got caught at a Christmas party on what some might see as a small yet critical detail... for reasons I still can't particularly articulate, though if nothing else at least now I have a new story for people who are bored of "Alabama Girl".

Very nice event, at a lovely home on the water, hosted by family friends from back before my days anyway... and I somehow introduced TLMS as "My wif.... errr girlfriend, Sarah".

I can't think of anything better then that's how I've heard people presented at parties over the years... though that doesn't even make sense to me and I said it!

Helpful advice from Carrie, as per usual... the guidance to "don't screw this up." Always a good idea.


Happy 29th birthday Katie Holmes!

In retrospect, maybe "1-800-HEY-BUSH" wasn't the best super-secret phone number...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3973925&page=1

Seems a 16 year old kid in Iceland (may have) called the private unlisted number of the White House to invite W. to come over and play reindeer games.

Hell, if Ellen can get him, I don't see why Gunther the dialin' Iceberg can't.

The Rudy Thing

Among my friends and also in the conservative media, I've heard a lot of people try to make the case for Rudy Giuliani, esp. when it comes to his credentials as a "true conservative".

It seems the conversation generally goes something like this.

"Well, sure he's got a record and tradition of being pro-choice, but he'll change when he's president instead of mayor!"

"Well, sure he has a different position on homosexuality from a lot of the party, but that won't come up when he's president."

"Well, sure he's not strong on gun control, but he's said he'll be different as president."

Well, why should we vote for him, then?"

"Why, because of everything he's done as mayor, of course!"


Hmmm...

There's the whole "he can beat Hillary" thing... and despite the media's desperate desire for a horse race in the lefty scuffle I still say I wouldn't bet against her with money I'd found. And Rudy vs. Hillary doesn't poll considerably better than the other leading candidates on the right against her.

Now, if you want to get into a really nuanced argument, and start looking at states like New Jersey as being possible swings, okay. But I'm not even convinced that those that might vote for Rudy as the GOP candidate outnumber those who would be less than enthused by him being the head of the ticket and stay home.

how exactly do you raise awareness on something everybody already knew?

http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2793

More kudos to Al Gore for raising awareness on the delicate nature of the environment, his revelation from the last year that got him a Nobel Peace (PEACE?) Prize and an Oscar and an island in the South Pacific and a free date with Carrie Underwood...

So nice of him to draw attention to this issue that has never been raised before.

Except, ya know, his own book Earth in the Balance 15 years ago before his two terms as Vice President of the United States, Time Magazine naming Earth as the endangered planet man of the year 20 years ago, 35+ years of Boo Production Yay Earth Day hippie festivals...

I can make it there... but why would I want to?

Was asked the other day with incredulity (incredulity is a 10 cent woid) why I don't move to New York City and take an offer there.

Offhand, ummm... one good reason is that this is the view from my apartment building.








Another is that it's 74 degrees out with a 13 mph wind right now.

Being 28 and having to have someone explain to you what the phrase "Wintry Mix" means isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Helps that it's 10 minutes to the office, and I'm NOT paying unreal rent for my place that would be "big" by any NYC standards.

more random thoughts

Couple of things that have bouncing around in my noggin that I find randomly amusing... not enough for whole blogs but just some "how bout that airline food" style observations.

- That segment of Jeopardy when Trebek talks with the contestants about some interesting little vignette from their lives... years now, I don't think I've ever heard anyone actually having ever done anything interesting, ever. I may not know a lot of the works of 18th century French painters, but you can damn well be sure that if I had a mic in my face on national television, my most interesting story would not be "I ate four straight sandwiches once. Yeah, when I was a kid, I was really hungry. They weren't the same kind though, they were different."

- The best part about Vinny Testaverde starting again in the NFL is that it's great to see one more guy in the league who was in Tecmo Super Bowl. I hope he holds that fact in proper admiration.

- Ron Paul fans are strange. This coming from a confessed semi-Libertarian... that's a damned odd bunch. Honestly the whole lot of them should probably be checked or made to pee in a cup or some such thing.

- I hope Edwina never becomes a normal-sounding name.

- They should have a new legal standard that says you can't file suit if you're freaking stupid. If you see a TV commercial where a car skids around snow and ice and slides effortlessly into a parking lot, and your mortal coil is SAVED by a little line across the bottom that says "Professional Driver, do not attempt"... if THAT's what causes you to set the keys back down and not try to tow an elephant up Mount Kilimanjaro, you're honestly probably best not left unsupervised to begin with and will surely find some other way to hurt yourself. Hopefully not too many others have to pay for your ignorance.

- I could sit down right now and spend 3 hours playing the original Legend of Zelda and not think twice about it. I have to wonder if 20 years from now, people will say how re-playable anything on store shelves today would be.

- Lists of mini-rants are "hella-lame".

pinko anti-smokers

Sort of a random entry... but then hey it is a vanity blog.

Have you been watching TV lately (and by lately I mean in the last decade or so) and seen an anti-smoking commercial come on?

Well no, really, you pretty much haven't. Here's why.

The commercials don't really focus on "cigarette smoking stands a good chance of crapping out your health."

Instead, we get year after year, hour after hour of "Tobacco companies are a bunch of lying bitches! They're really, really evil companies."

What would be the process of berating the public repeatedly to try and convince them that tobacco companies are sinners? Could it be a coincidence that lawsuits against these companies have yielded like bashing a pinata?

Bothered me in some of the elections I worked in, I'd hear "oh we're going to use the tobacco settlement money to build new schools"... "Elect me and the tobacco settlement money will pay so that every stoplight has red, yellow, and a green light that not only flashes but yells FREAKING GOOOOOOOOO!" (actually I rather like that last idea). Gee I thought the tobacco settlement money was supposed to recoup state government accrued HEALTH CARE costs.

Besides, so long as huge taxes are on cigarettes... taxes that pay for all sorts of pet social causes... they don't REEEALLY want you to stop smoking. They just want to have their "bad guy".

Besides, it's all capitalism. I don't recall hearing in all of these Truth Meanie McAssalots! commercials ever suggesting that the companies tied people down and forced them to el puffo against their will.

Try some Chewlies Gum instead.

Starring Faye Dunaway and Burt Reynolds

I think in the 70s they should have just made one movie called "Kung Fu Black Indian Disco Trucker Cop" and gotten the whole fad over with.

A night with Bambi

After 11 and I'm just getting up... two long days in NYC working and flew back later than I expected.

One of those days where I go to bed, and wake up, and when I get out of bed I stumble around like a baby deer learning how to walk!

Going to a seafood festival today with TLMS, and then to watch FSU - Bama. Should be a good day :)

Our Lady Of the Blessed Weinke

Had a great weekend last week, always nice when something you've been looking forward to for about 4 months actually ends up going very nicely.

Somehow and for some reason, TLMS agreed to travel with me to Tallahassee. The occasion was really twofold --- go to a home FSU game and visit with my best friend in recognition of 10 years (!) since we first met and became fast friends. That and a chance to run around all my old haunts, threefold (our chief weapon is fear, fear and surprise...)

10 years ago... hmm... I was a lot thinner, a bit more starry-eyed, and convinced I was headed for a career in politics. But I'm not going to head down that introspective path this time around, gonna stick with this week's trip.

Was more than a little bit nervous about spending the second straight weekend that would consist of three full days with the main squeeze. But I knew this would be a blast.

Was a bit funny, variations on a theme...
Friday:
"Oh look, a Bible Education Center, see I bet you'd like working there."
"We're not moving here."

Saturday: "See these houses out here? They cost about the same as your condo."
"Yeah, ummm, see we're NOT moving."

Sunday: "What should we do this afternoon?"
"I dunno, go see a real estate agent?"
"We're NOT moving here."

I do have to give TLMS credit for (at least) one irrefutable point though --- one that I have to hold up like a marble and admire from all sides... which basically was along the lines of "Who would want to move to a college town when they're not even a fan of that school?"

Still, we had fun. Carrie's littlun was amazingly well-behaved when you consider that "gameday" basically meant being oat and aboat on her best behavior for about 6 hours and well past her bedtime. There was another little Nolita there so that helped.

What might have been the most memorable experience from the weekend though, and the one referenced in the title of the post (sorry it took so long for me to get to this point) was that we went to a unique sort of church service on Sunday. It was actually my idea to go to one while we were in town, I thought it'd be a nice touch and we had time... plus I guess subconsciously I thought it would make the idea of spending a weekend up there more palatable!

This is a new church community, I think they said about 5 years old, that is still raising funds to build a church in "downtown" (hah!) Tallahassee. Meanwhile, they're meeting in the Tallahassee Little Theatre, which is about exactly what you'd figure a community theater would look like. It wasn't surreal enough to see a church service not in a church though --- I mean say what you want about today's churches but I'm used to seeing things on a stage as being admittedly fiction!!

No, add to that the stage was still decorated for whatever little show they happened to be doing now. Very weird to get The Word from a typical 1940s house community stage set. I half-expected to see a marquee out front with "10 AM Seek and Ye Shall Find... 1 PM Waiting for Godot"

Also memorable was something I'll likely never find in another town. Wisdom imparted with metaphors and stories in the sermon using as illustration what else? The Seminoles, of course. I've always said I need sermons to relate things to points of reference I can understand and identify with --- well, any service where I hear an appreciation in times of adversity being compared to the 1993 FSU - Gator game and get a virtual play-by-play of Charlie Ward to Warrick Dunn as a way to clear up the Gospel, well...

You know the old teaching movie cliche where the HS teacher gets the kids to behave in class by relating classic literature to their own problems? (Weee Hamlet's mom is a whore and a bunch of people die!) Well, comparing the saturday afternoon tradition with Sunday morning tradition does not suck.

I could go be smarter... or prettier...

If you haven't seen this yet (and it's hard not to have seen it if you're active enough on the Internet to be here). Miss Teen USA South Carolina... wow. Not a resounding endorsement of my friends in the South.

Neither is the news that The new state motto of Mississippi is apparently "Home of the FattyfatFatties."

Nice to have some states OTHER than Florida being laughingstocks for a change.

zen and the ancient art of Pac-Man

This is a... "mockumentary" from SNL in the early 80s, about "video game junkies". Pretty funny stuff. Not too far of a cry from those days to the home systems and people who are hooked on Madden and Halo and such.

"when you're doing the donk..."

Like all good satire, it works partially cuz it makes ya uncomfortable... laughing about addiction and abuse.

I think about when someone was asking Mel Brooks about why he so often jokes about Nazis and Hitler, which would seem to most people to be an odd subject for an older Jewish person to be making light of. He made the point that if you can laugh AT someone, if you can make fun of that person despite their complete hatred of you and despite whatever their actions are, you are in a true position of power. In a sense, if you can really laugh at your demons, you are most of the way to conquering them.

Hmmm... I didn't expect this post to be so philosophical, I just wanted to share that video clip. But anyway, there it is.

an important anniversary approaches

August 22, 2007 will mark a very important anniversary... one that commemorates something which has become critical to me and come to take up much of my time...

I am speaking, of course, about the 20th anniversary of the release of the Legend of Zelda for the NES.

I lost HUNDREDS of hours to that game. I still know it enough to be able to sit down in front of it and remember where all the secrets and all the hidden levels are.

And that was BEFORE I went to college and downloaded the emulator onto my PC. Wild crazy college guy that I was.

You think I'm kidding, you haven't heard my ringtone.



Oh, it's also 5 months for me and TheLovelyMissSarah (who may or maynot be herein referred to as TLMS). That too.

I'm cheating on someone...

That'd be me...

I'm starting a new blog for the Miami Seminole Club... check it out from its very creation at http://miaminoles.blogspot.com.