Signs

More signs that the world keeps spinning off kilter:

1.  In Toronto, a couple refuses to reveal the gender of their 4 month old baby.  They feel that such info is "private" until such time as the child is old enough to declare their own gender preference. 
The baby, named "Storm" and referred to by the pronoun "it," did not return our calls.

2. Cognitive dissonance.  The recent rampage of killer storms in places like Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas has created terrible destruction, death and injury.  It is always galling when one of the survivors attributes their personal escape from death to "God's grace."   If God was involved at all, didn't he kill a lot of people and animals?  Where was the blessing in that?

3.  When the promised May 21st Rapture did not happen, Harold Camping the nutjob who predicted Armageddon, and who apparently had NOT sold off all his earthly assets, calmly revised the forecast to October 21.  Some people will still believe him, despite every evidence that his reading of the Bible's prophecies is seems flawed.

4.  Coors beer thinks that their customers are so dumb that they need a "cold activation indicator" on the cans and labels of their brew.  Clearly the problem of the ages was that beer guzzlers could not tell when the beer was cold enough to drink.  Perplexed beer hounds roamed the streets of Colorado like zombies chanting "Is my beer cold yet?"

The initial cold indicator has now been supplemented with a Super Cold activation level, which will only turn blue when the can has been in a refrigerator or ice chest.  Whew.  Glad they solved that one!

Pomp and Circumstance

I grew up in Watertown, MA and  I write a somewhat weekly column for the local Patch.com called Hometown Connections. 

One of the recent Patch news stories caught my attention: Watertown High School's graduation will be held On June 3,in the gymnasium this year because Victory Field is not available due to the renovation project.

The story  brought back memories of my own high school graduation at Victory field in 1960.

Folding chairs for the graduates were set-out on the football field, facing the temporary stage/podium. Parents and family members sat in the football stands. It was one of those warm June days. The sun was still high in the clear western sky. The air of excitement and anticipation was like an electric current running through the 360 graduates.......

Read more,  click here:   http://watertown.patch.com/articles/graduation-flashback




image ©2007 Academic Church and Choir Gown Mfg. Co., Inc



Signs of Madness III

 One enterprising pagan appeals to gullible guilt-ridden Christians who can't take their pets with them when the next Rapture comes.  See the ad http://www.aftertherapturepetcare.com/

More Signs of Madness

I happen to think Sarah Silverman is funny, but I must protest the judgement of FOX to invite her to the announcer's booth.  I was watching the game when Buck and the other guy forgot about the game and let her lamely complain that the Red Sox won too many games.  She preferred them when they were losers.  It was inane and inappropriate.  I found myself wishing Dennis Eckersley -who is awful - was there instead, talking about cheese.
If you missed it, click here:  "Sarah Silverman popped into the Fox booth to chat with Joe Buck during the 4th inning of Saturday night's Red Sox vs. Yankees game, and it quickly got weird"

Signs That The World Has Gone Mad

1. Judiciary Republicans kill bill blocking gun sales to suspected terrorists.  Check this out http://thehill.com/homenews/house/161037-judiciary-republicans-kill-bill-blocking-gun-sales-to-suspected-terrorists  - Reps. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (Wis.) and Louie Gohmert (Texas) — argued that restricting [handgun] sales to people on the FBI Terrorist watch list would violate the Second Amendment rights of those placed on the list by mistake.


2. Ashton Kutcher to replace Charley Sheen on 2.5 Men.  Why would anyone watch Ashton Kutcher?
Dude Where's my barfbag?

3.Mitt Romney hates Obamacare but still defends Romneycare.

4. Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Ron Paul.  Ha ha hah ah ha

5.  NATO support for rebels in Lybia.  WTF does NATO stand for?  (If you guessed "selectively helping some rebels overcome a regime we don't like" you are incorrect.)


Shall I go on?

Navy Seals We Salute You

Yes we salute the good guys who ended Osama's reign with a double tap.  Now he sleeps with the fishes.
One could only have wished that they could have vidotaped him in a suicide vest to see how he liked it when some one hit the button.

Word has it that there was a typo and I hope he is happy with 72 vegans.

If I Were Emperor

I know that I promised to avoid talking  politics here, and to leave the opinionating to more bombastic blatherers, like my friend George ... But lately, the news has been so crazy that I cannot sit idely quiet on the sidelines anymore. 
The country is surely going down the tubes when one conceivable scenario for 2012 election  pits the incumbent mediocre-at-best President against a shallow self-promoting real estate billionaire who has never won an elective office. I think we need an alternative.  Which is why I am running to be elected as Your Emperor.

Under my regime:

No Air Traffic Controllers would fall asleep. Anyone caught asleep would be terminated immediately and charged with attempted murder.  Their Immediate supervisor would also be terminated, and that person's manager would be required to prove that they had done everything in their power to avoid fatigue among workers.


Piracy on the seas would be stopped.  Troops would be removed from Iraq and sent to occupy Somalia. They would capture and kill suspected pirates, free hostages and sink all watercraft associated with piracy.  Pirate leaders would be beheaded and buried with the carcass of a pig.

Healthcare would be simple.  All current laws will be abolished and the federal role in healthcare would be reduced to 15 pages of  12 point double spaced text.  

All Government benefits would be means tested.  Medicare, social security, free cheese. 

All prisons would be "hard time."  No TV, no Gym, no visitors, no access to phone or computer, no cigarettes, nothing but hard work, isolation, regret for one's crimes. Parole would be abolished.  Government officials found guilty of corruption would get double sentences. Sentences could only be commuted by public referrendum held in the relevant community.

Illegal immigration will be stopped. Every citizen will be required to carry a photo ID card, which must be presented every time they vote, cash a check, go to a doctor, use a pay toilet, enter a casino, etc.   Every citizen in the country will be fingerprinted and dna sample taken when their ID card is issued. 

Current federal tax code would be abolished and replaced with a no-loopholes 15% flat tax on all wages, dividends, gains, or other form of income.  Exception: Government benefits would not be taxed, because that is just plain silly.

All subsidies would be abolished.  Any industry that cannot fund itself, has no business being in business.

99% of troops deployed to Europe. Asia, Middle East and worldwide will be withdrawn in an orderly manner.  Former military bases and equipment will be sold to the host countries.  Troops will be redeployed to restore control of our inner cities, eliminate illegal gang and mob activities.  Also, troops will be deployed at critical borders and seaports to quell attempts to smuggle drugs or people or to create havoc among us. 

99% of  all foreign aid will be withdrawn over a 3 year period.  Immediately no US aid would be spent on military hardware.

This would just be for starters. 
I am not like those other politicians.  Elect me Emperor and I will fix everything. 
Honestly.

Birther Blowhard Barge Sinks. No Survivors.

Barack Obama has just launched a giant torpedo of truth that blows a huge hole below the waterline of the USS Trump-for-President. .

Trump had his noisy run at political opportunism during the past few weeks, getting attention by aligning himself with the whack jobs who have made Obama's citizenship their central issue.  Now those questions are finally answered. 

The Donald says he is proud of himself, but by finally releasing his birth certificate Obama essentially says to Candidate Trump: "You're Fired."

There is zero credibility left in the billionaire blowhard's believability quotient, since he staked his reputation on the "unbelievable" things that his army of researchers had discovered in Hawaii.  All gas and no beans.  Do not mourn as the candidacy disappears beneath the waves.  Do not throw life savers to the rats who will be scurrying to safety as the thin-hulled vessel sinks to the bottom. He got his face on everyone's TV; his ego is intact.
======
As for Obama, he tells us he has more important things to work on.  This is a silly issue.
I can't help hearing a haunting echo, remembering Bill Clinton's scolding rebuke to reporters when he was in denial about Ms Lewinski. 

Unfortunately, for those of us who never thought O's citizenship was a concern, the fact that Obama could have easily released the birth certificate anytime over the past several years, raises a series of perplexing questions:  Why?   Why didn't he do it sooner?  How come the Press reported that Hawaii laws forbade release of the "long form" original?   Who can we trust to tell us the truth in a timely manner?

Watching The Bruins vs Canadiens Game 5

It really bother me to say this but I find that I cannot stand to hear females announce the play-by-play at male-only team sporting events like hockey and football.   I am not anti-chick, but I just cannot sit there and listen to it.  And why are they all babes?  It's a distraction.   If they can't find a homely gal dressed in sweats with a deep voice,  I would rather change the station. 

Come to think of it most sports announcers talk too much anayway..  Most of the time I keep the TV on mute.

Is it me, or do other guys feel this way too?

Don't Look For Me At Red Sox Opener

 

It has been many years now since I have set foot in Fenway Park to watch a game, mainly because the cost of actually sitting in the stands for me is dramatically out-of-proportion to the value of the experience, not to mention that the size of the seats is uncomfortably out-of-proportion to the space required by my posterior.



You often hear people say that there is “Nothing like being there” to watch a baseball game live at Fenway Park. But, with a zero out of six record, why would I want to endure the cost and inconvenience of trying to get my XXL butt into one of those size M seats just to watch the Yankees pummel the crap out of our guys?

Who are all these new guys anyhow?  What happened to the old days when a player would stay with a team for most of his career?  How do you suddenly love the shortstop who you hated last season when he was in another uniform?  This constant, incestuous marketing of bodies to the highest bidder does not inspire loyalty to a player or a team;  It's a reminder that these guys are not "playing" they are actually working.  Ho-hum.

Then there is the concession food at Fenway Park.  Besides costing an arm and a leg, it is probably hazardous to your health. Junk food raised to an art form. (I've often thought that "Red Sox Fever" was a real malady that you get from eating undercooked sausages.)  I hear you arguing that they have not failed any inspections since 2008, but I have my suspicions.

 I heard that they are serving sushi this year and hard liquor, too.  Ka-ching  @ $15 a pop.  And, now the affluent drunks in the stands can get even more obnoxious after pounding-down double mai tais, further adding to the being there experience.   If you needed another reason to watch the games from your safe, sanitary, suburban couch, this may be it.

Considering the risk of almost certain death by salmonella or some flesh-eating virus, plus the other inconveniences, I have so many reasons to stay home and watch the games in Hi Def Digital on my big flat screen TV – where I can languish in air-conditioned privacy in my comfortable leather armchair, refreshed by a reasonably priced, frosty beer to wash down my fresh, home-cooked sausage, that has NOT been prepared on filthy counter tops in the presence of insects and rodents. If I need to pause for the cause, I do not need to stand in a line of grumpy beer drinkers with distended bladders. When the game is over, I do not have to compete with 39,000 other fans to get a ride back to my house in the suburbs. Parking in my driveway is free.

So, I ask you true blue ticket buying fans, what am I missing, besides the chills and fever?

Radio Thoughts

I have become acustomed to the reality that I am outside the target age demographic whose ratings decide what gets on the radio.

Apparently, advertisers have concluded that retired people don't spend money.  I guess they think we are either broke, or that we already have perfect teeth, sufficient tire tread, and dry basements. We are never polled to find out what makes us change the radio dial.  No one cares what we think.

Fine.  I have mostly stopped listening to commercial radio - especially the right wing talk shows that seem to me to be a melange of 50% commercial message and 51% mindless conservative rants about how Obama is doing EVERYTHING wrong, and all liberals are dangerous, unpatriotic, unwitting tools of socialism.

If you are looking for interesting talk, you need to listen to NPR.  I do not deny that there is a liberal bias on NPR, but they do attempt to give a balanced treatment to news and a thoughtful discussion - which is absolutely absent in the rants of local commercial station talk guys like Jay Severin and Howie Carr. The callers who get to be on the show are little more than a claque of adoring fans who echo the rants of the "host".   Years ago I enjoyed tuning in to these guys, because they were entertaining, funny, even thoughtful.  Now they seem boring, predictable and deadly serious.

I remember the old days when intelligent and thoughtful guys like Gene Burns and David Brudnoy were the  talk show hosts you always listened to.  They did not browbeat you with their politics or provoke discussion by appealing to prejudice, ignorance and fear.

So, most of my presets on the car radio are to local college stations which carry news or music, a minimum of advertising and not much talk.  During the past week or so all the so called non-commercial stations have been running fundraisers, instead of playing music.  So I have been shutting off the radio and talking to myself instead.  Pretty interesting dialogue, if you ask me.

Years ago, 96.9FM ran with the call letters WJIB and they played 55 minutes of smooth jazz every hour. It was one of my favorites.  Now,  WJIB 750 AM  is commercial free and plays a stream  of what they call adult standard music from the 50's and 60's.  My wife calls it "the geriatric soundtrack."   The owner Bob is also the DJ.  He bought the radio station and refuses commercials so he can play the music he likes.

If I win Powerball Jackpot, that will be my goal too.  Free music, no talk, no annoying marketing.

Spring notes

The  snow squalls of yesterday didn't stick to the pavement but left a fugacious blanket of white on the lawns.  Today, even that pale remnant of winter has all but disappeared under partly sunny skies of spring.

Reprise of my Favorite St Paddy's Day Poem

St. Patrick’s Day



Fake Irishmen wearing silly green ties
Calling with bad brogues
for a wee dram of green beer
In bars festooned with shamrocks
Pipes and cartoon leprechauns.
They sing a slurred verse of Danny Boy
Like tone deaf drunken goats,
Set the dogs to barking.

Amateurs: they end-up
puking on their Italian loafers
waking-up late for work
the next day in a hangover fog


Grandsons of the famines
Endure this minstrel show
With a mirthless grin.
We stay to ourselves
At our regular bar stools
Chasing shots of Jameson's
Down with dark beer,
Glad not to be thinking
About the days
When Irish need not apply.

The Retirement Conundrum

As a non scientist, I can get away with saying just about anything and not have to defend my views with research data. (Hey! This is how I roll. Deal with it.)

One of the conclusions I’ve come to after 3 years of semi-retirement is this: humans do not do well doing nothing. Anyone who has been around the over-55 clubhouse, has seen that many retirees are prone to become depressed and unhappy - even sick - when they do not have something to do that requires them to get out of bed in the morning, take a shower and get dressed.
For a lot of folks who never had problems with alcohol, the boredom of retirement gets one to thinking that cocktail hour doesn’t really need to wait past 4pm - even earlier. Men who spent decades yearning for a life of daily golf or fishing eventually become bored with the same routine – (just like a work life, you say! )

I think I am typical of men of my generation who grew up in the 50’s and who worked for forty plus years, raised a family and owned a house. We spent our working years waking-up every day and smelling the coffee. Now we are grandparents and ready to kick back and smell the roses. Maybe take that road trip we always talked about.

But something is missing. We miss the Income. We miss the socialization. We miss being part of something.

Those Social Security deposits to the bank account are not to be sniffed at, but it is not a level of income that will allow retirees to enjoy the amenities of life that they were accustomed to when they were working and drawing a decent salary.
As bad as your coworkers were, they were better than having no one to complain about.
And there were some good times: Successful projects, ideas that worked, friendships, occasional recognition.
My attitude toward the work was not negative but my feelings about organizations were distinctly anti-authority. This attitude was not helpful to my career advancement. I couldn't help it. It was mainly due to my conviction that the power in organizations is generally misplaced. Instead of finding the best leaders, most organizations promote the most productive and ambitious do-ers.

I guess the theory is that they will show others how to be productive. Most of us know that isn’t what happens. What happens is elegantly explained by the Peter Principle: "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

Most managers I worked for were incompetent and didn’t know it. They call themselves eagles. But there is no eagle in team – and it is only through team effort that anything worthwhile is accomplished in a bureaucracy.

So the paradox is that organizations promote people with ego-centric skills and put them in charge of teams of people. It s no wonder that the newly minted manager is unable to understand the motivations and personalities of his assigned team. He only knows one way to succeed and that is by outperforming the others. How can someone lead a team when he/she knows nothing about cooperation?

Thus the eagle tends to manage by dint of his power, that is to say, by generating fear in subordinates. This is how bureaucracy migrates into autocracy. Astute underlings rapidly adjust to the environment of command and control; nattering nay bobs are harassed until they either shut-up or go away.

Yeah, I still miss it. Much as it sucks, it beats watching The View or surfing the net for funny pet videos.

Smudgeheads

Today is Ash Wednesday.  If you see people walking around with a smudge on their forehead, acting like there is nothing unusual, do not be alarmed.  It is probably not contagious.

Welcome to “Meteorological Spring.”

It just keeps falling.

We returned from our Florida getaway slightly over a week ago. In the past eight days we have had overnight snow three times – two requiring shoveling. If that wasn’t enough we had 2 “wintery mix” events which ended-up dumping at least an inch of pelting rain on already icy surfaces. There is a mini- glacier forming in my driveway. I need an ice axe and cleats just to go out and find the morning paper.

Like you, I am pretty tired of hearing complaints about the weather, so it is with great pleasure that I declare a hearty welcome to “meteorological spring.” Funny, I always thought Spring started when the sun achieves equinox, usually around March 21st. That is when the sun is directly above the equator at noon, which marks the traditional demarcation of seasons. Equal night and equal day.

But for some reason, it never rose to my attention that weather people prefer to think of seasons in terms of three complete months.  So here we are in Spring.

Let the melting begin.

I liked the good old days when the weather dude would come on TV at the same time every night and tell you what to wear tomorrow.   Nowadays, the weather has become headline news. If you are looking for advice on what to wear tomorrow you are held hostage through numerous “teases” and stories about extreme weather. You cannot get a useful local forecast unless you listen to the entire half hour "news" broadcast. The weather channel is even worse, with elevator music, technical information and the information you want is briefly flashed in the moving textual crawl at the bottom. Who reads that fast? It’s frustrating so you need to go to the computer to get useful information on demand.

==========
Speaking of reasons to avoid watching TV,

If you have been watching lately, you probably have noticed the similarity between the interviews with Moammar Khadafy and Charlie Sheen. In both cases you see a person denying the reality that everyone around them sees. Both of them think they are full of tiger blood and Amazon DNA.  We think they are full of crap.

Watching Sheen ranting, I was appalled to learn that he still had custody of his two year old sons.  What child welfare authorities could see this nutjob ranting and not fear for the children's safety? No problem, bro, the Godessess (the hooker and the porn star) take care of the kids.  I was releived to hear the news today that police had taken the kids to their mother.

========

I heard a good one yesterday: 
A CEO, a Tea-Party Supporter and a Wisconsin Teacher's union guy were sitting at a table.  There is a plate with a dozen cookies in front of them.  The CEO grabs 11 of the cookies, turns to the Tea-Party supporter and says, "Watch out, The Union guy wants a bite out of your cookie."

Warm and Furry Thoughts

Try not to hate me; I am writing this entry while sitting by the pool under a shady palm tree in Pompano Beach, Florida. The air temperature is 78 and the pool water is 70.  It is very quiet here, except for the barking dog that someone has left alone in a truck parked a few houses down the street. The dog is barking at a mangy gray cat who is calmly sitting on the hood of the truck peering through the windshield. The cat seems to be enjoying making the mutt crazy. 

Maybe that's just me indulging in what they call anthropomorphism -- ascribing human characteristics to animal behavior.

It reminded me that we have now been cat-free for almost two weeks. No cats on the bed, no litter box, no yowling Siamese pestering to be fed.  In other words, free.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the cats. Between cats and dogs, I will take a cat any day. You might argue that dogs are smarter and can be trained, whereas a cat pretty much does whatever it wants, when it wants -- except when it comes to using a can opener. 

The main thing I like is that cats have too much dignity to lick your hand or thrust their snout in your crotch.  You toss a ball and they will refuse to chase it.  They just look at you with an expression that says, "What other tricks can you do?" 

The thing about pets in our modern "humane" society is that we treat them almost like infant children.  We keep them indoors 24X7.  They can’t do anything for themselves. You have to open the doors, feed them, clean-up after them and what do you get in return? A cat brain is about the size of an avocado pit, and like an avocado, there is not a lot going on in there.  We anthropomorphize them and assume that they give us unconditional love, when in reality they are just teaching us to feed them.  

Joan, the woman who is going to the house and feeding them every day, is currently the most important person in their lives. They will not miss us; they live totally “in the moment.” I do not write this as a lament, it is simply the way things are. When we return from our travels, they will wonder, “Who the heck are you, and when are you going to feed me?”

Yet, we worry about the cats constantly. By “we” I mean, of course, “Judy.” 
We wonder if they are pining for a warm lap, staring listlessly out the window, wondering when we will return, telling each other cute stories about us, resolving to be better pets in the future. We have made careful arrangements to have them tended to, the heat is kept at a toasty 74 degrees, a 30 day’s supply of food is on the shelf, enough cat litter to handle an elephant is in the basement, and the nice lady who is coming every day to feed them has been thoroughly screened and CORI checked. Judy thinks we should set up video cams to ensure that the cats are being properly treated. I have resisted this effort.

But, here we are sitting by the pool a thousand miles away, in paradise, writing about the cats. What does that tell you?

Heavy Reading



The beach is deserted if temps are below 70



Nothing much is happening here in Pompano Beach. We like it that way.   Forecast is for 74 degrees today, should be nice during my 10 minutes on the beach.

We arrived at the Bahama Beach Club on Saturday after a week on the West coast. Cool (68 degrees) for Floridians but moderate for folks like us who are escaping New England's arctic temps. The only excitement was a brief power outage which had us in total darkness for a few hours. We used the light of our cell phones to find the bathroom. One of the neighbors was outside showing off his I-phone flashlight app. My flashlight was of course on the bureau at home. I recall thinking, "When have I ever needed a flashlight?" So, I did not pack it.

We are quite happy with our small one bedroom room apartment. Thank goodness the king size bed is comfortable and the neighborhood is quiet. We have a kitchenette and living area, two TV's and pool access. Small, only 5 ft deep but nice to look at.


 I have been reading one of Judy's book group selections,  "Cutting For Stone" a book of more than 600 pages. It is equivalent to reading 3 novels. Usually when I am down here, I read something by John D McDonald, Carl Hiasson or Elmore Leonard; this one is heavy reading, but pretty good once you get a few hundred pages into it.



Art Therapy



Yesterday was nice and relaxing.  Strolled the beach, sat by the pool with our books and wine. Inside,  Judy relaxes with her drawing pad, while I research local watering holes and bistros on the new Toshiba netbook.  Despite my previous complaints, we a re pleased that we bought it.  In past years, we had to schlep down to the public library to check email.



Bob and Denise at Flanagans



Went out with Watertown friends last night at Flanagans - a local chain restaurant - on Atlantic Ave.  Early bird special at 4:40pm to beat the Valentines Day crown.  Mmm, Mahi-Mahi. Also, legendary baby back ribs. 

Plans?  Who has plans?  The only thing on the calendar is dinner at Frankie and Johnny's for dinner on Thurs, otherwise, just relaxing and planning the next meal.  The forecast is warming into high 70's for the rest of the week.  Try not to hate us.

Is this what Florida retirement is like? Kinda boring, in a good way, short term, but I think it would be a drag on a full-time basis.

Didn't Forget

Camera Date is incorrect

Why Normal People Think Engineers are Evil

I bought a new Toshiba NB505 Netbook the other day  at Best Buy for under $300.   For those who don't already know it, a netbook is a stripped-down Laptop which is optimized for Internet access and email.  It does not come with a suite of applications already installed like PC's did in the old days.

I comes with practically no instructions.  All the documentation is in a file, somewhere.  If you click the get started training button, you get a bunch of animated windows tutorials.  There is also a downloadable pdf manual from Toshiba.

The problem is the Toshiba  keeps displaying a pop-up floating "Screen Cover Notice"

"Screen Cover has been turned on for 30 minutes. You can turn it off on "Screen cover" page


in the "Effect" dialog box."

What does this mean? There is no mention in any documentation that I can find.
There is no reference to this notice or the "effects" dialog box that it describes.

I want to know why this notice exists and what to do about it.

For all the help and support information out there and I spent an hour checking the sites
and none of them helped.  You can't call anyone unless you have an hour to kill getting a free line to your friendly support agent in Bangladesh. 

In their quest to remove the human cost and unpredictability from  their universe, engineers have designed close loop systems which casts the computer in a role to replace the need for two people to talk with each other.  They have succeeded in convincing technology manufacturers that they have a better way.  They have utterly failed to devise systems that work for ordinary people.

This is why we hate to:
  - Fly in commercial airplanes
  - Call Verizon for anything
  - Rely on our GPS for directions in a strange place
  - Buy a new DVD player
  - Use the automated ticket kiosk
  - Check the stupid online help system.

This is a partial list.  But you get the idea.