RandomFailure

While I’m currently eating some leftover apple pie (which I made; yes, I can cook), a couple of interesting things happened over the weekend.

The PA Turnpike toll collectors went on strike as of Wednesday morning, so my trip out of Philly was free. The tolls were a flat $2 as of Thursday morning. On my way home on Sunday, the woman in front of me paid my toll. This was rather odd, since I had no idea who it was, and I wasn’t even close to her vehicle for her to have been able to see me. I just pulled up to the shortest line, which just had her vehicle in front of me, and she pulled away before I even got right behind her. So thank you, mystery person!

Went shopping at the 24 hour Wal-Mart in Mt. Pocono, at about 10:30pm on Friday. The store wasn’t as crowded as I thought it was going to be, but the interior was a mess. They were in the process of straightening things up. I didn’t go looking for any super bargains (which they had early, early in the morning), but I did find a gift I was looking for, and for much less than I had thought it would be.

As usual, I ate way too much. I also didn’t run at all. So this morning’s run was the earliest I’ve gotten up in a week and the first time that I’ve run in a week. And that is a direct coincidence.

Just a few things before enjoying a late afternoon Eagles game.

• ODB is dead. Imagine my shock that it could be drug-related.
• Potential stabbing at the Vibe awards. Perp beaten to a pulp. Again, shock.
• Huge fight/general chaos at Pacers-Pistons game. Ron Artest might have a rap sheet to go along with his new rap CD. Well, his indefinite suspension from the NBA should allow him that time off he so desperately wanted. Though Ron, this is not the way to get extra time off from work.
• A rather large fight at the South Carolina-Clemson football game. C’mon guys, unless the helmets and pads come off (which did in some cases), you’re not really going to hurt the other guy all that much.
• Duke chunks another football game, this time to hated arch-rival North Carolina, ending the season at 2-9. Thankfully, basketball season is under way.
• E-mailing the Blogger folks with a problem generally gets an answer. In my case, it’s the non-functioning of the spell-checker under Safari (that’s the browser Apple includes with OS X, for those who don’t know).

I guess I should no longer be surprised about the media reporting/commenting on itself. A couple of things recently got to me about all this.

• The opening for the November 15 game of Monday Night Football. A now much publicized, but totally lame, promo for ABC’s Desperate Housewives show, which I don’t watch since it’s on opposite The Wire on HBO (the best show on TV, by the way). Eagles WR Terrell Owens gets seduced by a soon towel-less Nicollette Sheridan. Supposedly, lots of people have complained to the FCC about this. The problem I have it that I wonder how many people actually watched the MNF intro, as opposed to people who read about the intro and decided to lodge complaints. Well, there’s no way of knowing for sure. I don’t need Big Brother in my TV. Because then they would know that I had the sound muted for the first quarter while I was on the phone.
• The cross-promotion going on between The Philadelphia Inquirer and the local NBC affiliate. The paper has far too many little box ads promoting stuff on the TV news. And it’s mostly stupid stuff. Combine the sensationalized nature of this NBC station’s reporting with the decidedly slack reporting at the Inky, and this is a disgrace to any intelligent person. Despite this supposed “synergy,” there are no links between the two Web sites. That’s something you’ll only find here. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
• Saw this one in the paper today. Apparently there’s a group of cultural snobs (not that I couldn’t be one, mind you) protesting at many of today’s most talentless, vapid celebrities. They’re called HOPE (see their Web site) and their latest target is Ashlee Simpson. They are letting you trade in CDs by artists they deem worthless for a CD by an artist they deem worthy. We’ll see how this all works out. I’m sure I’ll read it in the paper.

I’ve have this song stuck in my head for a few days now, and I couldn’t figure out what it was or where I heard it. I thought it was Beyonce, which if you know me at all, is someone I would not listen to unless Clockwork Oranged into a chair. Thanks to the iTunes Music Store, I was able to find the song. And yes, it was by Beyonce – Crazy in Love. Since I can’t figure out where I heard this and when, I keep having to try to purge it from my brain. I find that the best medicine for this is Sleep Now in the Fire by Rage Against the Machine.

Cool technology note: clicking on either of the song links above will take you directly to that song in iTunes, if you have the software installed on your computer. If not, it will take you to the download page.

For my job (a patent attorney), I have to wear a shirt and tie four days a week. Casual Friday is not an over-rated concept when you have to wear a tie the rest of the week. Anyway, today I was wearing a white shirt, and managed to do two insanely stupid things while wearing a white shirt:

1. Change the toner cartridge in the laser printer.
2. Have a lunch consisting of a chicken teriyaki sandwich and fries with ketchup.

Much to my amazement, I got through the day without getting anything on me. But I changed the shirt before making pasta for dinner. My luck’s just not that good.

The problem with attempting to have a life, as I am trying to do, is that it leaves less free time for other things like reading, watching TV, and blogging (not that I ever did the latter very often, but still…). Anyhow, time for some random shots.

• I almost spoke too soon about Arlen Specter. No sooner do I post what I think is good news, Specter sticks his foot so far into his mouth, he can taste the back of his knee. The finely spun comment relates to the fact that he believes that any strong anti-abortion nominee for the Supreme Court would be unlikely to be confirmed by the full Senate. And he’s probably correct. But that didn’t stop the Far Right from unleashing a Holy Comment War on anyone and everyone who would listen. Such is the life of a reactionary, I guess.
• Football follies. Eagles get spanked by the Steelers, sending waves of nausea throughout Philadelphia. Parcells calls the Cowboys “stupid.” (And this is the team he’s coaching. Maybe he’s trying to channel some of the Red Sox’ “magic” by calling themselves “idiots.”) Giants’ lineman Michael Strahan is out for the season with a torn chest muscle. Yay!
• For some reason, Blogger’s spell checker hates my browser and/or computer. It hasn’t worked since I got the new machine. Any typos are purely the computer’s fault for not being smart enough to figure them out.

I know that there’s something I invariably forgot, but no matter. I’ll remember tomorrow morning in the shower.

I have to recant on the last point made in my previous post, since I was kinda hoping Kerry would win. Fuck healing the bitter divide in the country. With several Supreme Court justices likely to be appointed, this is no time to back down. Curiously enough, we on the Left may have Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) to help us out. Specter is assumed to be in position to be chairman of the Judiciary Committee and he has said that he would not let any nominee out of committee who is anti-abortion.

But more importantly, the Democratic genuflection over the winter had better include some serious amount of time on the party’s inability to counter the Republicans’ pack of attack dogs. I could go on, but I’m no pundit, and doing so would just rile me up even more. And I’m just not in the mood for it right now.

I had the longest wait of my short (34 year) life at the polls today. It took 30 minutes from the time I got in line until the time I left. Things went smoothly, with the only hitch being getting the one person who knew how to lower the voting machine to adjust the height for the guy in the wheelchair who was in front of me in line. I signed in at about 8:45am, and I was number 148. I’m not sure how many people are in my voting division, but that’s a fairly high number for a polling place that had opened at 7:00am.

I also saw something I had never seen before: many people standing on the traffic medians on Broad Street with signs, mostly Kerry, and many many vehicles of all types honking as they drove by. Made for a noisy walk both to and from work. Then there was the P. Diddy “Vote or Die” van blaring music during the afternoon and tossing T-shirts to people on the street as they drove by. This I observed from my 16th floor office.

Some hopes for the election:

• That you all voted.
• That all your votes counted.
• That you will vote every time you have the chance for the rest of your life.
• That if you didn’t vote, you’ll keep your pie hole shut if you don’t like the outcome.
• Most unrealistically, that whoever wins tonight will be able to heal the deep idealogical divide that has cleaved the country in two. Otherwise, nothing of consequence is going to happen over the next four years. I know, I know: fat fucking chance that’ll happen.