Tuesday, February 24, 2009

what a crock

Many years ago, the wife saw this crock pot in a store. It wasn't like your ordinary crock pot. It was a hot plate (for lack of a better description) on which sat a very decorative pot. The function of the hot plate was to warm up and slow cook whatever was in the pot. The pot was pretty...pretty enough that you could serve whatever was in it to guests, without ever taking it out of the pot. The wife loved the crock pot, and bought it.

It was a great crock pot...for about a year, tops. Then it more or less stopped working. It'd work intermittently. We'd try to use it, and the little plate would get warm, and then go cold. We'd fiddle with the cord and maybe get it to work for a while longer, but had to constantly check it to see if it was still working. Most times it wasn't, and we'd resort to other measures to cook whatever it was we wanted to eat.

Still, the wife didn't want to get rid of it. She loved the crock pot. It was pretty...even if it didn't work. Parallels to a certain political party come to mind, but that's not our purpose today. The crock pot sat in a cupboard of conflict for years. It didn't get tossed because the wife liked it, yet it didn't work well enough to actually use without a high degree of anxiety and a good alternate plan.

Then came this past weekend. The wife found this recipe for pulled pork she wanted to try, but it called for slow cooking a pork roast for a lot of hours. Wincing, she pulled the crock pot from the cupboard of conflict and plugged it in...and nothing. We both messed with the cord....nothing. Finally, the crock pot met its death. We rushed to the store and bought a less decorative but far more functional model. We transferred the roast to the new model and, though an hour and a half late....had pulled pork. Delicious, by the way.

The old model hit the curb last night, for today is trash day. When I took the dog out this morning, it was gone. I guess someone else wants to play with the cord.

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Monday, February 23, 2009

yeah, it's all in my mouth

I don't have a link to what I'm going to talk about to emphasize the point, but....

I watched a tiny bit of the Oscar thing last night. I will say this. That Hugh Jackman dude (yes, I had to ask the wife who he was) is pretty talented. The opening thing was pretty good. To be honest, that's about all I saw, because I lost interest pretty quick. Once we hit the first Milk-toast political injection, the entertainment value got flushed down the toilet. I don't care which side of the gay marriage issue you're on, as a group, the people least qualified (based on track record, unless you value quantity over quality) to lecture America on the sanctity of any marriage were in that building last night. What got me though, was this morning's paper. They had pictures of the best and worst dressed (all women, not that we're being sexist or anything), and, well....I can't tell which is which. The best and worst dressed didn't look all that different to me, and I didn't really see what put someone in one category rather than the other. OK, there was one brown dress (can't remember who filled it out) that was pretty bad, but other than that, they looked pretty interchangeable.

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Friday, February 20, 2009

just markin' time

Just...if anyone was worried because there hasn't been much activity here....

Been feeling the cold/flu effects the last week or so. Made for a very uneventful President's Day weekend, and I'm still not really back 100%. Other than that, I've just been real busy at work...happens when some of your help gets laid off, and not a whole lot of insightful stuff to say....so...

Hope y'all are doing OK. I'll be back when I have time, and a purpose.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

well, there you go again

I watched the new president last night, and while I haven't given up hope, he didn't exactly instill any.

First we blamed the economic crisis on "the failed policies of the last eight years." That's just lazy. Saying "George Bush bad" may have got you elected, but eventually that isn't going to be enough. I'm sorry, but put the blame where it belongs. Government didn't get us into this mess. I don't care whose side of the fence you're on, government didn't buy or sell sub-prime mortgages. We did that. The people of this country did that. We knew better, but bought into the idea that we could live in million dollar houses on ridiculously small mortgages. Or, we knew we couldn't afford a house yet and needed to save more, but we bought into some realtors pitch that sold us up a risky river without a paddle. We knew better, but we allowed mortgage brokers to talk us into risks we couldn't afford. Investment houses knew the risk of buying those mortgages, but they went and did it anyway. The irony for me is, as a group, the "victims" of foreclosure are the people who got us into this mess. They're the biggest group to blame. Right behind them are the investment bankers who bought that same crap. Our own greed and rationalization bought us this crisis. Take it on the chin, America. You did this to yourselves. George Bush didn't do it to you.

True, government allowed that to happen, but that doesn't make them the culprit. Just because government allows one to be an asshole doesn't make it their fault when someone jumps on that opportunity. If you do that, it's on you.

Then, the prevailing message was, this plan isn't perfect. No plan is. But we have to act now. Well, if you have to act now, could you at least try to make it as perfect as possible, and not throw in all the pet projects you've been holding back for the last eight years because you couldn't have them then. I'll agree funding for the arts is a great thing, but it doesn't belong in a bill that's trying to save the country from economic disaster. Stop throwing that stuff in there and then complaining that your opponents aren't taking the crisis seriously and are "playing the same old games." No, they're not. They're not sliding unrelated crap into the plan and then defending the plan as something we have to do. You are. OK, maybe they are playing the same old games too, but that doesn't make it right. That just makes for the same old ineffective government that couldn't get out of its own way before and won't now. (You know, the one I thought we were changing from.)

Then when someone points that out, you say, well, it's not perfect, but we have to do something. Well then do something, but make that something effective in ending the crisis. Don't just do something to do something.

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Monday, February 09, 2009

that was when I ruled the world

I half heartedly watched the grammys last night. I was doing some work, and some laundry, but catching bits and pieces along the way.

I guess it's a sign that I'm getting older, and sounding more like my parents. I liked Coldplay. Their performance wasn't as crisp as it could be, but they looked like they were having fun. It looked like a celebration, which was what I thought it should be at something like that. Even Kid Rock wasn't that bad. I'm not a huge country fan, but I could appreciate Carrie Underalls. Sir Paul was good. I will say that when you stick Hannah Montana in a duet with someone who has a voice, it's obvious she doesn't. Beyond that though, I was just shrugging or flat out shaking my head. I guess I just have to accept that I will never appreciate rap as a form of music. Poetry, maybe, and bad poetry at that. I mean, it rhymes, but beyond that...what the hell? You don't need the ability to sing to perform it. You don't need to play an instrument. The degree of difficulty is...pretty close to zilch. OK, you need to be able to talk fast and rhyme, and say something somewhat relevant. Muhammad Ali did that, and nobody accused him of making music. Is it entertaining? Sure, but so are clowns at the circus, and they're not at the grammys. The musical talent is pretty much equal. When I was in college, I was occasionally asked if I played a musical instrument. I used to joke that I played a mean stereo. For these guys, that's not a joke. It's really about as close as they get.

I guess I'll never get it, and I understand that that's OK. I'm an old white guy. I'm not exactly the targeted demographic, so nobody cares that I don't get it...except maybe me.

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

to a crisp...

All went according to plan yesterday at the clinic named after a condiment (which is a concept in and of itself...birth control and fresh breath in one convenient product, but I digress). I went in. The doctor told me exactly what the biopsy showed, which was skin cancer, but confined to the top layer of skin and very small. He said they'd numb the area, scrape it, cauterize it and I'd be on my merry way. All that would be left is taking care of the spot for a few weeks to save it from infection.

So I laid back on a table and he injected flesh numbing stuff into my ear. This was very effective. I couldn't feel a thing he was doing, but, being as it was on my ear, I could hear everything in detail. Scrape, scrape scrape, and then some electrical device and a crackling sound. Then again, scrape, scrape, scrape, electrical device and a crackling sound. Somewhere in here I smelled....burning...like walking into the kitchen and realizing a toaster oven disaster was in the making. More...scrape, scrape, scrape..the process continued as my mind churned...burning? Is something wrong with the electrical thingie? It took a few minutes, but the light bulb finally illuminated....cauterize...that burning...is me. This guy is toasting my skin with the setting on dark. I'm not sure why this concept brought the reaction, but it had a kind of eeeeeeewwwwww feeling....like, if you're going to cook me, can we steer away from the 'well done' setting?

The whole ordeal was over in about 10 minutes. They wrapped the top of my ear in gauze and I was pronounced healed. Now, I have to keep it clean, put Vaseline on the spot for the next two weeks to keep it moist. For the first week, put a band-aid over it to help prevent infection (my ear makes me look a bit like some animal tagged by a researcher studying my migratory habits), and it'll all be done.

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Monday, February 02, 2009

just stuff

Watched the Super Bowl. Without a reall rooting interest, it lacked any emotional pull, but damn what an entertaining game. The Super Bowl doesn't usually live up to the hype, but the last two have been pretty good games.

Blogging in general....I'm probably going to be scarce...at least for a while. Things are getting incredibly busy at work and time...is just something I don't have a lot of. So...don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while. I'm alive and well, mostly. Just busier than usual.

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