Thursday, November 27, 2008

HIT THE LIGHTS FAT BOY!

I can tell that she's itching to do it. She watched as the neighbors hopped aboard the "let's see if they can see this from the space station" parade of lights. She has already dragged me on an "exploratory" expedition to Lowes and Home Depot just to "see" what's out there in Christmas lights land.


This year we are home for Christmas. Our youngest daughter, Katie, and her husband are available and we haven't spent the holidays with them or close to home for a few years; so that is good. The only problem, at least for me, is that means there is no acceptable excuse for not putting up a tree and doing that decorating thing. I didn't even like doing it as a kid and left all of that mess to Linda and the girls when they were available. Wrapping presents is also a pain. (You can always spot gifts I have prepared by simply checking for duct tape secured paper bags under the tree.)


We will spend this Thanksgiving with the family of my old radio partner, Cynthia, and her wackjob husband Bill and I'm sure it will be a great time. The chance to corrupt their grand-children inspires me to new heights of creative weirdness. (Can't wait to get to work on some of my own.)


But.... I know tomorrow brings the start of the Christmas decorating madness. The neighbors will fire up their professionally installed (somehow NOT fair) mega watt illumination and the gauntlet will have been thrown down. Christmas crap fest here we come!

I'm thinking perhaps an Elvis theme this year?


How about the Simpsons?

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Live From Detroit...The 3 Stooges!

There they were, live and in high def, still not getting it.
The presidents of the Big 3 automakers and their union goon were getting a verbal high colonic from, appropriately, Barney "There's something in my mouth so I talk funny" Frank, and several other camera hogging political nitwits.
It really wasn't fair because all defendants were jet lagged from the grueling individual private corporate flights that had transported them from Motown to Halloween-by-the-Potomac. I loved it when a "show of hands" was asked regarding pooling their travel arrangements or...God forbid, the possibility of traveling First Class or (GASP!) Coach on a domestic commercial airline.
(For the record: No hands went up.)
The three stooges and their union Shemp were in town to beg for a "bailout" of their sorry collective asses. It seems, we're told, that the whole damn country will fall apart if they are not allowed to continue making crappy cars that are not only uninspired and ugly, but expensive too.


It was especially gratifying to see Mr. Nardelli of Chrysler trying to explain why he wasn't good enough to get the big job at GE when Jack Welch retired and how he had single-handily nearly taken down Home Depot when he had the gig, extorting from them somewhere around $200 million just to GO AWAY. Oh wait...he didn't address that issue at all.
There was also Mr. Wagoner of GM explaining his company's need of a fleet of TEN corporate jets to keep his VIPs mobile and Ford's Alan Mullally allowing that he was "okay" with his $14 million dollar annual salary. Right.
Here is my take...
Each of these out of touch incompetent morons needs to get into one of their Detroit clown cars and head back to Michigan. Sorry, NO SALE! You guys deserve a firing squad; not a handout.
It's time to turn the page to a new chapter.
You know...ELEVEN.


Thursday, November 13, 2008

Up Yours Microsoft!

Not only has their stock sucked massively for the past several years, but now Microsoft has managed to really piss me off with the most useless software I have ever used. Microsoft Vista is a nightmare!

I recently decided to chuck my Sony laptop which had served me well with Microsoft XP for the past several years. The siren call of a new toy packing lots more memory and the "New and Improved" Vista program reeled me in like a fat wall-eyed pike. What a mistake!

I realize that I'm not telling many of you anything that you are not already painfully aware of, but I remain truly stunned by just how much doesn't work on Vista. The failure to boot up with any degree of predictability should have been my first clue. No wonder the guys and gals in Redmond are in a big hurry to replace this turkey!

I am writing this on my faithful old Sony with XP because some idiotic "cookie thingy", which is supposed to make my blogging experience better, doesn't allow me to sign-in on my own damn blog page!

I HATE Vista; I hate Microsoft but I love my old computer with its dependable XP.
Screw you Bill Gates and your nerd minions! I'm taking my now beloved Sony, ( featuring XP), out for dinner and dancing.

Don't wait up for us.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

WAIT? You've gotta be kidding me!



So I'm reading about this big ass study by some clown at Columbia University, I think his name is Walter Mischel, which deals with how our brains manage delayed gratification...

What? Where was I? I got distracted.
I have the attention span of a gnat. I was jonesing for some of that Halloween candy we withheld from the neighborhood hooligans. (Once again I was successful in my annual con job on Linda regarding the amount of sweets we would need to protect ourselves from the local urchins.) Looks like there's enough chocolate goodness in the house to keep me happy until just before Christmas.


My only 0versight appears to be forgetting to load up on candy corn. That stuff is super hard to come by during your post Halloween holiday shopping excursions. (Something to do with ethanol production is my guess.)


Anyway...this study of delayed gratification employs a simple test. This test, according to the Boston Globe, has surprising power to predict a child's future. It works like this: A 4 year-old is left sitting at a table with a marshmallow or other treat and is given the challenge of either eating the marshmallow right away or waiting for a grown-up to come back into the room at which time he or she will be rewarded with two marshmallows.

Some kids wait less than a minute and others last as long as twenty minutes. The longer the child can hold back, the better the outlook in later life for everything from SAT scores to social skills and academic achievement. Neuroscientists say it's all pre-wired in our brains.

This goes a long way toward explaining why I spent nearly forty years tucked away in very small sound proof rooms playing phonograph records and talking to people I couldn't see. I was, alas, a ONE marshmallow kid.

Sorry....What was I going on about?

Hey, did you hear that Obama won?



That is so cool! I have nothing to worry about anymore. My IRA will be whole again, gasoline is going to be free AND my house will be PAID IN FULL.

I'm a reasonable guy. I'll give him until March, my birth month, to make this all happen. People I know have assured me that he's THE MAN!


In the meantime...pass me the marshmallows.

I don't see any grown-ups around.