and never brought to mind...

Happy Holiday-That-I-Couldn't-Possibly-Give-A-Smaller-Rat's-Ass-About, everybody!!

Dave

aftershocks...

The struggle to comprehend the magnitude of what has happened in Southeast Asia has led me to the reconfirm for myself the following...

There is no benevolent, all-knowing "God" who caused, or allowed, or even watched this happen. Maintaining such a belief in the face of a catastrophe of this magnitude is just... it requires a level of cognitive dissonance that I can't imagine anyone can honestly maintain.

By way of comparison... maybe 3000 people died on 9/11... maybe 1500 US and coalition dead in Iraq and Afghanistan... something like 15,000 Iraqi's and Afghani's dead in the past 3 years. The tsunami killed upwards of 100,000 people (who knows how many... the numbers seem to climb exponentially every time you read the news) in a span of a few hours. This should serve as a reminder. None of the horrible, stupid things that we humans do to one another... none of that matters in the long run. It doesn't begin to compare. The planet does not want us here.

We do not "belong" here in any sense of the word. No more so than the dinosaurs. Only an eggshell-thin crust separates us from the seething molten core of the Earth. The planet isn't even done cooking yet. The ground shakes, it leaks, it pulls apart under our feet. The skies are full of boulders the size of cities, and every astronomer knows that it's only a matter of time. The air we breathe hasn't always been here. It was made by plants and life and if we destroy enough of that life and upset the delicate balance of this world, it will just as happily return to an age when bacteria ruled the seas under a noxious sky. Earth doesn't need us.

The dinosaurs hung around for 100 million years or so before their time was up. We've been around for maybe 100,000... depending how hairy a fellow you want to count. Both numbers are an instant of geological time. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. It has maybe another 10 billion left before being swallowed whole by a cantankerous, red, worn out Sun. We think we run the show now. The dinosaurs probably did too. But scrape all the life off the planet during any epoch of history and toss it on a scale and you'll find that 99%+ of the weight is still bacteria. It always has been, and it probably always will be.

I'm not being a fatalist. I think it's important to recognize events like this as a reminder that life is precious and short... both our individual lives, and our lives as a species.... our presence in this universe altogether. Someday it will all be gone... it will all be rubble. And not just in Indonesia and Sri Lanka and Fallujah and Zabul... but in London and New York and Orlando and Paris and Cleveland. In a million years even the rubble might be gone. Car parts and bottles and cutlery... swallowed up again by the Earth like so many dinosaur bones.

This afternoon I'm sending $250 to the Red Cross. I don’t really know what else to do. The Earth doesn't need us, but we need each other, and a million people have just had their homes sucked into the Indian Ocean. Maybe I don’t really need that new dongle for my iPod or that satellite radio after all.

D.

"down on your knees," he commanded, throwing open his white robes...

I had a thought today. One of those thoughts you have and then immediately wish you hadn't. I'm going to assume that all you net savvy readers know what "slash fiction" is. Briefly, it's a subgenre of fan-fiction which involves placing favorite fictional characters into imagined encounters of a sexual nature. Usually two males. The original model for this kind of writing was Kirk/Spock, but it's no secret that Frodo and Sam have their following as well. And something got me thinking today... Frodo/Sam is easy... almost TOO easy... but the Tolkein universe does suggest some more... intriguing parings. The most obvious...

Saruman/Wormtongue

I mean really... think about it. All alone, in that tower. Saruman, so powerful... and Grima so... submissive. Just the way Grima LOOKS at him... you don’t need a palantir stone to see that Saruman is definitely bending Wormtongue over the throne at Orthanc a few times a month.

And you thought the name just meant he was a good liar!

D.

P.S: said fiction would by necessity include more than one double entendre involving the word "staff".

P.P.S: A diligent Google search will reveal the unfortunate truth that I am *not* the first person to whom this idea has occurred!

white(ish) xmas...

Snow? In Southtown?? Well... not quite. We missed by just a *few* degrees. We did have an hour or so of very festive sleet, though!

Xmas morn has come and gone. (It began at 5:30 AM!) A few nice gifts... no big "wow's"... more details tomorrow perhaps.

For now, Merry Xmas to anyone pitiful enough (or perhaps just Jewish enough) to be surfing the web on Christmas day!

i wouldn't exactly call it a "retraction" of my earlier stance, but...

... after my rant a few weeks ago about the pants, I have to say... these size 38's sure are comfortable. Plus, now I can eat as much as I want. Look how loose they are!! Pass the Doritos!!

essential girl geek accessory...

I was chatting with a female reader last night, about vibrators of all things, and I was recommending the wares at ""Toys in Babeland" (dot com) because... you know... the Doctor is all about helping his lady-friends get their freak on... and while discussing the matter and browsing the catalog, I actually learned a little something myself, which is - that they actually make and sell USB powered vibrators!

I don’t know what to say about that other than - I can imagine some truly awesome calls to tech support!

"Hello, this is Prakesh... what is dee nature of your problem...?
Ex-cuse me? Your what...?
Oh! Well... ummmm... Is it USB 2.0 compliant...?
I see. Have you tried restarting...?
No, no, no - I mean the computer...
I see. Yes, well... I don't...
What difference does it make what I am wearing?

Next up? The Firewire 800 vibe! Up to 100 times faster orgasm transfer rates!

Now just the Jews!! "Then one foggy Xmas Eve, Santa came to say..."

I was reading an article in the local paper this weekend about religion and public school. There is a local school board memeber who is putting together a legal team to study the question of just how MUCH religion can be legally tolerated in school, because he wants students to pray at the start of every day. More on him later.

The rest of the article discussed when can and can't be done in schools. You can pray, but the teacher can't tell you to pray. Or NOT to pray. You can draw a Nativity in art class, and a teacher can hang that on a wall, but the school itself can't display a public nativity. You can sing "traditional" songs, even ones that may have a religious element, as long as they are sung in the context of "cultural history"

And here is where we get a lovely quote from a local teacher about how she handles the issue in her class. (Imagine the Southern accent, it helps...)

"Well, I try to stick to songs like Frosty the Snowman, or Let it Snow, or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, that way nobody has to feel left out."

Totally. Without. Clue.

After I picked up the pieces of my exploded head, I decided to write a letter to the editor about the school board member who wants to dust off daily school prayer. The letter will read...

"I think the idea of instituting a daily prayer is a wonderful idea. Maybe the students could pray for books. Or well paid teachers. Or that they will miraculously receive a proper education despite being stuck in the 48th-ranked state school system in the country. Or perhaps the school board would be better off trying to actually DO something to address these problems DIRECTLY instead of wasting their time making itself look even MORE foolish and assbackwards to the rest of the fucking country"

I might add that the letter is from an ATHEIST who is sending his children to a RELIGIOUS SCHOOL just to escape the fate of Alabama Public Education.

Medieval-minded assbackwards redneck idiots...

many thanks, and apologies..

... to the 40 or so people who came to my blog yesterday and got nothing in return. For a complete list of reasons why Dave is not currently blogging daily see below...

Dave is not blogging today. Instead he is...

1) Xmas shopping
2) Xmas wrapping
3) Spending 6 hours editing 30 seconds of video
4) Staring at his monitor hating his job
5) Constructing imaginary arguments with his boss
6) Celebrating his youngest child's 2nd birthday
7) Attempting to simultaneously nail and not-fall-off-roof
8) Occasionally thinking about the mountain of grading which hangs over his head.
9) Watching countless hours of DVD extras to "Return of the King"

I'm sure there are more. I'm trying. Really I am.

finally...

Lo! The playhouse roof is be-shingled!

And there was much rejoicing...

work weirdness...

I've mentioned that we're entering a bit of a crunch/deadline time here at work. We've also hired two new people - an office manager type and an audio engineer. And I think as a result of these two things, I was given a "reminder" yesterday of some official company policies. Specifically, no jeans at work... and be here until 5:00. I was also informed that the Boss is making a "huge exception" to the official policies by not getting on me about the ponytail. Yeah, well... you hired the ponytail, so...

I understand the reasoning behind it all, as the organization grows, "policies" become more important. Still it was weird. And it means I have to buy more FatPants.

And then not an hour later I was informed by the Boss (this time directly rather than through a surrogate) that he has gotten me an appointment to the Board of Directors of the local science museum. Which again... is just weird! But I think another reason for the dress-code crackdown. (Since I'm going to be taking on more "public" roles in the organization.)

So there is all this stuff going on, and then the WORK... ugh... this is the part I hate about media development. "Ok, we need you to migrate all your project files to the RAID, but that's going to break all the links within your projects, so you'll have to open all of them and relocate all your resources and resave your projects... then we want all the rough-cut stuff you're doing imported into THIS program for editing, not the program you've BEEN using, because the Boss like's doing it this way, even though it's the equivalent of using Photoshop as a word processor...

Ugh. Did I say that already?

So there is a lot of drudgery going on, which I have little patience for. Today I plan on firing up my new White Stripes concert DVD and letting it play on Monitor #2 while I move files and crap around on Monitor #1. Then at lunch, me and all the other geeks go on a pilgrimage to Best Buy to pick up "Return of the King". (The hours from 7:00 to 11:00 tonight are booked!)

So... that's today.

I re-read some of my old journal from Open Diary the other day... I used to be much more interesting than this!

time is on my side...

Well, the little one turns two in a few weeks. That means it's time to put an end to all this waking up at 4:45, 5:00 in the morning. How, you ask? By teaching him how to tell time.

Skeptical? Ha! We did it with our daughter when she was 2. Here's how it works. Buy an LED digital clock, and cover the "minute" digits with electrical tape. Now you have a clock that just shows the hour. Now say your kid wakes up at 6:35, and you want them to sleep until 7:00... grab a piece of paper and draw the following picture. On the left side of the paper, draw a large digital "6", and a picture of a child sleeping. Then on the other half of the paper, draw a digital "7", and a picture of a child who is awake and happy and smiling. Now, hang this picture on the wall over the clock and tell the child they can wake up when the clock says "7", but they have to go to sleep or rest quietly if it says "6".

Totally, totally works! Our daughter would be absolutely quiet until 7:00, then she would say "Mommy, it say se'm on my clock!" And the boy? Well, we've had to use a "5" and a "6" instead of six and seven, but still... it is totally working!!! I woke up at 6:05 today. SIX-O-FIVE!! You have to get yourself past the idea of 6:05 counting as "sleeping in" to grasp the importance of this, but I can assure you - THIS MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

Next step... slowly set his clock back 5 minutes a day until he's sleeping until 10:00!!

rocket boy...

Our 2 year-old son has decided he wants a rocket for Xmas. This kid can't even talk, but when he sat on Santa's lap, he made a rocket noise. So... we thought we were done shopping... now we have to buy a rocket.

I went to Toys 'R' Us today on my lunch hour, and the only two (age appropriate) rocket toys of any kind I could find were a Buzz Lightyear rocket and a Rescue Heroes Spaceship. The Rescue Heroes thing was ok... but the astronaut guy was really rude. He'd say things like - "Analyze THIS data!"

What the hell is that all about??

Anyway, you can tell that the space program is not what it used to be. Nobody wants to pretend to be an astronaut anymore.

in the words of the late, great tammy wynette - "i don’t want a play house"...

Ok... imagine a "playhouse" - you know... cute little pink gingerbready backyard playhouse. Got it? Now imagine one being constructed to comply with California earthquake-resistance building codes, and presided over by three snippy, argumentative perfectionists. In the rain. For four days. And you will have a tiny glimpse of the hell that has been my life for the past week.

And that's not even mentioning the SEVEN TRIPS to Home Depot, a.k.a. "The Store Where Time Stands Still."

And the thing about my wife's family is that NONE of them has a "pragmatic" bone in their body. They are ALL incapable of stepping back and looking at something and saying... "Hmmm... this isn’t going to get finished... let's come up with a Plan B to make the most of our time."

Oh no. Plan B? There is no Plan B. There is only stubbornness and stress and frustration and tantrums. Makes. Me. Crazy.

The house looks nice, though. Or it will... once we shingle it, paint it, install a door**, put railing around the porch, build some windows, screw down the deck boards, put down vinyl tile inside and carpet in the "loft"...

Getting the picture?

Dave

(** A "Dutch" door, of course.)

remember when it used to not suck?

For the second week in a row, a TiVo mishap has caused us to miss an episode of the West Wing. Two in a row!!

And the worst thing is? I really don’t care too much.

Time to dust off those "Sports Night" DVDs for another run.

you've got mail...!

Let me tell you, there is nothing that brightens up a dreary work day like getting a Goat skull in the mail...




...sometimes it is cool to be a scientist.

38... it's a size, not an age...

I did it. Ok? I did it. I was down four or five pounds, but nothing I do can combat the presences of the in-laws, which involves many restaurants and nearly constant baking... not to mention the Sudden Presence of Many Bags of Minty Holiday Candies. So the four pounds came back, then I ripped the knee out of my last-good-fitting-pair-of-jeans building this fucking playhouse (more on the playhouse later) and when my wife and I went on a date Saturday night, I had, quite literally, no pants to wear.

So I bought them...

Thirty...

Eight..

I don’t get depressed about losing my hair. I don’t get depressed about driving a boring car full of Cheerios and animal cracker crumbs. I don’t get depressed about the wrinkles or the odd gray beard hair. But the pants...

And it's not even so much the 38" as it is the Spectre of Forty. Because once you buy those 40" jeans - I'm sorry, but you are officially a Fat Guy... one of those guys whose belt buckle points DOWN and whose pants still somehow manage to defy the laws of physics and stay up. And I've been fighting it... oh, how I've been fighting it! Going to the gym, people... THE GYM. I don’t think words exist in the English language to describe the hatred I have for the gym. (The Germans probably have one. "Bikenvalkenhätzen" or something.) But apparently age 35 is another one of those metabolic milestones like 25 and 30. Once twenty-five hit, I could no longer eat an entire bag of Doritos daily without consequences. Once thirty hit, I said goodbye forever to the 34" jeans. And now, at age thirty-five? Bring out the Fat Guy Pants.

I suppose I should be happy that they are at least LOOSE. But still. Looking down the gaping maw of the Fat Pants as I was about to put them on this morning, I think I saw something at the end of those two dark denim tunnels. It was the last vestige of my youth.

conflict...

there is much to blog about.

and yet there is much work to be done.

and a great tiredness is upon us.

it will come soon enough.

dave is full of xmas cheer, among other things...

Christmas is upon us... and you know what that means? A naked 8 foot fir tree in the living room and giant plastic crates of decorations all over the damned house. What a wreck! Somehow we have to get the place semi-straightened out by the time the in-laws roll in this evening.

In the meantime, I have to go home at 10:30 to watch Kid #2 while the wife goes to Kid #1's school to read a story at storytime. (Don’t ask why *I* don’t just go read at school... it never occurred to us until the plans were already made. Draw whatever sexism conclusions from this that you wish.) And sometime during business hours we're getting a giant pallet full of lumber dropped of from Home Depot for the impending Playhouse Fiasco.

I would like to say more, but I'm having some digestive issues this morning. You can find me reading Isaac Newton's "Opticks" in the last stall in the men's room for the next several hours.

t'is the season...! for suicides, that is...

I realize I'm falling down on my duties of keeping all of my weblog readers entertained and amused... but lately I've just not had it in me. Then just this week, I've gone from this blob that kinda sits and stares blankly at the screen all day to this zippy-whirlwind of productivity. Neither is really conducive to blogging. The zippy-whirlwind state is preferable only because it makes the day go by MUCH faster!

A preview of what's coming up. Tonight, I believe there will be some Xmas tree shopping. Then I assume there will be some kind of decorating fiasco. This weekend, my inlaws arrive for 4 or 5 days. My wife's Dad will be building us a playhouse in the backyard, which I'm certain will get completely out of control and provoke at least one (more likely 2) crying fits from my wife. Then it will sit unpainted and shingle-less in our backyard for months waiting for us to finish it.

By the time they are gone, it will December 8th. I must then finish teaching my online class by the 10th, finish my work project by the 15th, finish grading by the 20th and finish Xmas shopping by the 24th.

Oh, yeah... and lose 16 more pounds.

Speaking of which... my neck didn't hurt nearly as much today as I expected, so I went to the gym and proceeded to pull a muscle in my left arm so badly that I couldn't pick up my gym bag 5 minutes later. I thought all this crap was supposed to be GOOD for me?

it's not like it looked like "garbage" or anything...

My wife called on the phone today - hysterical-asking if I had seen "The bag of stuff from her car". See, when my wife cleans out her (shithole of a) car, she does so by scraping all of the junk out of her car into a garbage bag, and dragging it into the house where it will sit for months waiting to be sorted out and returned to its proper place. I think there is still a pile of stuff around somewhere from when she cleaned out her car before we moved!!

Anyway, it would seem that perhaps the maids THREW OUT the garbage bag of suff from her car last week, and one of the things in the bag was our son's dress shoes and the kids had an appointment this afternoon for Xmas photos and now he has no dress shoes so she'll have to buy NEW dress shoes and who knows what else might have been in that bag...

Did I mention...? She's hysterical! Totally freaking out.

And of course the only thing I'm thinking the whole time is the one thing I CAN'T say, which is - "Why... you mean the maids threw out a GARBAGE BAG full of crumpled papers and random soiled items? How could they DO such a thing? What were they THINKING?!"

over doing again...

I always get to Old Lady Yoga class early, so I have some time to myself in the studio before class. I usually take this time to run through a few of my favorite poses that I know we're NOT going to do in class. Today I made my first successful attempt at a full on headstand. (Against the wall, of course!)

As cool as it was to get there and hold fairly steady for 10-12 seconds or so, I predict that come tomorrow morning I will be completely unable to turn my head to the left.

Ouch!

I need to lose some more weight before I try to hold it all up with my fucking NECK.

play along... count the "umm"s...

do it yourself...

In an attempt to improve his mood today, Dave has resorted to the following home remedies...

* yoga
* meditation
* naps
* vitamins
* pornography
* Advil
* alcohol (shortly...)

So far... no luck.

the contributing factors...

well, there's work, where i was just sent a "project schedule" to complete our current video after everyone fucked around on the thing for a month and a half and now we're gonna finish it in two fucking weeks (never gonna happen) and one of the items on the schedule is "submit final script" which HELLO i did a fucking month and a half ago and had it tossed aside and fucking IGNORED and this week there is a job posted for a professorship at Dream East Coast Liberal Stars College where I was shortlisted two years ago and where I think I'd have an even better shot this time and I CAN'T FUCKING APPLY because what kind of asshole would I be to quit a job after 6 months and it all comes down to money in the end which SUCKS and the fact that this professorship is just sitting out there makes me regret leaving academia even more and makes me even more convinced that i have RUINED MY FUCKING CARREER by taking this job...

then there is the wife, who would buy a jar of botulism toxin if it were "free after rebate" and who chooses presents for the children based entirely on what's cheap and on sale rather than what the children might actually LIKE and, oh i don’t know ACTUALLY PLAY WITH unlike the other thousands of toys piled up knee deep in this shithole of a house...

then the kids themselves, who wake up when kids in EUROPE are still asleep, and then proceed to fight all day long and OH MY GOD when do toddlers stop communicating by REPEATING THE SAME TWO SYLLABLES OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR HOURS AT A TIME??

finally the online course, where the students don’t reply to anything i post, therefore i never post anything, therefore they never have anything to respond to, DOWNWARD SPIRAL, and which i'm so fucking disappointed and depressed about that i just want to be OVER, and yet i can't make myself do any work or grading for it at all, and i've actually started to hope that enough students complain that i get fired so i don’t have to do it all over again starting in February.

i'm sure there's more, but this isn’t really helping, y'know?

keep back 100 feet...

dave is in a FOUL mood, I tell you....

FOUL!!

and another thing..

Somebody finally answered the ad I posted for partners at the tennis center (although he sounds like a dweeb!) and we were supposed to play for the first time last night and got rained out. Which sucks, cuz I'm in a "Holiday Weight Loss" race with another blogger and was hoping to get a head start.

(204 today... should have started last week, I'd already be down 2.)

So today, it's the Y - bike+treadmill, then a few upper-body machines. My arms are still killing me from doing that Monday, but in a good way. As in... "Hey look! There are MUSCLES in there!" Who knew?

I need to buy some vitamins too.

anybody want a used tv? or a used cat...?

How does a 9 pound cat ruin a $1500 HiDef TV? Well in involves a careful alignment of television, coffee table, full Diet Coke can, and a stack of magazines. If you still can't imagine it, this handy sketch might help you to visualize the situation...



And don’t think anybody in the house might, you know, apologize for leaving full cans of Diet Coke ALL OVER THE FUCKING HOUSE ALL THE TIME. Oh, no. That would involve an admission of wrongness - a trait which, as we all know, is present only on the Y-chromosome.

My mood is not particularly improving... have you figured that out?

worst jobs in science...

Yeah - see... I find it hard to feel sorry for these people. If you find yourself researching anal warts - clearly you've made some bad choices in the course of your scientific career. Like, oh, I don't know... CHOOSING A THESIS ADVISOR WHOSE SPECIALTY IS ANAL WARTS!!

D.

(thanks to Kimberly for the link.)

time dilation...

Hello? Am I traveling near the speed of light? Is there a black hole nearby? How the fuck can it only be 10:30 AM??

insult to injury...

So, once I realize I missed yoga class, I decided to go to the Y anyway to work out. When I got there, I decided to drop by the end of the class to aplolgoze to Kelly for missing 2 weeks in a row. The room is empty. Check the schedule...? My 11:00 Yoga class has been CANCELLED until at least the New Year.

Fuck, fuck, fucking FUCK.

Just because it's Christmas doesn't meant we don't still need our yoga class. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO MAINTAIN MY USUAL CALM AND CENTERED STATE-OF-MIND??!

Fuck.

feed me...

For those who care about this stuff, or even know what the fuck it MEANS, I've turned on my RSS feed through Blogger.

(http://doctorsilence.blogspot.com/atom.xml)

Do with that information what you will.

Dave

hectic...

Houseguests in town last night - 2 adults, 3 kids (15, 12, and 5). The'll be gone today, but it will take some time to recover. Meanwhiles... the wife has a deadline, which means much kid-duty for ME this week. Then next week, the housguests RETURN on their drive back to TX. A few days later, the inlaws arrive for a weeklong stay. Sometime in there, Thanksgiving happened... but by the next time I get to inhale, it will be a week before Xmas.

Case in point? I just looked at the clock and realized that I totally FORGOT to go to Yoga today.

Fucking FUCK!

save me a talon, please...

Every year around this time, one winds up being reminded somewhere about Ben Franklin's campaign to make the turkey our "National Bird", and we all get to have a little laugh at our founding father's expense. Over at Pippa's blog she dismissed Franklin's plan as ludicrous, since it would have meant we'd have to EAT the National Bird every Thanksgiving. This is clearly a ridiculous objection. We certainly couldn't EAT the National Bird!! No. Instead, if Ben Franklin had had his way, we'd all be popping down to the market every November to pick up a 12 pound Butterball Eagle.

Mmmm! It's Raptorlicious!!

because it was all just going too fucking smoothly...

The second leg of my flight was cancelled doe to fog. FOG! We can land a robot space probe on the fucking moons of Saturn, but we can't land a plane in Alabama in the FOG. Whatever...

So the upshot is, I'm stranded in North Fucking Carolina until tomorrow, and my fucking wife is hysterical crying on the phone because her plams have been disrupted. Thanks... cuz THAT is helpful when I'm standing in a long line in an airport with a bunch of irritated people.

FUCK!

the odd couple...

There is this "couple" traveling together a few rows up... and I use the term loosely, because I can't for the life of my figure out their relationship. The guy is tall (6'3"?) young, blonde, and very, very, very gay. The woman is short, old (50-ish) and looks like she has had copious amounts of plastic surgery - approaching Unnatural Joan Rivers PlasticFace. She's also wearing a fur.

They kind of remind me of Waylon Flowers and Madam.

Dave

( PS> If you have the faintest idea who that is - congratulations! You are OLD like me! Watch a lot of Hollywood Squares when you were home sick from school, did you?)

it's twitch-a-riffic...!

Last time I flew, I complained in my weblog about never getting seated next to an attractive, single woman in her mid 20's. Well today, it looked like I might at least get seated next to an average-looking, single woman in her mid-30's.

A step up perhaps? Yes?

She had Tourette's. I shit you not. There was just a whoooole fascinating and wonderful constellation of coughs, gulps, twitches, jerks, squeals, and grunts.

Thank god for headphones.

honey, have you seen The Pants...?

Wanna know who is "in charge" in our house?

Dave was out of town for 2 days. While he was away, his wife bought a $30,000 minivan.

I mean - yeah, we had all but made the decision anyway, and were just haggling over prices and colors, but still... it's the principle of the thing.

about the student...

I've finally accepted it.

It's not there.

Because while I can imagine not canceling all of your prior engagements and plans just to have dinner with a professor whom you like... I can NOT imagine NOT canceling all of your prior engagements and plans to possibly have SEX with a professor after whom you harbor a secret lust.

So... there you go.

It is finished.

D.

PS> I'm not EVEN gonna tell you what she stood me up in favor of... it's just too awful!

the price is right...

Free wireless access is awesome. The second best thing is reasonably proced wireless internet access. Unlimited one-day access for $6.95?? Congrats, LaGuardia Airport... you have found the perfect price-point.

I shall now proceed to surf the web and consume largish quantities of alcohol until 7:00 PM.

D.

note to self...

Do NOT under ANY circumstances stay up until 4:00 AM chatting with cute blondes online, no matter how fun and perky they are.

You won’t feel well in 5 hours.

crap it’s late...

It took me an hour to get my fucking rental car, an hour to get past the detour on the fucking LIE, and an hour to get an internet connection at the fucking hotel.

It’s going on 2:00 AM for fuck's sake.

More details tomorrow.

Fuck.

Charlotte Douglas Int'l Airport: 7:30 EDT...

When I came out of the gate in Charlotte, the first thing I saw was a food stand selling "Pizzeria Uno" pizza. So naturally - I grabbed one.

Worst. Pizza. Ever.

I'm seriously considering writing them a letter informing them that allowing airport restaurants to sell CRAP like that with their brand name on it... ummm... well... it makes me want a REAL Uno pizza even MORE now.

Dammit. They tricked me.

Plus I burned my tongue.

--- --- --- ---

Wanna hear something funny? I brought grading with me. To grade. On the trip.

Try to control yourselves.

--- --- --- ---

Gee... I hope I get to sit near the three irate old Jamaican ladies.

Hey, here's something... all day today, every once in a while I'll move in a certain way or turn in a certain position, and my back will go - "HEY! You know that thing you did with your back yesterday? Don’t do that!" That's what I get for trying to show up all the old ladies.

in the air: 4:57 PM...

Nice takeoff. Smooth flight. So far...

I spent some time in the airport reading an old "travel diary" from early 1999 - this was even before I started my journal over at Open Diary.

God, was I a tiresome schmuck back then.

Oh... I'm so angsty and confused!!!

Shut UP, Dave.

--- --- --- ---

I just had the strangest thought. This little airplane is so noisy that I could sit here and talk out loud to myself... fairly loudly... and nobody would notice. It just struck me as a funny thing to do.

Anyway - tried to read... couldn’t. Tried to sleep... couldn't. I'm gonna try that second one again, this time with the iPod.

home airport: 3:04 PM...

I lived in New York long enough to have this strange idea that you need to get to the airport 90 minutes - 2 hours before your flight. When you live in the small-southern-city-boonies - this is no longer the case. My flight leaves at 4:25. It took me literally 30 seconds to check in, and 3 minutes to get from ticketing through security to my gate. Now I have an hour and a half with nothing to do.

Not that I'm complaining!!

When you have 2 young kids... sitting in an airport for 2 hours alone is like a weekend at a freaking health spa.

--- --- --- ---

There is a guy over there traveling with TWO laptops... a PC and an Apple Powerbook.

What the fuck?

Pick a team, dude.

progress...

I pulled out my Sony "Clié" Palm-Pilot doohickey today to bring on the trip. I haven't really used it since I moved, since I'm never more than an arm's length from my computer, and I don't have a class schedule to keep track of anymore... I really have no need for a Palm. But I figure I might need to jot down some notes and stuff on this trip, so I put new batteries in and powered it up.

It looks so lame and dated.

The screen isn't even COLOR.

I need to start using it regularly so I can convince myself I need a new one.

before the trip...

Going to Old Lady Yoga class yesterday was the best decision I've made in a while. For some reason, she pulled out the really hardcore asanas this week - not only were we doing shoulder-stands, but I actually found myself doing this!. Ok... to be honest... I never actually got my head OFF the ground. But still... the top of my head, my palms, and my feet were all firmly planted on the ground in a way I would never have thought possible!

And it actually HELPED my headache! (An effect that dissolved once it cam time to haggle over minivan proces later that evening)

But anyway... today I leave for NY. You can expect lots of travel entries. I have high-speed access in the hotel room, so I'll probably be online late tonight and tomorrow - unless I happen to be having dinner (and/or sex) with a former student. But more likely I'll be depressed and chatting. Look for me. (science_director on Yahoo IM)

Gotta go pack!

the amazing race...

The premier of the Amazing Race was on tonite. The "Entrepreneur" guy Jonathan may be, quite possibly the most odious human being I have ever encountered.

And there are wrestlers. Professional wrestlers!!

This is gonna be SO good.

go or not go...

It's about time to head out to Old Lady Yoga class. I don't know if it will help my headache or exacerbate it. I've been slacking off, though... so I really SHOULD go. Especially because I pre-paid last week. And I bought a new yoga bag. (It's a MANLY yoga bag!)

it's getting old...

... being tired all the time. And there is nothing worse than waking up with a headache. It does not make one look forward to the day ahead. Rather, it makes one seriously consider taking a nap under the desk.

Why the fuck don't I have any advil in my office?

Anyway... I'm planning my trip to NY... priniting out maps and hotel and rental car confirmations... all that stuff. I'm trying to hook up with that same former student again. It's an overnight trip this time... wink wink. "Why don't you come back to my hotel room and we'll go over some of these physics problems together?" Never going to happen...

I'm also putting together a powerpoint I was supposed to give to a bunch of local businesspersons, but since I'll be in NY, someone else has to do it for me. Stuff like that really irks me... the whole "credit" thing? It has to do with my personality type... you know... that Myers Briggs crap? Someone once explained to to me really well. Some people need "approval" while others need "recognition". It's a subtle difference, but one that rings true. I really couldn't care less about someone saying "Good Job, Dave". I already KNOW when I've done a good job. I just want it known that Dave Did This.

But that's neither here nor there...

(What a strange expression. If it's neither here nor there, then where is it?)

I'm sorry - if you're looking for coherent blogging, you've come to the wrong place today. Maybe I should wrap this up and try again when my brain is feeling more like it fits inside my skull.

speaking of dick cheney...

I learned something odd today. The massage school where I go to get my (cheap!) massages is in "the old Kellogg, Brown, and Root building" - you can still see the outlines of the old letters on the building's facade. Well, I have no idea what KB&R actually DOES, but today I learned that thay are a subsidiary of Halliburton!!!

I'm not sure I'll be able to relax in there again.

D.

dave takes the conspiracy angle...

You may have heard that VP Dick Cheney was recently released from the hospital after undergoing some "tests" following some "shortness of breath" he suffered the other day.

Dave's prediction?

It's all a fake. A setup. Soon after the inauguration, Dick Cheney will suffer his fifth heart attack (faked!) and be forced to resign, after which the president will appoint a new VP, hand-picked by Karl Rove, so that the Republicans will be able to run a sitting VP for the presidency in 2008.

Wait and see!

no future to speak of...

We went to the Chinese buffet place next to Target for the first time last night. It was REALLY good. Surprise! Good Chinese food in Alabama!

Dinner went well until it came time for fortune cookies. I opened mine up and found...

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

"Ummm... does this mean I'm going to DIE on the way home tonight??"

a word of advice...

Altoids, expanding upon their line of "curiously strong" candystuffs, has developed a "Curiously Strong Ginger" candy. It's not bad, if you like ginger... like Chinese crystallized ginger candies, but... take Dr. Dave's word on this one...

DO NOT BITE THEM!!!

Consider yourself warned.

and by the way...

I think I'm depressed again. Maybe not full on "Ask your Doctor if Zoloft is right for you" depressed... but definitely "Stare at my computer screen all day and the thought of doing ANYTHING is too much to bear and I need a donut" depressed.

Which sucks.

Yesterday at around 3:00 I found myself marveling at what an impressive feat it is to sit at a desk for 8 hours and do.... NOTHING. I mean really... that takes a special kind of devotion to the pursuit of slacking off.

Anyway... Anybody got any suggestions for home remedies? (K...?) Vitamins? Herbs? Electrical shocks?

D.

rationalizations...

Somebody left me a note saying, basically - "Ummm, why do you need a minivan? You only have two kids!" Which is true. You don’t need a minivan with only two kids. Unless you want to carpool to school. Or take one of your kid's friends out for a playdate. Or take your parents out to dinner. Or ever buy something bigger than 3 feet long. Or go on vacation with more than three days' worth of suitcases. Or drive cross-country without feeling like you are locked in a tiny cage with two animals and a ton of fucking GARBAGE.

Look - it's KILLING me to buy a minivan. And not just because of my "image" - all that talk is just Dr. Dave and his little funny blog crap... It's because it KILLS me to drive a vehicle that gets less than 20 mpg. I feel like I'm contributing to a trend that I DESPISE and that I think is going to be the death of our fucking planet. But I'm trying to buy the most fuel-efficient minivan I can. (The Odyssey gets 20/28 courtesy of an engine that shuts of 3 of the 6 cylinders when you're not accelerating.) And I drive a little car on the side that I PROMISE to replace with a hybrid when the time comes, OK?!

Anyway, say what you will about the minivan thing, and I'll probably agree with you. But I'm buying one anyway. There's plenty of room in the back for all my Liberal Guilt.

and the winner is...

It looks like the Honda Odyssey is in the lead in the mini-van shopping extravaganza.

I can't believe I'm about to spend $35,000 on a vehicle, and it's not a convertible that goes from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds. That's an awful lot of money to spend on a fucking ugly, Cheerio-filled, CUBE with leather seats.

D.

not that I've ever had any trouble getting it done MANUALLY, but...

... I have GOT to get me one of THESE

belated music review...

Something I saw online today reminded me... I saw "The Donnas" on Letterman last week and I wanted to write a review. This is another one of those bands that I head about and heard about... and everything I heard about them was good, and so I really wanted to like them.

Than never seems to work out.

I mean... I have to give the bass player points for her funky-pawn-shop bass, and I have to give the lead guitarist points for her shaggy Malcolm Young hairstyle (And matching Malcolm Young stage presence, or lack thereof) and the drummer had a sort of Meg White enthusiasm (with a little of the Go-Go's drummer's chops thrown in)... but the whole thing didn't really add up to much more than a medicore garage band. Which I know is the sound a lot of these bands are going for, but... there's a reason garage bands never get out of the garage. It's because they suck.

Now, I'm not saying the Donnas "sucked" exactly, but they came pretty close. Especially when the guitar chords dropped out during the "solo" (such as it was) and there was literally nothing propping up the song from underneath.

Anyway - one more band to cross off my Download List.

is it wrong...?

... to be 35 years old, male, and a bit of a music snob, and to be enjoying Avril Lavigne as much as I do?

fear itself...

Well, John Ashcroft is stepping down as Attorney General - news that I greeted with a reaction of "Oh, that's good... at least they probably can't appoint anyone WORSE than him." Then I heard a story on NPR this morning that presented a short-list of names for the job that included Rudolph Giuliani.

Worse. Than. Ashcroft.

And an immense fucking prick on top of it.

The thing is... Yeah it was a horrible thing that 3000 people got killed on September 11th, but the things that our government is doing to us - the erosion of our rights and civil liberties... that effects ALL 300 MILLION of us. As a result, I fear my own government FAR more than I fear any terrorist. And the only radical fundamentalists I'm afraid of are Christian - not Muslim.

I love starting out the day with thoughts like this, don't you?

the beginning of the end...

The wife and I are going minivan shopping tomorrow.

sigh...

I think it's officially "midlife" now. Where do I sign up for my crisis?

weekending in red country (part 3)...

One thing that gives me solace is the possibility that there IS no such thing as Red Country. It's all about lying with data, and if you look at a map that shows not states turned bright red and blue by razor thin margins of votes, but rather county by county results - shaded in smooth gradations from red through purple to blue... you see a very different map...



Even here in Alabama, we see not the harsh primary red of election night, but a deeper, darker, more comforting red... with a bright swath of blue across the middle of the state, reminding us that even here in Alabama, 4 out of 10 people voted democratic last Tuesday. It's not so bad, this map tells us. We're not two countries. It's not about the Coasts versus the Middle. I'm not alone here. Look at all the blue in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia... The red in upstate New York and western Maryland. Let's not let our view of ourselves be colored by bad statistics and misleading graphics. There are still more than two ideas in this country. Maybe we should start acting like it.

weekending in red country (part 2)...

The thing is... I wholeheartedly agree with this idea of... "The Democrats need to have respect for the values of Middle America." I just can't figure out how to do it. And I agree with the statement that the problem with us in the Intellectual Liberal Elite is that we talk only to ourselves. Well... yeah... but what am I supposed to DO with this information? Should I start listening to the local NASCAR phone-in radio show? Should I buy a gun and go shoot something just for fun? I mean... is unforgivably arrogant to believe the it's the Intellectual Elite's job to bring everyone else UP, rather than to pander down to the common denominator?

Isn't there a REASON for an "elite"? I mean... if I was extremely ill and needed surgery, I certainly wouldn't be complaining about the Intellectual Medical Elite. When I fly on an airplane, you don’t find me grousing at the Egghead Aerospace Engineer Elite. I for one am quite happy that there are smart people who know a lot about things I don’t know anything about. Why is it different with politics or culture? Why don’t people want the smartest and most well-educated and most capable people running the country? Why is it that when I use my PhD in computer science to design you a faster computer or a prettier big screen TV, I'm a part of the "spirit of innovation that makes this country great" but if I dare to collect scientific data that suggests maybe we should cut back on carbon dioxide emissions - well, then suddenly I'm living on some kind of cloud in Academia Land. I just don’t get it.

I mean - I DO get it. The political machine of the Right has figured out how to *spin* any idea it doesn't agree with and parody it into LaLaLand. Lying a lot helps too.

Like I said... It's not like I don't believe I should "respect" ideals that are different from mine, and recognize that people who base their decisions on their religious faith are quite possibly NOT all complete idiots. Even that is hard enough. But I don’t buy that I've left the planet entirely. It's a question of how to sell the message. Because I feel like the Liberal Agenda always wins in the end. Right? Right, Mr. Galileo? It may take a while, but e pur si muove... right?

weekending in red country...

At my wife's urging (isn’t it always) we spent Saturday at a farm just over the state line in Mississippi that sets itself up as a "Fall Festival" of sorts - with corn mazes and hayrides and all manner of wholesome farmy fun. The most entertaining part was the "cow train" which consisted of a dozen 50-gallon plastic drums that had been cut open, fitted with seats and wheels, and painted like cows, being pulled by a large John Deere tractor at disturbingly high speeds across a grassy field. Yeeha!

But for just a moment I tried to put aside my snarky, liberal-intellectual-elite disdain and look out across the farm, and the next farm, and another farm... all the way to the horizon... and I tried to put myself in the mindset of someone for whom THIS is "life"... to try to understand the worldview of people that the media is telling me is so far removed from my own that we on the Left don’t even speak the same language as the people in the middle of the country anymore. And I almost had it... looking out across a field of cotton that stretched out of sight... the sense that there is some benevolent God who looks down upon all this... the feeling that this land, these amber waves of grain, were something to be protected from "evil"... the feeling that where I was, I was so far removed from a gay person or a black person that they might as well be aliens from another galaxy...

My "Little Pink Houses Moment" was broken by the sound of the country music blasting down from a speaker bolted to a telephone pole high above the field. And I thought to myself ... "How on Earth can I be expected to find ANY common ground with ANYONE who finds ANYTHING to relate to Garth Brook's I've Got Friends in Low Places??"

(to be continued...)

why dave is not exactly cut out for the whole "Man of the House" position...

"Giant flying roach! "There's a GIANT FLYING ROACH in the house!!"

If this is what fall in Alabama means... that the giant flying roaches start sneaking into the house to get warm, I'll take the fucking 90 degree heat back, thanks.

ok people..

It's time for Dr. Dave to quit griping about politics and get some WORK done.

Ok?

thursday already...?

You know - I was gonna continue the post-election punditry, but I just can't do it. I can't think about it anymore. The cognitive dissonance is too draining.

I'm downloading music for meditation and yoga. Lots of eastern stuff. Traditional. Trying to keep away from the New-Agey K-mart Compilations, but I have to admit... some of it is kinda nice. Oooh... waterfalls!

I'm gonna hit the gym today at the Y. I did about 40 minutes between the treadmill and the stationary bike yesterday. I read "Physics and Philosophy" by Werner Heisenberg while I exercised. Look at me! I'm the Liberal Intellectual Elite!!

[pause]

Oops... I'm not gonna go to the gym today, cuz the guys in the office went out for Chinese food. So instead I ate too much Chinese food and I feel sick.

It's one of THOSE days.

on a lighter note...

I was shoping for some ever-elusive men's yoga clothes today, and I came across these pants and all I have to say is... "underwear optional"?? You've got to be kidding! Because I think my presence in Yoga class makes some of the women there uncomfortable enough without showing up in the extra-snug-fitting, "underwear optional" YogaMan Pants.

hey, oh, way to go, ohio...

Taken from Salon.com...

In the ballroom at Columbus's Renaissance hotel, where several dozen weary Kerry supporters are still waiting for an electoral miracle, David Gergen appeared on a monitor and said something that many here are thinking. "For an awful lot of people on the losing side, there's going to be a sense of alienation, of, is this the country we thought it was?" he asked. A few people actually applauded this statement. Others just nodded their heads.

This saves me the trouble of putting a lot of my thoughts this morning into words. I'm thinking it may be time to admit that my idealistic vision of what I think this country is supposed to "be" is just a load of hippie crap. It's not a democracy - it's a representative Republic, and our "representatives" are all rich, old white guys. (Sorry, Mr. Obama, as impressive as you are, I believe "Obama" is in fact the Swahili word for "token".) It's not a country founded on freedom, it's a country founded by religious zealots and Puritans who's descendents are secretly longing for a good old-fashioned witch hunt or holy war. The country has been hijacked by people who pay lip service to selected parts of the Bill of Rights when cornered, but who believe the only real Laws were written 2000 years ago by a bunch of people in sandals who routinely talked to God.

And maybe I'm wrong, and maybe this is just a inevitable but temporary "pendulum swing" to the right. But how long to these swings last? 10 years? 20? 50? I'm not sure I can wait that long.

Does anybody know of any books that might help one deal with life as an ideological minority under an oppressive regime? I think I may need some encouragement.

election night: 11:59 pm...

When I made my prediction this afternoon, I thought I was being conservative. I thought it was actually going to be a stronger victory for Kerry than THAT... I just didn't want to make an overconfident call.

I just don't get it. I feel like a fucking alien, or somebody who has been wrongly institutionalized. I look around and everybody is just fucking crazy except for me. I mean really.... what the FUCK?

CNN just called Ohio. One minute before midnight.

I'm just... befuddled more than anything. I don't even have the energy to start thinking about the "implications" of four more years and 3 Supreme Court judges and who knows...

By the morning, it's looking like something very close to Dave's "Scenario Number Three " will be the final story.

I am... for a change... at a loss for words.

election night: 11:59 pm...

When I made my prediction this afternoon, I thought I was being conservative. I thought it was actually going to be a stronger victory for Kerry than THAT... I just didn't want to make an overconfident call.

I just don't get it. I feel like a fucking alien, or somebody who has been wrongly institutionalized. I look around and everybody is just fucking crazy except for me. I mean really.... what the FUCK?

CNN just called Ohio. One minute before midnight.

I'm just... befuddled more than anything. I don't even have the energy to start thinking about the "implications" of four more years and 3 Supreme Court judges and who knows...

By the morning, it's looking like something very close to Dave's "Scenario Number Three " will be the final story.

I am... for a change... at a loss for words.

election night: 11:37 pm...

Ohio looks more and more like a loss. With Colorado being called for Bush and the NM numbers looking less than encouraging. I think it may be time to go to bed soon.

election night: 10:31 pm...

Dave is attempting to calm his nerves with Snickers and vodka.

election day: 10:03 pm...

Kerry gets PA. They call CA and WA the INSTANT the polls close. I think they just do this to make the race look close.

Dave is scared of the OH numbers. Dave needs a drink.

election day: 8:47 pm...

No surprises yet. Unfortunately. I wasn't expecting one by now... but I was hoping for one. I don't like the fact that Bush's numbers look so good in Ohio. It makes me nervous.

election day: 7:42 pm...

A few states that might have been close according to the polls are NOT... NJ to Kerrey, NC and WV to Bush. Still no surprises. Trends show FL leaning more to Bush than 2000, which is fine, since I already called FL for Bush. It's gonna come down to OH, folks. The Doc's prediction stands.

--- --- ---

PS> Electoral Masturbation update - if Kerry loses either OH or PA in Dave's favored model, he can still win by a tiny margin by taking both NM and CO. A long shot, but I figure I'd mention it since I've been taking Pennsylvania for granted.

election day: 6:31 pm...

A few early projections from CBS... nothing from any states that were expected to be close. I'll be posting updates with numbers based on departures from MY original projections - Kerry:284 and Bush:254.

Got to turn off CBS... I ain't listening to Dan Rather all night.

election day: part two... the dr's predictions...

SCENARIO ONE: Dave's dream scenario: Kerry takes PA and OH, as well as MI, IL, WI, MN. Kerry takes NM and CO, and narrowly, FL and wins 313 electoral votes to 225. (Without FL, he still wins 286-252) Dave goes to bed early.

SCENARIO TWO: More likely - Bush takes FL. Bush also takes either CO or NM but not both. Kerry takes PA and OH and the midwestern swing states. Kerry also keeps both HI and NH. Kerry wins 284 electoral votes to Bush's 254.

SCENARIO THREE: Dave's nightmare scenario - Kerry keeps NH and HI, and most of the midwest swing states, but Bush takes BOTH Florida and Ohio for 285 electoral votes to Kerry's 253.


My official prediction is Scenario Two - Kerry by a narrow, but not litigatiable margin.





(Bonus prediction - Kerry gets 50.1% of the popular vote to Bush's 48.4%)

election day: part one...

I wanted to audioblog this entry, but the Audioblogger.com site seems to be down, and when I call the number, the login message just keeps repeating and repeating. Weird.

Anyways, my boss said we could take an hour off work to vote today...

I took three.

In my defense, one of them was my lunch, but still. It was complicated. My daughter is home sick from school today, and my wife was going to take her out to the videostore but when she went to leave the car wouldn't' start. So she called me and I drove home. (Nothing makes me feel more manly than coming to the rescue with jumper cables. It's the only thing I know how to do to a car besides drive it and put gas in it, but dammit... I do it well) We were going to go vote together, but the Little One was asleep, so I stayed home while she took the Sick One to get a video. Then while she was out she called and said "The lines are pretty long, so I'm just gonna vote now while I'm out." Ok... so I stayed home for an hour while the kid slept. Then when she got home she said the lines were shorter now and I should vote on the way back to work. Which I did. Then I stopped for KFC on the way back to work.

The upshot? I voted, and it took three hours

*** *** ***

As cynical as I am sometimes, and as much as I grumble about the whole unpleasant process of American Politics, I have to say... I'm still idealistic enough to get a little thrill at the idea of voting... a little sense of pleasure out of seeing the parking lot of the polling place (the Abba Shriner's Temple **) so packed with cars. Even if 60% of these rednecks ARE voting for the wrong guy.

Oops... look... it wore off, right there, just then.

*** *** ***

The wife rented "Fahrenheit 9/11" for us to watch when we got bored with the returns tonight, but I have to say... it ain't gonna happen. I'm too obsessed about this one. I've been tracking the polls and watching the swing states and all that. I've even got a daily-updated Electoral College map on my desktop. The wife accused me of contributing to the widespread "electoral masturbation" taking place in the media, but I don’t care. Unless there is an unexpected electoral landslide for Kerry, I'll be watching it all night.

Keep an eye here for updates!

D.

(**) Could someone, anyone, please explain to me what the Shriners are and what they do? While you're at it, any other weird old-man cults... Knights of Columbus, Tall Cedars, Elks, Moose... what the hell is going on there? It just makes me picture Fred Flintstone in that Water Buffalo hat.

parenting...

When you have children, you find yourself looking on the bright side of things that, before you had children, would have most likely not had any bright side at all. You actually find yourself having thoughts like - "Good thing I was able to catch some of the vomit in my hand!" or "At least she didn't come into our room and throw up 10 minutes ago when we were having sex!" You will even seriously think things like - "Gosh, I hope that *I* get violently ill with intestinal flu and not the baby!"

The truest measure of parental love is simple fact that when my daughter threw up (carrots!) on my carpet at 12:30 AM last night, I DID NOT chase her around the house screaming and drenching her with a squirt-bottle like I did to the cat when she peed on the bed just a day before. Even though it took 10 times as long to clean up. In fact, that reaction didn't even occur to me. Which says a lot for the biological child-rearing imperative, I think.

fun at the "Y"...

When I walked into the YMCA on the way to yoga class, there was a little bent-over old lady standing next to the door, talking to a bunch of her grey-haired friends. As I walked by, I noticed that she was telling a joke. I came in on the middle of the joke, but I got the drift...

".... poor thing, I wonder what's the matter with her? Then about 5 minutes later, the lady walked OUT of the doctor's office. She was still using her cane, but she was walking just as straight as can be. (At this, the lady telling the joke straightened up, revealing that the bent-overedness was just part of the gag.) and the other lady thought, "Wow that's amazing - she looks so much better! I wonder what the Doctor did to her?" And so she walked up to the old lady and said, "Excuse me, but I noticed that when you walked into the doctor's office, you were walking all bent over on your cane, and now you're walking nice and straight and tall. And you were only in there for a couple of minutes! I was wondering if you could tell me what exactly the doctor did for you?"

"Simple," replied the little old lady, "I just asked him for a longer cane."


Which wouldn't be an exceptionally funny joke but for the fact that it was being told by a 70 year-old woman, and scored riotous laughter from her septuagenarian audience.


*** *** ***

Also today at the Y: Black "racer-back" Nike tanktop renders Dave unable to take his eyes off the mirror in the front of yoga class, ensnared as he was by the sublime perfection of his instructor's backish-shoulder-neckal regions.

sigh...

bring it on...

Two factors that have contributed to the current Candy Situation in our house...

1) We didn’t get NEARLY as many trick-or-treaters here as we used to in NY. Maybe 20 door-knocks, tops.

2) The people who already live here KNOW how few trick-or-treaters there are, therefore our kids got giant handfuls of candy from every house they visited.

As a result, should tomorrow's botched election result in widespread civil unrest, I will be able to easily ride out the conflict, locked inside my home, subsisting entirely on Miniature Twix.

the best of suburbia...

One of the coolest things about living in a big (or "biggish") city are the free weeklies. In Baltimore, it was "The City Paper", in New York - the "Village Voice". And once a year, the free city papers always put out their "Best of the City" issues. This is the place to find out which hole-in-the wall Chinese restaurant has the best food, or that "Killer Trash" is the best funky thrift shop in Baltimore, or that the place to go for Sicilian-style pizza in NY is "Krispy Pizzeria". So it was with great excitement that I opened the Sunday paper this weekend to find a "Best of Mobile" section. Oh what hidden local treasures await?!

Best Pizza? (drumroll please...)

Pizza Hut

Best Italian Food?

Olive Garden

The list goes on...

You have GOT to be shittin' me! The fucking Olive Garden?, I don’t even LIKE Italian, and I know enough to know that the Olive Garden is the Wal-Mart of Italian food!

Of course, Wal-Mart made the list too.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love suburbia as much as the next guy, probably more, and it's no secret that we're more likely to be seen dining at Applebee's or shopping at Target than anyone else, but I don’t live under some kind of illusion that these are the finest culinary and shopping experiences that the world has to offer. They are simply THERE. And if the Olive Garden really is the finest Italian dining experience that the area has to offer... I really did NOT need to know that! It's downright depressing.

they drive me crazy, but they ARE awfully cute...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

anxiety reversal...

You know the dream. The one where you're in college and you realize that you have a final exam for a class you haven't attended all semester, but you forgot to drop it, so you have to take the exam or you'll get an F. It's weird enough that I've never met a college graduate who hasn't had that dream - not just once, but fairly frequently. And well after you graduate... I had it just a few months ago. It makes me wonder what anxiety-dream people had before college was invented. ("Oh, no... the mammoth hunt is this weekend and I forgot to carve my spear!!)

Anyway, last night I had the official professorial reversal of that dream, which is to say... I dreamt that I was teaching 2 online courses, and it was final exam time, and I just realized that I had forgotten to post anything to one of the online courses since midterm, and that I was going to have to just make up a grade for all the students or something.

Isn’t it nice to know that anxiety knows no boundaries of age or status?

no one knows what i've got!

Great phermeci - Come on noow!
This is a very new phermeci!
You can get here lots of mediccatjons, anything you want!
You can same-day shjpping, in a discrete packkage!
No one will know what you've got!

I hear some people COMPLAIN about geting mail like this. Are you KIDDING me? Most of the time, crap like this is the best thing I get all day.

fall back my ass...

So the clocks go back an hour tonight. I always have to stop and think about what that means..."Hmmm... let's see... that means, like... 1:00 becomes 12:00 again, so... the hour between 12:00 and 1:00 happens TWICE so you get an EXTRA hour of sleep."

Of course that's what it USED to mean. Before I had kids, that is. Now it means... "Hmmm... so, that means at 5:30 when the youngest wakes up, the clock will now say 4:30, but that won’t matter because THE LITTLE FUCKER CAN'T TELL TIME!!"

So this means... what? I lose TWO hours of sleep? I don’t know.

All I know is, it means we'll be screwed up for days between this and staying up all night Tuesday watching election returns, whilst getting drunk in celebration/disbelief/horror.

better like this? or better like this...?

Dave got new glasses today...

Before...




After...




I know, I know... it's a SHOCKING and RADICAL change. Try to control yourselves.

the feline menace...

I'm just not feeling the yoga thing this morning. I'm in a bit of a fitness funk. Everytime I do something... exercise or whatever... and wind up on the southside of 200 for a day, something happens that screws the whole thing up. Like - oh look, it's Halloween and everywhere I look there is a giant bowl of Mini Fucking Butterfingers for me to eat all fucking day long at work.

Dammit.

Anyway. Still nothing exciting going on. The wife and daughter went to a rodeo last night (!!) and I sat home and watched "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" just to make sure it really did suck as badly as I remembered. It does. Jesus, if there was even HALF as much Jar-Jar... maybe, but...

And I had a revelation that the same thing is happening to Star Wars that is happening here in my office, which is - there is a stubborn, rich, control-freak in charge, and nobody has the balls to stand up and say - "Dude... this SUCKS!"

But that's neither here nor there. I made myself a rum and coke, and sat down to watch the Phantom Menace, and my fucking cat jumped up on the coffee table and knocked the whole fucking drink onto the carpet, and all over my computer bag. It's always nice to go to work smelling like a wino, y'know?

nothing but work...

A late post to the blog today, since I'm.... get this... WORKING. Hard to believe, I know... but I put aside my disgruntledness and worked on the text of a script today - for someone BESIDES my boss for a change, so maybe this time my changes won't be completely fucking ignored.

In the meantime, there are some visiting dignitaries using our conference room, so I'm sitting here putting off lunch so I can play trained-science-monkey when they come through for the inevitable tour of the office.

Not a whole lot else is going on. I went to the new yoga class yesterday, and the regular instructor was there, not the 20-something-Pusher who taught the class last week. The regular instructor is 50-something and her class is a kind of cable-access-old-people yoga. No fun at all. Well... the meditation part was good, but the yoga poses were exceedingly lame. Oh well.

Then I went to the tennis clinic, which was fine. Nothing much to say. No leads on a partner yet. I asked my wife if I could have a tennis partner who was 28 and blonde and wore a short little tennis dress, but she said "no".

That's it for today. Sorry I have nothing funny or weird or political or interesting or... anything. They can't all be winners.

we may mock the ballot boxes on the camels, but...

The preliminary election results are in from Afghanistan, and it looks like Karzai is the clear winner. No surprise there, really. But I was surprised when I read this...

According to the official election Web site, 98.4 percent of the votes had been counted as of Tuesday afternoon.
Karzai had 55.5 percent of the votes, 39 points ahead of his closest rival, former education minister Yunus Qanooni. Karzai must win more than half the votes to avoid a runoff.

So, apparently Afghanistan has adopted a system whereby if there are more than 2 candidates and the winner only achieves a plurality rather than a majority, then they have a run-off election between the top two candidates. Which would mean that Afghanistan has an electoral system that makes more sense than ours!!

Makes you feel proud, don't it?

bowling for blowhards...

We TiVo'd "Bowling For Columbine" off of the Sundance channel this week, and I think I've come to the conclusion that Michael Moore is an asshole. I think he thinks he's being "provocative". When I click on my thesaurus in Word, it gives synonyms for provocative like "challenging", "stimulating", and "thought provoking". But if you look at the dictionary definition, it says...

pro·voc·a·tive adj
1. deliberately aimed at exciting or annoying people

It is only in this negative sense that Michael Moore is provocative.

His logic is convoluted. His narrative is non-existent. His concern is disingenuous. And his films seem to be more about HIM than whatever "issue" they pretend to be exploring.

Not that any of this will stop me from renting "Fahrenheit 9-11", but I don’t expect to have any reaction to it more complex than annoyance.

PS: In other liberal blowhard news... I tried to watch The Al Franken Show the other night? TORTURE!!

work, snl, gang violence...

So... yesterday I did NO work...given the irritated funk I was in pretty much all day. I'm not feeling too terribly motivated today either. Maybe I'll try to think of something fun to do. Work, but fun. Maybe do some 3D modeling. The other scientist has spent pretty much an entire month creating a "starship" model in Maya for his video on relativity. Which is great, and it looks nice... I'm just not sure why we're paying somebody with a PhD in physics to make 3D models when we have a whole graphics department. Especially since, as far as I can tell, he's only written about 3 pages of text since August.

But enough about work!

Ummm.

Hmmm. (wanders off to read some other blogs...)

Hey - I just watched a clip of the Ashlee Simpson SNL debacle. Silly. As a musician, I find myself focusing on her "band". Heh... losers. I think I'd rather be playing in dive-bars in Cleveland than performing on Saturday Night Live if it mean backing up some no-talent lip-syncing 16-year-old. Good for them for keepin' on playin' though. No matter what happens... never stop playing.

It's like the time I was filling in on bass for my brother's band when they got booked at a get-together sponsored by motorcycle enthusiast organization known as the "Rough Riders", and halfway through the party a dozen guys from "The Pagans" showed up with baseball bats and big sticks...

Ok, it's nothing like that.

But we just kept on playing.

like children scolding adults with paintbrushes...

I don't know what it is about the Japanese, but somehow they can turn a simple anti-smoking poster campaign into something beautiful and poetic.

we went to the state fair yesterday...

... because lord knows there's nothing in the world Dave enjoys more than a prize-winning fancy chicken.

maybe bush isn't so bad after all...

I only learned of the Constitution Party a few weeks ago. Check out this endorsement of their presidential candidate Michael Peroutka from The American Conservative Magazine...

"As president, Michael Peroutka would end federal intervention in education, cut off federal funding of Planned Parenthood and homosexual activist groups, withdraw from NATO, the UN, NAFTA, WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF. He would seal our borders, cancel the George W. Bush-Vicente Fox treaty to pay Social Security benefits to illegal aliens who have returned to Mexico, expel illegal aliens, end all foreign aid, withdraw from Iraq, oppose the Patriot Act, fight all forms of socialized medicine, and appoint only judges who are 100 percent against abortion. Peroutka would abolish the IRS and replace the income tax with a revenue tariff. He would recognize the threat posed by Communist China and rebuild the U.S. Navy, which has dropped from 600 ships under Ronald Reagan to fewer than 250 today.

[...]
A vote withheld from both the Democrats and Republicans weakens that which is wrong and strengthens the cause of that which is right. Any vote cast for constitutionally sound, Biblically based policies hastens the day when, should God will it, we can witness the restoration of the Republic. It is not for us to decide elections, but rather to determine where we shall invest our precious franchise. God alone determines the outcome, and He blesses those who trust in Him."

Tell me that's not the scariest shit you have ever heard. If that's their OFFICIAL platform, can you imagine what their HIDDEN agenda is?? Fuck...

who's who...

This is an excerpt from a conversation I had with my wife the other night...

A: I heard that Gwen Stefani got a boob-job
B: Well, she needed it.
A: That's nice.
B: Oh, come on... if anybody needed a boob job it was Gwen Stefani.
A: One could just as easily say - "If anyone proved you didn't need giant fake boobs to be sexy, it was Gwen Stefani."
B: Yeah, right.

Now your task is to tell me who was the man and who was the woman in the above conversation.

an army of one...

If I knew having kids would mean 4 years of being awakened every morning by having someone screaming in my face at 5:00 AM, I would have just joined the Army instead. At least then there would be a small chance someone would shoot me and put me out of my misery.

D.

fuck you, comcast...

We turned on the TiVo last night to watch Survivor, and for some reason our cable had been out and we only got the last 5 minutes.

Fucking fuck FUCK.

Thursday without Survivor? FUCK!!

Dave

(PS: When are they going to cancel ER so I can stop feeling obliged to suffer through it every week?)

shhh!

Sorry folks, no time to post today. I have to focus all my attention on eavesdropping on the uncomfortable employee-review meting in the conference room on the other side of my wall.

harder! HARDER!

I know I said when I first talked about the "$25 student massage school" that even a BAD massage is still pretty darned good...

I may have spoke too soon.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, I mean... it was nice and relaxing I suppose. But my MUSCLES felt EXACTLY THE SAME when I walked out as they did when I walked in. And I was going to ask her to use more pressure, but from the way her hands were *trembling* from time to time, I think this was just as hard as she could squeeze. Time for a trip to the gym, babe...

It would have been a total loss had not the music switched to Norah Jones halfway through. I just kinda grooved out from that point on and ignored how lame the massage was.

Oh well... at least it was only $25. I'm still batting .666. Wish me luck for #4, which I imagine will come sooner rather than later, given how unsated this one left me.

how 'bout them red sox...?

Well, for once I'm very happy NOT to be living in NY anymore. Have the rioters set Mahattan on fire yet?

na-no-wri-mo...

The particularly nerdy among you may be aware that November is "National Novel Writing Month". It's a very cool project, and as much as I love the IDEA of NaNoWriMo, I don't really think I have 50,000 words of fiction IN me. It's no problem for me to churn out 2000 words of SCIENCE in a day - maybe I should start my own project... "NaNonFicMo"!

guitarblog entry... a test...

Dave gots the blues...

what it has come to...

Every so often I'll hear a bit on the radio or read an article online counting down to the election..."The Presidential election is only 18 days away"... "With just 15 days remaining until the November 2nd election"... "When Americans go to the polls just 13 days from now"... and every time I hear it I get a little knot in my stomach... a little sinking feeling... It's a feeling somewhere between creeping dread and outright terror. I'm scared.

I'm literally scared what might happen to this country of Bush gets elected and starts slapping right-wing wackos onto the Supreme Court. Not to mention the invasions of Iran and Syria in 2006. At least there will be lots of kids praying for us in public school, in between their Abstinance Only Sex Ed class and their Creation Science Lab.

I have always been "concerned" about the outcome of elections, ever since I was old enough to vote... but I've never been actually afraid before. I'm seriously considering ordering a Swedish Language audiotape collection, so I can get a jump-start on the language before we move. Better public schools, public healthcare system, longer life-expectancy, cooler furniture, and all the salmon you can eat. Sign me up.

Dr. Dave

(PS: any of you motherfuckers living in a "swing state" votes for Ralph Fucking Nader in two weeks and I swear I will PERSONALLY track you down and kick your ass.)

dave's fitness chronicles... and the weather...

Yoga class was really cool yesterday, even aside from the "pusher". One more word about her, first, though... she was a real cutie. And I couldn't help but wonder a few times during class... "Do you think she would be tugging up her tank top quite as often if I wasn't here?" I think it freaks out the women sometimes when I come to yoga class, which sucks - y'know? Cuz it makes me feel guilty for trying to do something I really enjoy. Anyway...

It's so much different doing yoga in a Yoga Space like that... not the "Y" or my office or whatever... but this studio that was clearly set up for the sole purpose of yoga. And even though it was run-down and HOT AS FUCK and like 30 feet from a fairly major road with the doors open so you're trying to meditate while cars are going by at 40 mph - "RRWEEEEE-Ooowww". And yet - it was still nice.

Then last night I went to a tennis clinic, which was fun. Even despite the mean Czechoslovakian lesbian (**) instructor. It was almost as much of a workout as actually playing. And as much as I don't like to be criticized in general, it's kinda nice to have someone tell you what you're doing wrong. I wasn't the worst in the group either... out of 7 people, I was at least in the top 3, which was good.

The ultimate goal was to maybe meet some people to play with, but nobody was really at my level. Although, as you might imagine, there was a cute blonde in an expensive tennis dress... I might not mind bringing *down* the level of my play just a bit to have her as a tennis partner. :)

Anyway, with a yoga class on Monday AND Tuesday and then tennis last night, my muscles are a bit ouchy today. I think I'm gonna skip a full-out yoga session today... maybe just do a few quick stretches. Then I need to think about EATING today, cuz I don't want to just replace every damned calorie I burned last night with more crappy food. Maybe I'll go to the grocery store at lunchtime and bring back some healthy-ish stuff to stock the work fridge.

I'm just rambling now.

I feel the need to comment on the weather, because I keep reading peoples' weblogs who are using words like "Fall" and "sweater" and "firewood". It's 73 degrees here now, at 8:00 in the morning... and humid as FUCK... like... JUNGLE-humid. The highs for the next four days are 85, 86, 82, and 81. It's crazy. There was one week where you started to feel like... "Hey, Fall is coming".. and I wore a jacket one morning even. That just stopped. Now it's back to the AC. It's like I've moved to the fucking Bahamas or something.

Dave

(** No, I don't know for sure she was a lesbian and yes I know there isn't even any country called Czechoslovakia any more. But I've been offending so many people with my blog lately, I couldn't pass up the chance to potentially offend 4 groups of people (Czechs, Slovaks, Lesbians, Tennis Instructors) using only TWO WORDS!)

auidio post - "it moved"...

nothing to say...

I can't bear to spend another minute blogging about politics or children or work or, god forbid... YOGA. I'm starting to bore myself.

Does anybody have any requests??

D.

the clip...

An astute reader was kind enough to point me to a clip of Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance over at iFilms.com. Their server seems a bit trafficky today, but it was well worth the effort.

party...

We had a little get-together at our place for my various co-workers on Saturday. It went well enough. People were suitably impressed with our house and our décor and all that oh-so-important suburban superficiality. (People were all but queuing up for the iJoy chair!) It was weird, though - half the people left before we actually started cooking the FOOD. Had I known that people had places to go, I would have fired up the grill sooner. But the boss stayed for dinner, and I think we made a good enough impression.

The highlight of the party actually came before, during the preparation phase, when my wife dropped a mixing bowl full of some kind of "sausage-ball" concoction onto the kitchen floor and it... well... "broke" or "shattered" don't seem to do it justice... it actually vaporized on the kitchen floor into pieces so small I can only assume they represent individual Pyrex molecules.

There was a brief attempt to pick the glass shards out of the sausage balls, but... saner heads prevailed and I just went to the grocery store to buy more sausage.

I love parties!

we went to the same college, you know...

I missed the actual program, but from what I hear, Jon Stewart gave the hacks at Crossfire quite the talking-to a few nights ago. My God, it sounded awesome.... I could KICK myself for missing it.

I want to have Jon Stewart's baby.

D.

(there's #3 for you, K.)

these people need to run away FROM the circus...!

Yesterday we went to the circus. I know... that sounds exciting. You have no idea. Because this was no Ringling Bothers, my friends... oh no. This was the Cole Brothers Circus!!

If you ever get a chance to catch the Cole Bros. Circus, do not... I repeat... DO NOT miss it. This is what you have to look forward to.

1) Bored, and possibly arthritic tigers.
2) Irritated Mexican clowns
3) Dancing dogs and kitties jumping through hoops
4) The finest acrobats that Central and South America have to offer
5) A Brazilian dance and acrobatics troupe featuring a dozen women who fall into the following categories -

a) 6 women who look like out of work Broadway-types
b) 3 women who look like out of work strippers
c) 2 women who are a little on the largish side for "acrobatics"
d) 1 woman who is very likely actually a MAN.

That's not even to mention the 47-year-old Ukrainian cannonball woman, two Japanese guys juggling on horseback, and various low-budget Cirque de Soliel ripoffery.

Oh god was it funny. The only thing that WASN'T funny about it were the clowns! (We all hate clowns. Don’t you?)

Anyway. I was reluctant, but it turned out to be much more fun than a "real" circus would have been. If Christopher Guest needs ideas for his next movie, this troupe could well be inspiration for the "Spinal Tap" of circus folk!

photo...



Ok, Bush is a wanker, but I have to say... his daughters have pretty damned nice legs. Actually, Laura's aren't half bad either, I'm embarrased to add.

next stop? reader's digest!

When I turned 30, it was National Public Radio... all of a sudden - no more music on the radio, just NPR. And then this week I turned 35 and the very next day I find myself at a newsstand buying a copy of The Economist for fuck's sake. THE ECONOMIST?! I mean... really, what the hell?

But in my defense, this month's issue has a really in-depth "election guide" with balanced, thoughtful, well-written articles on all the issues.

I know, becuase I heard about it on NPR.

let it WHAT...?

My wife said yesterday that she read an article in the local paper announcing that this December, the city is going to rent some snow-making machines and turn the local minor-league baseball stadium into a "Snow Park", where your kids can pay $6 each to come ride sleds and build snowmen and what have you.

I can't imagine they can pay for the cost of running a snow-making machine all winter at six bucks a head. It seems a little silly. But I guess it's the only chance for kids around here to get to play in the snow, so I suppose lots of people will take advantage of it. Let's just hope HE doesn't get wind of it!

Dave

obligatory..

I feel like I should post something this morning - probably something about the debate, but I really don't feel up to it. I was even gonna Audioblog it, but the damned battery on my cordless phone at work is dead.

Suffice it to say (debate-wise) that it was more of the same and the pundits will declare it a tie, even though Bush still sounds like a fucking autistic parrot, the way he just repeats himself over and over again. And no matter what question you ask him, he talks about "No Child Left Behind", because it's HIS ONLY FUCKING DOMESTIC POLICY OF ANY KIND.

I'm done talking about it. Bush is going to win, because people are stupid and the Republicans have mastered the art of talking stupid talk that stupid people can understand. "It's not the government's money, it's YOUR money! No child left behind! Tax and spend! (As opposed to DON'T tax, but still spend) TERR'R! TERR'R! TERR'ISM!" (I'm paraphrasing my own rant in a note to Pippa earlier today.) I'm fucking through with democracy. Are there any resonably benevolent dictatorships I can move to?

d.

where do we sign up...?

Today I learned the following fun fact while listening to NPR - the only other countries besides the US that allow the death penalty for minors are Iran, Somalia, and Congo.

Hmmm. And the axis of evil again is WHO?

dave gets all political and shit…

So it looks like the Supreme Court is going to hear two cases on the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on government property. This should be fun. I just don't see how any decision is possible save - "NO". I mean… really… Take a look at #1 from document "A" and #1 from document "B"

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Now. Come on. I have no problem with Commandments 5-9, say… but #1-4?? How can you not read the two sentences above and not say - "Yup, seems to be a bit of a conflict in purpose there!" It doesn't take a long black robe to figure that one out.


People are fucking insane. If there is a God, I blame Him.

travelogue: return...

Here I am - on a train with my laptop, just like the old days. I'm only going two stops, so it's really not worth the trouble to even have it out, but I just couldn't resist - for nostalgia's sake.

I'm getting a kinda late start, so I'm a little antsy about making it to the airport in time. Probably needlessly so, but... I'm like that. I like to be an hour early for EVERYTHING.

I miss New York... the people. It’s weird how "familiar" people look here. It's not that New Yorkers all look the same... in fact they all look very different. But there's a sameness to the way they look different. I can't really put my finger on it. It's some kind of uniquely New York style of uniqueness.

I also miss the things you see here that you just do not see in Suburbia. Lesbian couples groping each other on the train... grey-haired ladies on Razor scooters... orange dreadlocks... one guy shamelessly checking out another guys ass... skirts that short...

These are the things that make New York FUN!

*** *** ***

My "guest lecture" was even more sparsely attended than the play-reading. Oh well... SHE gets an A. Whatever.

It was nice to see my old colleagues, they were very friendly. It's nice that they don’t hate me for quitting. At least not outwardly. I had some nice chats.
[...]
Also, an online look at the flight out of NY seems to suggest that it is NOT full, so I guess I'll make it home tonight with no travel vouchers after all. It's too bad. Now that we have to fly Delta, those things are really worth something. When we flew Southwest everywhere, a free ticket was really only worth $40 - $60. Now it's worth $200. I miss Southwest! That's what I get for moving to the southEAST.

*** *** ***

Dozens of times now I've flown by myself on business trips and what have you. Not ONCE am I ever seated next to a gorgeous 25-year old woman. I mean.... statistically, you’d think... ONCE?

I wore my iPod out, and I'm tired of listening to the adorable French boy seated in front of me screaming (although less tired of listening to his gorgeous young mother scold him in alternating French and English) so I've taken out my laptop to enjoy a little music that way.

Having finished "Eleanor Rigby" I needed some new reading material, so after I checked in at JFK, I picked up a copy of "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach. It's gotten excellent reviews, and so far I agree. It's far funnier that a book about corpses ought to be. And yet respectful and honest and scientific and interesting.

[...]
*** *** ***

Flight out of ATL was delayed 40 minutes. (Can someone explain to me how it is that I'm flying from Georgia to Mississippi on a flight operated by "Alitalia"??) Still got home before midnight. More from the office on Tuesday.

Dave