Rosie O'Donnell: Please stop ruining Democracy

Rosie: Shut up please! You’re RUINING US!

This morning on some morning “news” show (I don’t know or care to find out which), Rosie O’Donnell was a guest. This was a big deal, because you may not recall but she was on another morning-esque show called The View (11 years now, no way!), where she had a falling-out with the only good-looking chick on the show over the whole Iraq Debacle we now find ourselves in.

Anyway, some thoughts on the matter:


ROSIE, YOU’RE RIGHT ABOUT the WAR AND SUCH, OK?
Look, I agree with you. The war is a farce. And in fact I think your views are much less cynical than my own are. The pretty bitch was wrong, she’s dumb and she doesn’t think passed her own perky, plump boobs. But c’mon! You gotta tone down the oinking, OK? People see your ugly mug, badgering away with that obnoxious attitude of yours, and they then try to label all liberals as “Rosie clones” or something.

Look: I even agree that you have to fight hard against the right-wingers. They throw sticks and stones and you need to throw sticks and stones back. But you’re dropping bombs, and more importantly, you’re just annoying. Shut up. Do all of us left-leaners a favor, and have someone else make your points for you. Write them down. Give them to me if you must. Dammit!

And I also agree that rather than arguing over silly, minute differences, Barack & Hilary need to realize that they’re both running for the highest office in the world. A black man & a woman, this would have been less than a pipe-dream 30 years ago. It would have been considered suicide – in the literal sense – a mere 60 years ago. Yes, they need to get over themselves, and get to at least being polite and sincere with each other.

But again, coming from you, it means so much less. You’re destroying the very foundations you hold dear every time you talk. Stop talking, OK, before you unravel democracy!

HOW YOU'RE DOING IT
You say things that are just so out of the realm of reality. Yeah sure, you don’t watch any TV or have any internet access at home. How the hell do you know what’s being said about you then? Guess what? You’re not front-page news on the New York Times, dear. And uh, the rest of america cannot fathom how it is that someone who is so often plastered all over the damn devices cannot have access to them. Hey guess what, it would be hard for you to blog (video blogging to boot!) if you aren’t using a computer, OK? Give us a break, even the dumbass right-wing nutjobs can figure out that if you have a blog (with video!) that you probably, must maybe, might be using a computer. And the internet.

So you’re a liar. And a hypocrite. And so much more. Like extremely annoying. Even to those who agree with your premises. And to be quite honest, you’re just not that special. I don’t care. I don’t think a lot of people do. And those who “worship” you? Yeah, the rest of us “normies’ feel about the same towards them as we do towards you. Are you getting it? Picking up what I’m throwing down, as they say? White on rice? You good to go? We connecting yet?



And more on the important point (and peoples)
Barack… Hilary… Seriously you two, get over whatever it is. And get real, too. I feel like you two are giving the public lines they want to hear (rescue! Pull out! Yay!), when in reality we can’t achieve the overall goals we need to and actually do what you say.

Like, uh, pull out of Iraq? Have you thought through that quagmire? Seriously? Yes, that's what we should do, tear apart a country with war... and then leave. Yeah I'm sure that wouldn't stain our image in the world any, huh? Oh, and saving the housing market? Are you for real? How the hell are your constituents going to afford homes if you don’t let the prices settle down to normal levels? You can’t bail out the mortgage industry and lower prices at the same time, sorry. Gonna have to let that crumble, my dears, if you really have the people's interests in mind here.

Dammit you two, I don’t want to have to run myself. I can’t. I have a few more years before I’m eligible. Get it right.Or email me. I’m available for consulting.

I’ll be checking my inbox. Hourly.

Peace.

The Symphony, & "Conventional" Dairies

Culture. It has arrived...

So a few nights ago we went to the symphony. They did Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (remember I had said that it was Mozart; I was wrong – that’s next month). It was very pretty.

I have lots of classical music in my collection. But nothing can really compare to the depth, the power of the live orchestra. It’s magical. The music is alive, you feel it and it’s a wonderful experience, it really is. Tonight was the first that I have ever been to see an orchestra live. I liked it. I liked it a lot. I – I think we may make this “Our Thing,” as it were. It’s just too bad that they’re off the charts after next month. I think the “season” opens up again in October. Nice. Hopefully in time for my birthday. Buy me a present, btw.



Dairy farming: Organic vs “Conventional”
I was reading some “Did You Know” facts about a local dairy co-op while on lunch @ work the other day. They were saying that 19 of their members were “conventional” dairy farmers and 24 were Organic. And it got me thinking. It’s a simple question, and it’s a simple answer.

What is “Conventional?” And what is “Organic?” Conventional is by definition what is done ‘normally.’ Organic is taken to mean that the product is raised/groomed/created without the use of synthetic chemicals. Up until sometime around the middle of the last century, there were not many synthetic chemicals to bother mentioning. And it seemed to me, isn’t ‘Organic’ actually ‘Conventional?’

I mean, that’s the way it’s typically done, in nature for sure, and also around most of the globe and throughout history. Conventional is Organic. At least it should be. I am not sure why it’s perverted now, though.

They should rename ‘Conventional’ to more accurately describe what it is: “Hormone- & Unnatural Antibiotic-infested farming.” Or they could just shorten it to “Unnatural Farming.” I’d be OK with that too.

Seriously though, think about that next time you hear the word ‘Conventional.’ It sounds very low-key, very tame, something that you could take for granted. But really think about what it’s being applied to. It seems to me that just like “No Child Left Behind” was a victory of title over substance, they are using language to quell any fears that what they’re really doing might arouse. No one wants to buy milk that comes from “Hormone- & Unnatural Antibiotic-infested farming,” or even “Unnatural Farming.” But hey, Milk from “Conventional” farming methods? That doesn’t sound so bad!

Yeah. I’m all-organic, baby. And proud. And healthy. Thanks, I’ll pass on the “Conventional.”

Peace.

The Symphony, the trackpad, and the heist of my change

Off to the Symphony tonight

Yeah it’s true, random bob & The Girl are gettin’ cultured and sh!t! Ain’t that the damnedest!

We’ve actually been planning it awhile now. Well not really. Kinda. Kinda-sorta. Anyway. See what it was is that we love the idea of going to these types of concerts (Mozart’s on tap tonight). We’ve never actually been though. But there’s a really nice theatre in town and we wanted to make time for it at some point, so we put into our calendar some events they had in their calendar. Just so happens that last week it became apparent that this event and our schedules collided; we had the time & the opportunity, so we pulled the trigger and bought us some tickets.

Mozart better be damn good after all this trouble! Ha. Hey I know he’s good it was just a joke, c’mon. I have tons of Mozart in my iTunes library. Yeah. Culture, see?



Retraining myself
Nothing special or important. I’ve been a heavy mouse user even since the day I opted for laptop over desktop. Today I decided that it’s really not that more convenient. I’m trying to retrain myself to use the trackpad instead.

So far it’s going OK. Not great, just OK. And I’m not sure how much of that is due to the fact that in the back of my mind, I know the mouse is only a hand’s grab away.



Random bob gets published online (somewhere else)
I recently had an issue with a certain credit card company. Armed Forces Bank, this one’s for you!

You see, I started my credit history with them. But they make it so difficult to get a better limit or rate that I just never bothered, I mean hell I have like 10 credit cards, so what’s the point? I just stopped using theirs for the most part, breaking it out occasionally so that it would still be valid and have a history. Well I left a small credit balance on there for some months without thinking much of it. Then I used the card after a long hiatus. Well come to find out what I owed didn’t match my books! Turns out they had “written off” my credit balance.

So basically, I left them in charge of a few cents of mine, and then they stole it from me. This didn’t seem right, and when I called they essentially said they would not help me unless I paid $3 a month for all the months backwards of the last 3 for research costs. Nice. Well they stole my money, then tried to get me to pay more money to have them tell me they stole my money, and I cancelled. And then sent a line to The Consumerist. You may have heard of them before, I have a link on the side of the page there and I think most everyone ought to read it daily.

Well, wouldn’t you know it? They eventually ran with my story. Turns out AFB isn’t the only ones doing it, as another gent got the same treatment from Wachovia.

So uh, yeah. Check your statements closely. Apparently rolling in money won’t stop your banks from stealing your pocket-change.

Peace.

3 Movies, down, 3 reviews to go, & 5 FREE movies!

Seen THREE movies; no reviews yet

I have seen three movies since last I updated; you’ll notice that there haven’t been any reviews. They are forthcoming.

What were the special flicks? One was Rocky Balboa, another was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and the other was American Psycho.



How they came to be
The first two showed up as they should have, from Netflix. The third was a surprise last night, as we didn’t have any movies scheduled to show up. And it wasn’t from Netflix.

When we bought our Blu-Ray Player oh-so long ago, they were running a promotion for 5 free movies. Hell I like free. So yeah we filled out the paperwork, sent away… and waited. And waited some more. We waited for so long we damn-near forgot that at some point we were supposed to get free movies.

Until yesterday, when they finally showed up. Yay us!



The others are… (drumroll please)
We also received Chain Reaction, S.W.A.T., Swordfish, & The Prestige. All except for The Prestige are born losers, of course. This was not our fault.

5 free movies sounds like a lot of fun. Except they don’t give you any 5 free movies of your choice. Oh no, they have 5 “categories,” if you will, and you have to select one from each of the 5 “categories,” as they were. Now these aren’t “categories” as in Horror, Action, etc. No, these are “categories” like A- choose from these 4 sucky movies, B-choose from these 7 sucky movies, C-choose from these 5 corny-ass sucky movies, etc.

So as you see, we did the best we could. Hey I’m just glad something the caliber of The Prestige was even on the list.

Peace.

A bit of Irony: The local Titty Bar

Of All the Ironies in All the World…

A few nights ago (as I was making the bed to get in and sleep the night away), I got a call. It was a good friend of The Girl’s, and she called to tell me/us that she was going to be celebrating her birthday that night, and she was to be having this bash at The Tip Top Club. The Tip Top Club is a local (the only) strip club around these parts.

She’s bisexual, by the way. Yes, she’s every guy’s dream girl. Well, half of the dream, at least.

So The Girl went. Which means, she’s now been to a strip club, whereas I have not. See the irony? My girl has been to the titty bar to see hot, naked women rub up on everyone. I have not. This is just too weird.

I would have gone, but I had to be at work @ 6:30am the next morning. The call came in around 11:30pm. Wasn’t in the cards.



This is why women are so much cooler than men, btw
Okay, so imagine a couple (heterosexual, please). Now, imagine that they are gearing up for a night out. Never, I repeat, never, would a girl bring up an idea that involved a place with men stripping to nothing and both would enjoy it.

It does seem to work the other way, though. You can take your girl to an establishment that involves scantily-clad women getting non-clad and rubbing themselves on you. Everyone is happy.

Yes, women rock.



In the “Strange Things” department
The Girl got home around 3:30am and felt like chatting. Apparently seeing lots of nipples helps you forget that your significant other has to work early the next morning. Anyway. So we’re chatting and she tells me that they didn’t serve alcohol there. I think it came up when I asked how plastered everyone got, and made sure she wasn’t drinking then driving. Anyway. The don’t serve alcohol. Yep. Not even a titty bar, I guess, what with no “bar” and all.

The Girl said that she thought it helped keep customers from getting out of control. I agreed, but it creates another problem: lost profits. Drunk people spend more. So, more tips. More money on booze. You know, because drunk people may not like $4 beer at first, but a few later and it seems like a great deal!

The next day, The Girl is poking around on the web, looking for information on the club. And here’s the “Strange Things” hook: They’re an RV sales lot. Yeah, no joke. They sell RV’s, apparently.

You see, they are not serving alcohol because they’re not zoned to serve alcohol there; it’s technically an RV sales lot. And all those naked women shoving faces in crotches?

Sales girls.

Man, I LOVE this place! And I haven’t even been there!

Peace.

Workout Laughter, Vogue & LeBron, & a good internet video

Haha funny NO!

Today I got in my workout. Yay for me, except that I had to laugh at myself once I was damn near through.

See, I had started doing my back exercises, and I felt really strong. So I upped the weight a little, then a little more… 20 pounds more than I would normally do. Like, 20 pounds more than I would have done the last time I did them. That’s quite an improvement! Trust me!

Well it seemed like quite an improvement. Until I was damn near done, and I realized that I had put on the 25lb plates instead of the 35lb plates I normally use. Whoops!

Anyway, I guess it goes to show that I know my limits rather well. (2x25+20=70; 2x35=70).



The Guffaw over LeBron & Vogue
I got a glimpse of the “provacative” Vogue Cover featuring LeBron James & Giselle Bundchen (she’s hot btw). But have you heard all the ruckus over the perceived “racial overtones” of the cover? You know, that it portrays black males in a “vicious manner,” with an angry face and “clutching” a helpless white woman…

I know it sounds absurd, but in reality I see where they’re coming from. It DOES look like a scene from King Kong (the good version, not the “Jack Black’s in it totally f*cking it up version.” I hate Jack Black, btw). What would have been so bad about him being dressed to the nines? He could have still held a ball or something. Why have him in such an “active” stance, with such a scowl on his face (yes I know he’s almost smiling, but still it’s not a “hi nice to see you” sort of appearance either)?

They may not have necessarily meant it in that way, but they should have nabbed that before it went to print. Voque’s been around awhile, their covers are usually pretty well-conceived; this might not have been intentional, but it probably wasn’t an accident, either.



Did you see this video yet?
If you know me personally, then I already emailed it to you. But if you don’t know me personally, then maybe you haven’t seen this video.

It’s a rather lengthy video by internet standards (upwards of 20 minutes), but also very important. It’s also very spot-on. I’ve been saying essentially the same thing for years, and I’ve seen how people tune out; it’s funny how quickly people will bury their heads in the sand and just claim ignorance, so they can continue being someone else’s pawn.

Anyway, I didn’t learn anything from the video. Which isn’t to say that I’m smarter than anyone, only saying that it’s not news, if you’ve listened to me you may recognize some of what the narrator says. But it’s put together well, and ties a lot of things together nicely.

Definitely worth checking out. What are you waiting for? Click already!

Peace.

Dems & The Housing Market, & Gas for Workouts

I don’t get the Dems sometimes

They keep on saying that we need to bail out the damn mortgage industry, some sort of “economic stimulus” plan, prop it all up with some $30 billion. I just don’t get it.

To me, it would seem that amounts to perpetuating the republican agenda. I mean, the dems didn’t create the housing boom, it serves the purpose of keeping most of the people (whom they’re supposed to be “for”) out of one of the biggest facets of the American Dream… yet they keep right on going for that. Election year politics? Man, f*ck.

Sorry, but propping up the housing market serves no one except the people looking to turn around and sell for profit sometime soon. The market’s overvalued, and if they prop it up and keep the prices artificially high, then they’re locking soooo many low-income families out of the possibility of ever owning the roof over their heads.

This is decidedly not a democratic ideal. I don’t know what the hell they’re thinking. I actually – GASP! – agree with McCain on this one.



Workout stories
I haven’t worked out much recently. I was hit by the flu bug, albeit not too hard. But then I just sort of never got much better for the better part of two weeks, and only recently got good enough to lift frequently. Like, 3 days ago.

One thing I noticed during my hiatus: lack of gas. Yeah, that gas. Almost as soon as I got back on the bandwagon though, the gas came back. And it hit me: I may not be as naturally gassy as I feared myself to be; it may be a byproduct of the whey protein supplement I take when I work out. Er, used to take. I have been off it for almost two weeks and haven’t had any issues, so I am going to try getting on it again, see if the gas reappears. If so? Then I’m screwed.

More specifically, my wallet’s screwed. Because it’s not like I’m going to not lift. Rather, I’m going to have to relegate myself to actually eating the protein I need, as opposed to drinking it on the cheap. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy the eating. It’s just a bit more expensive.

So if you’re a workout buff and you think gas is just a way of life for you? Maybe not. It may just be a “whey” of life. May be another point to the old adage, “you get what you pay for.” No way to cheap out on the weight gain either, apparently. At least for me.

Peace.

Atonement, & another Celeb F'ed up Bodypart

Seen: Atonement

We ran out of things to do on Monday night, so we popped into the video store down the street and rented Atonement. It’s set in WWII-era England, involving a love story gone awry. Two lovers, torn apart by the vindictive accusations of a little girl, separated by time in jail and a horrific war, but most of all by the jealousy of a young girl.

It’s a good movie almost all the way around. We were actually warned by The Girl’s grandmother just before we sat to plop it in, that it a) wasn’t all that good, and b) there was some ‘raunchy’ sex scene in a kitchen. Now, we usually take movie recommendations from her with a grain of salt, if not a shaker-full. Good thing, too because she wasn’t quite right on either front. Firstly, the movie’s not that bad. It’s overall a fairly well-done flick, if a little rough at the end.

Secondly, the raunchy sex scene? In the Library, not the kitchen. And furthermore, it wasn’t even raunchy! Odd perhaps, but far from raunchy. I’ve seen raunchier on TV. This was not raunchy. It was actually kind of understated & intriguing.

For me, the worst part of the movie was the ending. You go along with the story, you hope they find each other, then it seems they did. But then you quickly learn that they never did, they died, and the part you just saw was the imagination of the vindictive little girl – now 143 years old – in her new novel, Atonement, an “autobiography” of her horrible act. She explains in an interview that those moments were in fact how she wrote it out of her imagination, to give them the time together they never had (because the died, victims of the war, a continent apart).

That sucks enough, but then she keeps talking, and it keeps sucking more. Oh now she tells us that she doesn’t think of it as a cheap ploy, a copout, she thinks its what they would have wanted. You know, for her to be a famous writer at the expense of their love & lives. Yeah, they wanted to die apart. So you could ‘imagine’ them together. Yeah.

Newsflash: It IS a cheap ploy. It WAS a copout. You ARE a raving bitch. And this catastrophic ending, in which you teased us with happiness – no, gave it to us and then ripped it from our grasp – was a complete disaster. We’d have rather have just received the bitter ending without the soft buildup.

But aside from the ending, it’s quite alright, cheerio! I’d give it a straight B.



F’ed up Celebrities we’re allowed to mention, part 2
So one star in this film is well-known for her good looks. Not so much known for her f*cked up eye, though. Yeah, Keira Knightley has a f*cked up eye I noticed, and again, it seems no one is allowed to mention it. It struck me – like, popped out of the screen and almost hit me – in a café scene where she meets her lover after a 3-year hiatus that he spent in prison. She’s standing there in her blue ‘thing’ that she’s wearing, and her face just fills up the screen with a “deer in the headlights” sort of look. And that’s when it almost hit me: her left eye is noticeably bigger and higher than her right. I mean, the camera was slightly off-center to her right, making that eye closer to the screen to begin with, yet still her left eye just dominated the screen. It was eerie. Or, well, eye-ie or something.

Not saying she’s not a beauty, no one’s perfect, but still, why can’t these things be mentioned?

I mean honestly, her eye doesn’t really bother me. But MAN, Joaquin’s f*cked up shoulders bug the living hell out of me.

Peace.

We Own the Night, Joaquin's F'ed up Shoulder, & Archives

Seen: We Own the Night

Netflix sent this our direction and we partook of it. It’s not too bad. It’s a crime drama, there’s really not much more to say about it. It’s not breaking new ground. The Russian Mafia is sneaking in dope to New York, the cops are trying to stop it, war ensues. Nothing new.

There were a few irritating parts, though. It’s hard to explain without giving the whole movie as background, but if you were in a car behind two cars having a shootout, and one was your friends & the others were not? Would you merely speed up to see it? Or would you, say, try to spin the other car out? Well apparently we only get the option to watch here.

And the final act. You’d think that if cops had a place surrounded, this would mean they had the place surrounded. Apparently not. Nope, here, surrounded means “ok we’re at the front door, please don’t a) shoot at us or b) run out the back doors, thanks.” So yeah there’s a few little dumb things, but the one thing that bothered me most about it was Joaquin Phoenix trying to become a cop…

It's OK. It's not the best, not the worst, yet as much as it's viewable, it's also passable. I say C+. It's a fair assessment. I'm being fair on that.



F’ed up Celebrities we're not allowed to mention, Part 1
Why is it that no one talks about Joaquin’s fucked up shoulder? I was curious as to what it was, but there’s, like, nothing I could find about it. Like it’s a taboo subject or something. Or like everyone’s trying to pretend that no one notices.

Yeah right! C’mon, it’s plain as day! He has a f*cked up left shoulder, dammit! He can’t be a cop! He can’t pass the physical! What the hell!? Why does all of Hollywood ignore this fact?

I want to see a parody of his Johnny Cash Performance in Walk the line. You know how they replayed over & over that “hello, I’m Johnny Cash” line? Yeah well I want to see a skit where someone comes out being him being Cash, and says, “Hello, I have a f*cked up shoulder.”

Can we at least admit it’s there? We can all see the elephant, right?



Archives updated
OK so I did finish my updating of the Archive. However, I did get a little lazy about it. Well, not really lazy, just all historical and stuff.

See, there were some entries I came across that the links were simply too good to get rid of, and there were too many to worry about reformatting everything. Blogs like this one, about Michael Jackson’s 50-foot tall robot with lasers for eyes. So I compromised. I did reformat the spacing to match, but I left the text as it was. So some entries will be a slightly different size & font.

And for the record, I’m never going to do this again. They’re stayin the way they are. That was too damn boring, and I’ll be damned if I ever do that again.

Peace.

Archives, Movies recently viewed, & Miles' Health

Almost Done!

As of right now, I am nearing completion of the old blog updates. It was actually made easier with the realization that not all would need so much work. I knew I wanted to add an introductory pic for each entry, and a lot were missing, but that’s relatively easy, it’s the text that is the labor.

I have been using this basic “format” since about August of last year, and even before that, I used only a slightly modified version of what I’m currently using. So theoretically, once I get to about June 2007, I’m all but through. I say theoretically because had I gone straight through chronologically, that would be true. However once I skipped ahead to see where I’d have to go to, I started just fixing those small issues to break the monotony of the full-fix entries…

So right now, I have about 2 months of full-fixers, and say one month of slight-fixers.



Seen 2 movies, no reviews
I have seen both Atonement & We Own the Night, and not blogged about either. Those are forthcoming, don’t worry. But I think they will wait until I’m done with the archival updates.



On a sadder note
Miles had been looking a little injured a few days ago. Wasn’t sure, couldn’t figure it out, but he seemed to get suddenly better, I figured maybe he was constipated, who knows. Anyway, off to the beach yesterday, and now he really is injured. Threw the ball along the sand, and I guess he twisted his front right ankle in a funky motion to grab the ball off the ground as re ran passed it.

He’s doing better this morning already, but still….

I was talking with The Girl about how I react differently when Zoey & Miles get injured. I do tend to act more “concerned” when Miles is involved. And it’s not that I don’t care about Zoey, it’s that I know Zoey is young and it’s “just” and injury. Miles is 11-½ years old; is this “just” and injury, or the beginning of the end, you know? So yeah, I am always very concerned with his health, because the older he gets, the less likely he is to bounce back. I know this. I don’t want to admit it, but I know it.

I mean, a week sidelined? No problem for a young dog. For him? He’s really active, but if he has to go a week just sitting around, then it takes a bigger toll on him. The next time out he may injure something else.

I may need to get him on a stretching regimen. Maybe enroll him in Yoga classes or something.

Peace.