My Sick Mind

Being a shut-in allows me to monitor the TV and check in on what is going on while the rest of you are going out. Over on TNT, they're showing a NASCAR race in Florida. The people in charge have figured a creative way to run commercials while the race is going on. Meanwhile, the ad and the junk at the bottom of the screen take up one-fifth of the screen space. I have no idea what this must look like to someone without a hi-def TV, but it can't be pretty. They call it "Wide-open coverage." I call it a shameless method for working commercials into content while not showing enough of either. Am I supposed to be watching the race or the ad? Neither one is emphasised. JUNEAU, Alaska – Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday laid the groundwork to take on a larger, national role after leaving state government, citing a "higher calling" with the aim of uniting the country along conservative lines. In a statement posted on Palin's Facebook account, ...

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Here's the thing about vending machines. We have made great advancements in technology across the board: Cellular telephones, hi-definition TV, microwave ovens and cars that run on batteries. Meanwhile, the best way we can think of to dispense snacks is a machine with those spiraling mechanisms. At best, they're hit or miss. At worst, they'll make you buy two of something in order to get one of something. They're stress-inducing. I call it a Vendosecond : The length of time between seeing the snack get to the edge and having it actually fall to the bottom. We're never sure if it's going to make it. Frequently, the machine at work is half-filled with snacks hanging perilously, waiting for someone with another dollar to get in on the two-for-one sale after a frustrated potential consumer walked away snackless. I rode my bike the 6 miles to River Winds (out local fitness facility) tonight. Afterward, I needed a beverage to refill my bottle for the ride home. The...

Around here - Pitman specifically - the holiday makes people do odd things. Starting on Tuesday, the locals began propping chairs up along Main Street in preparation for the annual July 4 parade. It happens every year, and I suspect that jumping in line or removing a chair and replacing it with another are acts of war in the neighborhood. The chairs are a local fixture for the rest of the week, and extend for a couple of miles along the road from Mantua to Glassboro. I've never been to the Pitman 4th of July parade, mostly because I eschew parades, and partly because I don't live in Pitman, but I can't imagine how it could be such a thrill that it would encourage people to place lawn chairs on the road five days prior to the event. Is there nudity or free beer? Nope. It's Pitman. Whatever it is, it must be horrible to have to stand and watch the parade. At first glance, it seems lazy, but when you consider the effort that is made to ensure a spot, it's ambitious...

LOS ANGELES – A plan to bury Michael Jackson at his sprawling Neverland ranch fizzled Wednesday, leaving details about his funeral undecided as another mystery was solved: His newly unveiled will says his mother should raise his children, or failing her, Diana Ross. The changing funeral circumstances thwarted many Jackson fans who had descended on the estate in the rolling hills near Santa Barbara with the hope of attending a public viewing. "We're terribly disappointed," said Ida Barron, 44, who arrived with her husband Paul Barron, 56, intending to spend several days in a tent. They're terribly disappointed. More disappointed that there is no memorial service than in his death, one presumes. One wonders (or at least I do) what those two would be doing today if Michael hadn't died. Wandering the streets aimlessly? Where do they get the time off work? Do they tell their boss, "Hey ... um ... I need a few days off." "Why?" "To go to the N...

I'm old enough to have been through five incarnations of music. Vinyl, cassette, 8-track, CD and now mp3. Along the way, I've had to endure the endless (almost) remastering and remixing of stuff that I bought and listened to when I was ten years old. Part of the problem is that the stuff was good when I was ten, but somehow it did not age well enough to be left alone (much like Michael Jackson) and had to be altered in some way as to make it "marketable" to the masses who probably didn't hear it in its original form. While cruising Amazon's web site for some new music (I pre-ordered Son Volt's new CD) I came across this list of remastered Beatles CDs which most of, I'm happy to say, I didn't buy when they were first issued as CDs about 20 years ago. That's nice because now, I see that the third generation wasn't good enough, and now they have had to be remastered (by who?) and re-issued AGAIN on CD, for sale to a gullible American mus...

HARTFORD, Conn. – The Supreme Court ruling in favor of white New Haven firefighters who said they were victims of reverse discrimination will probably leave employers confused, civil rights advocates and labor attorneys say. I don’t know about the employers, but it’s leaving me confused. I’ve seen the term reverse discrimination several times and I’m never sure what it means, except that it sounds ridiculous. The dictionary defines discrimination as “treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit.” If that’s the case (and it is) then what is “reverse discrimination?” Why is the term discrimination confined to people of color and “reverse” when it happens to white people? If something is discriminatory, it doesn’t matter whom the action is against. By definition, reverse discrimination means you are treating people fairly, an...

It turned out that pitchman Billy Mays (some job description, eh?) died from hypertensive heart disease, and not a blow to the head as originally assumed. You can bet that there was a collective sigh of relief over at US Airways. Oh yes. It's a lot easier to sue some company for being hit on the head by a carry-on bag during a landing than it is to sue a company over a lifetime of bad eating habits. I wonder if anyone has ever been killed by being hit on the head by a carton of cigarettes? There's a lawsuit for you. Death, as well as being a cure for disease, is good for sales. Eight of the top ten downloaded tracks and 7 of the top ten downloaded albums on Rhapsody (Real Player's music service) are Michael Jackson recordings. As though his death suddenly reminded people, "You know, I don't own any of his songs. It's about time I owned all of his songs." Strange behavior. Now that Michael's dead, I can find a good excuse to say I liked him . We...

We're a forgiving bunch - sometimes. It depends, of course, on our level of affection for what the offending person did and how much we're willing to absorb on a personal level to subsidize the nonsense they created in their personal lives. We now hate Barry Bonds because we didn't much care for him to begin with. Most of us knew he was an obnoxious jackass and once the steroid allegations rolled out, we had vindication for our original feelings, and we let the hatred fly. Sometimes we don't know what sort of a jackass someone was in life until they die. Then, the books and magazine articles start coming and we change our opinion from one of unconditional love to one of massive doubt. We still might like their work, but while we're involved in it we're thinking, "Man, that guy was a fucking weirdo." I think we always knew that about Michael Jackson, but the thing that surprises me about the outpouring of love I'm seeing after his death is that ...