My Sick Mind

TUCSON, Ariz. – Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head Saturday when an assailant opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with constituents, killing at least five people and wounding several others in a rampage that rattled the nation. Giffords was among at least 10 people wounded, and the hospital said her outlook was "optimistic" and that she was responding to commands from doctors. The hospital said a 9-year-old child was among the killed, and a U.S. Marshal said a federal judge was also fatally shot in the attack. At first, I was shocked and dismayed at the story. That was, until I read down to the bottom of the article and saw this little blurb from our Commander in Chief. The shooting prompted an outpouring of sympathy from politicians and people around the country. President Barack Obama called the shooting "an unspeakable tragedy" and that such "a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society."...

I love upheaval. I love it when conventional thinking goes out the window, or when something that was created by people who are supposed to know what they're doing turns out to be a giant mess. The Seattle Seahawks won the NFC's Western division with a losing 7-9 record. That pisses off a lot of football people because a "losing team" isn't supposed to win anything. Not only that, but the Seahawks get to host a playoff game when the 11-5 Saints travel two time zones to play them on Saturday. Needless to say, I'm rooting like hell for the Seahawks, because football people will be in a crazy-assed snit over yet another breach of their little kingdom. Never mind that they made the divisions and the rules - it's just wrong . The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gave the okey-dokey to build casinos in the state a while ago. Since then, several kids have been left in automobiles while their gambling parents went inside to bet. Now, they have sponsored a series o...

I've been a member of a gym (er ... fitness center ) for 31 years. Outside of a bout with pneumonia in 2001 and a dislocated elbow in 1989, I've never missed any extended period of time. The sociological phenomenon that is the influx of new gym members I see on January 2 still amazes me. That either shows that I'm a slow learner or have a short memory. It happens every year at every gym I've attended. Since the place is closed on New Year's Day, if you lost your calendar or your watch stopped, the day you suddenly noticed five times the number of people in the place as you saw the day before would be January 2. At some point around Christmas, thousands of people suddenly decide that their pants don't fit and if they look directly downward they cannot tell if their shoes match. They make a proclamation and decide that the new year will bring a new ... them . The sociology part of it is that it's the changing of the calendar that makes people realize the...

"Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy." - Louis C.K., on the amazing and sometimes frustrating things that technology has done for society. The remote for my sophisticated cable box recently broke. At least, I thought the remote was broken, since the delay in the box recognizing entries caused me to have to take it back to the cable company to get a new one. The new remote didn't work any better than the old one, and I figured I would have to get a new cable box, causing me further inconvenience. As it turned out, all I had to do was turn the box off for a few minutes and turn it back on, which was a last-ditch effort to fix the problem without actually fixing anything. Turning something off and on again is a half-assed attempt, but in this case it was the solution, and as Occam's Razor taught us, the simplest solution is the best. NEW YORK (AFP) – The bells weren't ringing for many iPhone users this New Year's weekend, when thanks to a glitch the ala...