Fire in turn two.

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, she suggested that she had bigger plans and a national agenda she planned to push after she resigns at the end of the month.
"I am now looking ahead and how we can advance this country together with our values of less government intervention, greater energy Independence, stronger national security, and much-needed fiscal restraint," she said. Palin also cast herself as a victim and blasted the media, calling the response to her announcement "predictable" and out of touch.
"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country," the statement said. "And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."

Her Facebook account. Uh-huh. That's where America breeds its new leaders - the same web site where your twelve-year old posts cell phone pictures of herself. She's a "victim." Sure. What does that make the rest of us? Beneficiaries? I don't think so. It's not about country and never has been. Having Palin take on a "larger national role" are among the things that keep me up at night.

I have to get out more.

Oh Sarah, where art thou?

It's hard to get a break. Even when something good happens, it draws so much attention that the goodness is outweighed by the attention.

Yesterday, MILFish governor Sarah Palin declared that she was going to resign as governor of Alaska effective July 26. That must have made the 40 people in Alaska very happy. Seals now have a reason to clap.

To me, Sarah represents everything that is wrong with American politics and American society in general: All form, no substance. If she was 4 feet, 8 inches tall and weighed 170 pounds with the same qualifications, there's no way John McCain would have picked her to be his running mate in 2008. But he needed a hottie to balance-out the white-haired old guy, and whom better?

She's more of a GILF (Governor I'd Like to...) than a MILF. Personally, I would put her in the middle 50 percent of women of that age as far as looks go. I could make a list of at least 20 women I know personally that are hotter in every way than she. Line her up with other governors, however, and she stands out. That's the nature of politics and America. Happy 4th of July.

The sad part is that she won't go away. Dan Quayle went away. Michael Dukakis went away. Geraldine Ferraro went away. Even when Sarah goes away, she makes headlines. We can't get a break.

She mumbled something about being able to accomplish more outside the governorship than inside. I don't know. Maybe she'll get her own TV show. Or her own network. SPTV. Fifty bucks a month. You'll pay for it.

Whatever - I'm sure we'll keep hearing about every fart and little comment she makes as though she was some Statesman (sorry, Statesperson) or something, right up until 2012. Remember that great bit of monologue from the film "Broadcast News" from the Albert Brooks character, Aaron Altman and you'll know what I'm talking about:

What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing. He will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance ... Just a tiny bit.

That's Sarah. You betcha.

Vendo: The God of Snacks

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 machine upstairs sells Powerade for $1.25. Red is my favorite flavor (honestly, blindfolded I couldn't tell red from blue) and I put two dollars in the machine and was served one red Powerade and sixty cents change. I was shortchanged by 15 cents, and Powerless to do anything about it. The vending machine offers no appeals process.

I took my lumps and wandered downstairs where the snacks are. I'll have a bag of peanuts. I figure elephants like them, and if they're good enough for elephants, they're good enough for me. Look at what great shape they're in, so they must be good for you.

The peanuts are 90 cents. I put a dollar in the machine, was vended my bag (in a Vendosecond) and out came 25 cents change.

I broke even from two different machines. Those are the kinds of things I win at. Stuff that is pointless, and only valuable in that it keeps this writing project going another day. Otherwise, I couldn't care less about the 15 cents, although the sheer coincidence and happenstance of it all was quite amusing. It was at that point that I figured that the machines must be communicating via some wireless system at a frequency that humans cannot hear.

I suspect that the lottery machines have it in for me.

Bastards.

The second of July.

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 - in a strange way.

No memorial? Whatever will we do?

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 Neverland ranch and pitch a tent." Seemingly not the first time that's happened, if we are to believe the court documents.

On the TV news tonight I saw several hundred (thousand?) people lining up to sign some sort of large greeting card, supposedly proclaiming their sympathy. To whom? The card or the spiritual nothingness of whatever religion they subscribe to. Or themselves, which is the more logical answer if we can assign logic to any of this crap.

I've written about death before, (at least twice) and our fascination with the ceremony surrounding it. When it's family it's a different story. When it's a celebrity, I figure that the people in mourning would have already erected some sort of shrine in their garage while the guy was alive, so what's the point of traveling to California to make a spectacle of yourself for someone who is dead?

"We were going to listen to music and watch Michael Jackson DVDs and party all night long, not just to have fun, but in memory of Michael Jackson," Paul Barron said. "Now we're going to have to just go home."

Where they will listen to music and watch Michael Jackson DVDs and party all night long. Home. What a shame. I'm sure they left somebody to feed the goats and water the vines.

You betcha.

Not good enough the second time.

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 music-buying public. Meanwhile, the mp3 files have yet to be officially released for those of us who prefer that medium.

When I see things like this, I'm taken back to my youth, and the issues that arose over the faulty vinyl records and the diamond needles we used to play them on a spinning top called a turntable. The troubles were many, but the pleasures (we thought) outweighed the trouble. Surface noise, skipping, dust and other problems infested our lives while we tried to enjoy the music of The Beatles, ELP, Yes and other musicians who took the trouble to record things in sound-proof rooms while we listened in faulty environments akin to indoor echo chambers. Mostly, the remastered stuff doesn't sound like the original, and to me, it ruins the original experience instead of enhancing it, which I thought was what remastering should do. I don't want to hear your "this is what it should have sounded like." I want to hear what it sounded like.

I can only imagine what that music would have been like if we had CDs when I was 15 years old. Focus would have sounded like a symphony, ELP would have been mind-altering and Gentle Giant would have been even more awesome than that needle on fabric.

So, they keep fiddling with stuff and remastering things that were already masterful. It strikes me as messing with perfection.

But it's all about the money, isn't it?

Read this backward.

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, and wouldn’t that be nice?

I think if we could
reverse discrimination
the world would be great.

Death is the best pitchman.

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're an odd bunch.

I bet Billy's selling a ton of that OxiClean stuff, too.

Post mortem.

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 the allegations weren't just oddities, they were downright criminal and perverse actions. Sleeping with boys and making large monetary settlements to parents whose children were (allegedly) molested by the "King of Pop."

As for me, I never was that big a fan of his work either. To me, it was more form than substance, but I come from an era of music where classically trained musicians made music and the form was the music. With him, it seemed all about the dancing and the show. In some cases, without the accompanying video or concert, the music was average. To me, that lessens the impact. The music should stand on its own. The fact that he was a clinically strange human merely vindicated my viewpoint. But my opinion seems to be in the minority these days.

I guess we liked his work so much that it didn't matter what kind of odd life he led. It's just lucky for him that he never got caught abusing animals.

Saturday Non Sequiturs.

I have a ticket for the Wilmington Blue Rocks game tonight. Big deal, right? Uh huh. Little did I know, it's dog night:

Bring your dog out to Frawley Stadium as Concord Pet Food & Supplies will be sponsoring Dog Days of Summer.

Me and two thousand dogs. Geez. That's worse than going to Singles Night at Jenny Craig. Why don't they ever have Cat Night? I might take him anyway. Ten bucks says I step in poop.

We had a thunderstorm warning last night. The warning said that "lightning is one of nature's number one killers." As though there could be more than one number one killer. Nobody is editing the weather forecast. Or this blog.

A riddle for you:

If a chair sits in the woods,

does it make a sound?

We're talking about practice, man.

Steve Porter has created a modern classic. It features the iconic Allen Iverson "practice" press conference as well as gems from Dennis Green, Joe Namath, Jim Mora and Terrell Owens. Mike Missanelli has been playing it on his ESPN radio show, and it makes me smile every time I hear it. The video is even better.

Kudos to Steve Porter. You're awesome, dude. Words fail me. Visit his web site and hear stuff for yourself.

Dead and dying

"Michael Jackson is a 5 asshole having, pterodactyl marrying, werewolf raping, baby dangler."

- Patton Oswalt

Every time someone near my age dies I start thinking about my own mortality. Michael Jackson was only a year younger than me, but his dying didn't make me think much. He was like a piece of fine china - a little to fragile to be human.

I always wanted the job of the guy who used to walk behind him holding the umbrella. If you can't go outdoors without an umbrella over your head, you're way too dainty. Although, I guess he only had one or two layers of skin left, so it stands to reason. The odd juxtaposition of always wearing a germ mask and having a pet chimpanzee is too bizarre to explain.

Now, as death often does, the bizarre stories of his life will come to light. What's the over/under for the number of posthumous biographies? I say ten before the end of the year. First though, the autopsy should be very interesting.

Michael Jackson died.

Now the stories will come out

of how weird he was.

Earlier, the news came out that the Academy Awards will be nominating ten films for best picture instead of the customary five. I don't like it. Like everything else, I'm thinking there's a money angle to this decision.
They think it means that more good films will be included, but I think it means that it's more likely that a great film will lose out due to a split vote. Why do people always think that more equals better? I suppose this means that the telecast will be six hours instead of the regular four.

Farrah Fawcett died today too. She was 62, so that doesn't make me think much, although she was probably in her late 50s when she got sick. I used to love the Charlie's Angels show, but only with the original three. Once Kate Jackson left I lost all interest in the show. To me, Kate was the babe of the bunch. Cute, thin, smart and she had that raspy voice. I rarely make the obvious choice. Mary Ann (Gilligan's Island) Shirley (Laverne and Shirley) Janet (Three's Company) and Mindy (Mork and Mindy).

Nanu nanu, bitches.

Another one bites the dust.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair. Wiping away tears, he apologized to his family and gave up a national Republican Party post, but was silent on whether he would resign.
"I've been unfaithful to my wife," he said in a news conference in which the 49-year-old governor ruminated on God's law, moral absolutes and following one's heart. He said he spent the last five days "crying in Argentina."

Boo hoo. Another teary confession from somebody who got caught. Now, he's Mister Apology - lamenting his twisted life. People like that always ruminate on God's law once they're caught. If he had a brain in his little head, he'd have had her flown to South Carolina and his little tryst would still be going on. But he's a dumbass on top of being a Republican.

"He left the state unattended," said Glenn Mitchell, 54 of Columbia, out of work recuperating from surgery. "He just hasn't been there for us."

Something tells me that South Carolina kind of runs itself. You might be better off unattended.

Sanford described the woman, who lives in Argentina as a "dear, dear friend" whom he has known for about eight years and been romantically involved with for about a year. He said he has seen her three times since the affair began, and his wife found out about it five months ago.

OK, so a year, and now he got caught and out comes the teary-eyed apology. Another death-bed confession.

Apparently, Sanford was an early contender for the Republican presidential race in 2012. What a shame we won't have him to kick around.

As a congressman, Sanford voted in favor of three of four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, citing the need for "moral legitimacy."

Oops.

Every once in a while I ask myself, "Why would someone spend millions of dollars to get a job that pays $100,000 a year?" And every once in a while, I get an answer.

Cooch in Argentina. This Philistine Stick-insect can get a B.J. overseas and I'm sitting here eating chicken fingers with a cat coughing up hairballs. Where do I sign up?

I'm guessing that he has a nice stockpile of money that he's made from his graft in politics, in addition to a list of babes willing to service him because he was in politics. We're supposed to ask, "What is this teaching the kids?" It's teaching them that power gets you stuff. Just don't get caught.

And every kid thinks they're smart enough not to get caught.

A lot about a little.

It's that time of year again. The time when we'll have to listen to so-called professional broadcasters say Wimbleton when they really mean Wimbledon. Why do I find it annoying? Although, it's not nearly as annoying as the women screaming every time they hit a shot, as though they're giving birth. Who taught them to do that?

For those of you who may be wondering, giant hematoma leg is healing slowly. No, I'm not taking another photo.

Has anyone ever tried Kefir? It's supposed to be one of those "good for you" foods. I've seen it described as a drinkable yogurt that tastes like sour milk. One article said: Beyond the satiety-inducing protein, the probiotics in kefir may also speed weight loss. British scientists found that these active organisms boosted the breakdown of fat molecules in mice, preventing the rodents from gaining weight. I'm guessing I can get it at Whole Foods Market, but wondering if it's worth the effort. I'd like to lose a few pounds, but I'm not sure drinking blueberry-flavored sour milk is the right way to go about it.

Ed McMahon died yesterday. One of the recurring stories my mother tells is how dad once installed a floor at his home when he lived in Cherry Hill. The story is quickly followed by, "... and the cheap bastard didn't even offer him anything to drink." Hiyo!

President Obama recently signed tough anti-smoking legislation which gives the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented authority to regulate what goes into tobacco products, to make public the ingredients and to prohibit marketing campaigns geared toward children. Mostly, it's aimed at keeping teenagers from doing what their parents do.

Let's recap: Smoking is banned in most restaurants, indoor facilities and workplaces. The new legislation will make the health warnings almost as large as the cigarette brand. It's a social anathema and almost everybody who does it knows it may eventually kill them. We do everything but ban the sale altogether, which is interesting, since prescription drugs are quickly removed from the marketplace if 5 people die from taking them.

I envision a day when the War on Tobacco will rival the War on Drugs. I would guess that we're throwing about the same amounts of money at both. How's that War on Drugs going?

I thought so.

Cat favors.

This is one of those stories that sounds like I'm drunk, but seriously...

The last thing I do before I leave for work every morning is to make sure I have my wallet. You may remember this item I purchased a while ago, because I don't carry a "real" wallet, but got tired of misplacing credit cards and/or my driver's license. I'm sort of scatterbrained. I blame alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

Anyway, this morning I realized that I hadn't seen the thing since Sunday, but I didn't have enough time to look for it unless I wanted to be late for work. The shock left me dumbfounded, so I left the house with nine dollars in cash and a lot of anxiety.

When I got home tonight, I tore the place apart looking for it, to no avail. I checked my accounts and made sure no one had absconded with my tens of dollars, so I felt like I was left with nothing but to replace the scattered shards of my life, which included my driver's license, gas card, credit card, ATM card and another debit card. That's a lot of stuff, and since I was down to the five bucks I found in a hampered pair of jeans, things were getting interesting. It also told me that the thing was here someplace. I searched the car (twice) and even emptied the trash can, in case it dropped off the kitchen counter. Nope.

Ironically, I bought the thing because I got tired of losing random cards. The result now is that I have lost all of them, so what did that solve exactly?

Alternately, I kept searching and collapsing in the sofa in despair. Energizing breaks. The cat wandered around, and I lamented that he couldn't help me. I picked him up, because animals are comforting, and told him that I wished he could help me, because he seems to pay more attention to what I do than I do - and that's a strange request to make of a cat. It's also why I continue to believe that married people will live longer than single people. But I digress.

I put the cat down, and started to crawl around the floor after him. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, but desparate times call for desparate measures. There are only so many places it could have been, and it isn't like a jungle in here, so a clear floor only has so many places to stash things. Plus, gravitationally speaking, it would seek its lowest level, which here, means the floor.

As I crawled the floor after the cat, (strange, I know) I stumbled on my nearly empty gym bag and decided to take one more swipe for the missing pieces of my life.

Viola!

Pretending to be a cat turned out to be an effective method of finding something, getting me a good night's sleep and making me even happier that I have a furry friend to help me around the house.

He has no idea.

3 for 3.

Another weekend in paradise. Cloudy, rainy and generally crappy weather all weekend until Sunday at around 6:00pm when the sun came out. Just in time for me to take a stroll to the grocery store and start getting stuff together for work on Monday. I know better than to complain about things that I can't control - like the weather - but Jeebus!

I spent a couple of evenings at the ballpark watching the woeful Phillies get swept by the even more woeful Baltimore Orioles. The games weren't part of our ticket package, so I went out of my way to get them, since I'm kind of an Orioles fan. I pay $40 a month for the MLB Package on cable, and when the Phillies aren't on, I spend my time watching the O's. There are probably people in Baltimore who don't do that.

Anyway, most fans thought the Phils would get fat off the Orioles, but the forty bucks made me a more well-informed fan, and I wrote to one of the Inquirer columnists and told him that "I wouldn't be surprised to see the Orioles win 2 of 3 this weekend." Technically, I was wrong, since they won 3 of 3.

My friend with whom I have the season tickets went with me on Friday. He gets assed-up when the Phils lose, and Friday was no exception. "If they lose tonight, I'm not coming tomorrow," he told me, and I figured he was exaggerating, because Saturday's ticket was $24, and I don't throw $24 away easily. They lost, and on the way out he informed me that he wasn't coming on Saturday.

That left me to attend the game by myself, in addition to leaving a perfectly good ticket unused. Fortunately, I don't mind going places by myself. Mostly because I don't have many other choices and partly because I like making my own schedule and doing what I want. Besides, I can strike up a conversation with people rather easily, and baseball games are even easier than most other places.

Late in the game, I found myself standing downstairs next to some young fans, but one fan, a young woman, didn't seem to know exactly what was going on. I keep score, and my scorecard can look like hieroglyphics to non-scorekeepers. Backward K's, F8, E6, two dashes with a circle around it ... that stuff looks like the scribblings of a mental patient to some. I do it mostly to keep my head in the game. It's something I've been doing since I was a kid, and old habits die hard.

She was eyeing my scorecard and complimented me on my penmanship (it's usually better) and after asking me about the stuff I was writing, queried, "So, who's winning?"

The scoreboard was in plain sight. In fact, there were no fewer than four that could be seen from our vantage point, but I answered her question politely, "The Orioles."

That's right.