My Sick Mind

Gimme a reason. What's in your brain? - Umphrey's McGee "Andy's Last Beer" I don't know what people are thinking no more than I know what bears or ducks are thinking. They're thinking something, for sure, but what - I do not know. Like waiting around for the telephone to ring (or whatever it is that phones do now) is horrifying. The people we're waiting on don't know the anguish they are putting us through. All they know is what's in their brain - which isn't close to what's in ours. That's the worst. The call wait. It's agonizing. But it makes a nice haiku: give me a reason. i don't know what you're thinking. what is in your brain? OK. That's out of my system. People tell me I'm "a catch." I think it's like those little sunfish we used to catch out of the lake back home. Small enough to throw back but not nice enough to keep or care about. Part of our Internet-based throwaway society is that we ...

Another earthquake. Chile this time. That's the problem with earthquakes - you never know where the next one is going to strike. So, while thousands of Americans are building support for Haiti, the earth has beat them to it with another giant tremor in South America. This one was so big that it jarred the earth off its axis to the point that the guys at NASA think that the earth's days are a thousandth of a second shorter than they were two weeks ago. Take that, Haiti pussies. Your earthquake sucked. I had to call a customer service line today. I got the standard “Your call is important to us. All our representatives are currently helping other customers. Please hold until a customer service representative is available.” So I held. Don’t you get the impression that there is a large room filled with busy service reps busily taking phone calls? I do. I picture a big warehouse with little divided cubicles and people wearing headsets. The truth is that there are probably two or ...

Our postal service is in trouble again, and as usual, they're going to lean on us: WASHINGTON - The post office is renewing its drive to drop Saturday delivery — and plans a rate increase — in an effort to fend off a projected $7 billion loss this year. Without drastic action the agency could face a cumulative loss of $238 billion over 10 years, Postmaster General John Potter said in releasing a series of consultant reports on agency operations and its outlook. "The projections going forward are not bright," Potter told reporters in a briefing. We have heard this before, and especially over the past 10 years. The U.S. Postal Service is dying, a victim of both bad management and lack of demand for their services. I defend them all the time, but it's growing stale. Routinely someone else's mail is left in my mailbox, and I can't help but wonder how many times my mail has been left in others' boxes. It stands to reason. It's kind of a simple job, and ...

What now, that the Olympics is over? NBC ran a two-page ad in the Inquirer this morning with little photos of all their prime-time shows, seemingly to remind us of all the stuff we missed over the past 16 days. Alas, no curling reality programs for the fall lineup. On Sunday night, they abruptly left the closing ceremonies to rush us to "The Marriage Ref," another one of those so-called reality shows where celebrities watch people doing things and make jokes about what is happening, then suggest ways to improve their lives. Alec Baldwin is one of the panelists. The day I have to submit myself to listening to Alec Baldwin tell me what is wrong with my life is the day I will have exhausted all of my social resources. He's the one who should be the subject. But right there, in the middle of something, Bob Costas jumped in and said: "We're back in an hour with the Closing Ceremony party from Vancouver. Nickleback and Avril Lavigne are among the acts that will be pe...

I went to see "Avatar" last night. Not just any "Avatar," mind you - the 3-dimensional IMAX version, which, I was told was the only way to see it, which was correct. Although, I found myself taking the glasses off a few times during the film to see what it looked like. It's kinda blurry. First, it's one Hell of a movie. You'll find yourself wondering "How did they do that?" while you're wondering what else is going on. There is some stupid dialogue, but we're willing to look past that in order to get to the root of the issue, which is the death of our little blue marble. I heard a few comments about how it's an allegorical tale of man's destruction of the rain forest and how we are a 'use and abuse' society ... and, yeah, that's true. I saw it at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, and afterward, an attendant at a rest room asked me, "Whose side were you on?" as though there could be a different side. I told ...