My Sick Mind

When does a rogue hero become a vigil ante and how does he deal with the mounting public pressure to stop? Those are the questions at the core of The Dark Knight . Because I'm afraid of being left out of conversations and because it seems to be a legitimate piece of movie history, I went to see The Dark Knight on Friday. And because I like being just this much ahead of the curve, I went to see it in IMAX which, as it turns out, is the best way to see it. If you have one of those giant theaters near your home, you know you're already forking over at least 9 bucks to see it in a regular theater, so go another 6 and make it a thrill ride. There are a few dizzying sequences and some beautiful aerial shots of cities like Hong Kong and the requisite chase and action scenes. The sound is overwhelming at times, which adds to the tension that the movie brings in spades. It toggles back and forth between the Bruce Wayne billionaire scenes and the dark Batman ones, and the filmmakers s...

ONE THING: GOIANIA, Brazil - Police on Thursday accused a Brazilian man of killing and dismembering his 17-year-old British girlfriend, taking pictures of her body parts with his cell phone and stuffing her torso in a suitcase . She wasn't really his girlfriend, was she? I don't have a girlfriend, but I can figure that if I did, I wouldn't have an overwhelming desire to dismember her and stuff her in a suitcase. Maybe "girlfriend" is the wrong term here. ANOTHER: I noticed today that Exxon-Mobil reported earnings ... Exxon's second-quarter net income rose 14 percent to $11.68 billion, or $2.22 a share, in the quarter. All the while we kept hearing the stories of how the cost of exploration and supply and demand and the value of the dollar were the chief drivers of the price of gasoline. Now we see that maybe ... just maybe ... they lied to us. Perhaps they were screwing us. Not for nothin', I'm just saying, maybe they were screwing us. Maybe. Can ...

I told some friends yesterday that I was bagging a bike ride to "contemplate the purpose of life..." among other things, one of which was examining the Zen of my sofa cushions. Now, stuck with the idea of being true to my word I am left with that task. I'm not sure I can pull it off in this forum. I've been trying to edit myself to limit these things to the old "25 words or less" deal, but sadly my editing skills aren't equal to that task either. I'd be a horrible Keynote Speaker. "When do we get to the buffet?," they would ask. I'll be done in twenty minutes. I've been told that the most valuable word in public speaking is "finally," so let's try to wrap this up so we can eat. I've been wondering (lately) what this whole thing is about. It's a tough question and I don't think I can answer it, which leads me to believe that it's not about anything. After all, if we can assign importance to such...

If you're a sports fan - and I can't imagine you're not - you've had it up to here (pointing at my throat) with the 24-hour Brett Favre Watch sponsored chiefly by TV buzz killers ESPN. They can single handedly take a story and drive it into the ground with such intensity that eventually you want your TV to explode so you don't have to look at it anymore. The nonsense surrounding Brett Favre's retirement/unretirement/reinstatement is reaching nonsense proportions. How so? The constant crawl at the bottom of the ESPN screen proclaims: NBA OLY(mpics) NASCAR and FAVRE , as though he was a league or a separate entity, and maybe he is. "What league is Favre?" I wondered to myself, and what level of importance can one achieve that his name is on the same level as actual sports organizations? I hear that the NFL is going to announce that they will be adding an extra down for the Packers. Farveth down. After fourth down, as a tribute to their hero. Milwauke...

Crisis 1. A stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events, for better or for worse, is determined; turning point. 2. A condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political or international affairs, leading to a decisive change. 3. A dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person’s life. Gasoline is four dollars a gallon. It’s a real crisis, folks. It must be, because the media tells us it is. End of the world, fire and brimstone stuff. It’s the sort of thing that they make movies and write books about. It’s so bad that we’ve decided to change our way of life and make difficult choices. Or not. Mostly, I’m seeing the “or not” option. We’re loath to change because we feel it’s tantamount to someone telling us what to do and we don’t like that. We like to complain and we’re good at it. “Do something!” we scream to whoever will listen. Generally there isn’t anyone listening, which makes us scream louder. I haven’t affected any drastic c...

If I could choose one person to sit down with and have a drink and discuss the evolution of music and its effect on society, I would choose David Bowie. I have so much more respect for him now than I did when he was popular. Maybe it's because I lived through his popularity and never really understood it until I was able to look back on it, but now I view him as an elder statesman of popular music and someone who has come to represent an era of music. He successfully changed with the times and marketed himself as a musical icon. Otherwise, it would be Peter Gabriel, but he's in a different genre than Bowie. Bowie, I'd talk to for hours about the 70s and how it changed the face of music. Gabriel, I think I would be more focused on "what were you thinking?" and how Genesis changed the art music scene. It's history versus personal perspective. Who would you choose?

Every year, rain or shine, I get my annual (that's what makes it every year) Social Security Benefits Statement from the friendly folks at our Federal government. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a warning or a message of support, but I always take it as a warning. I'm funny that way. For those of you who don't already know, I'm 50 years old, in spite of where I shop . My choice of retail clothing establishments does not figure in on the estimated value of my retirement benefits. Shame. I found at least one portion of the statement interesting. If I work until age 62 (egad), my monthly payment would be $1,332 a month, or roughly enough to qualify for free government cheese and an occasional free clinic visit. That's if I work another 12 years. If however, I should have a house fall on me or get hit by a stray asteroid particle and become "permanently disabled," I could collect $1,843 a month. So go figure. As an able-bodied [almost] s...

What did I do this weekend? Bike. 38 miles on Saturday and 48 on Sunday. I guess it's supposed to make me feel better, but I can't help but wonder if the soreness in my inner thigh is somehow lengthening my life, and what sort of life is it if it is accompanied by inner thigh soreness. MONROE TOWNSHIP - Township officials are hoping the installation of cameras at busy intersections in town will help reduce traffic violations and increase safety. The plan is part of a statewide pilot program, which was authorized early this year after the legislature made it legal for towns to snap photos of disobedient drivers and then send them tickets in the mail . I'm hoping this includes people on cell phones. Although, I suppose this is the old "camel with his nose under the tent" analogy. Once he gets his nose under the tent, it isn't long before the whole camel is in the tent with you. How long before they are using GPS systems to ticket speeders? You're sitting ...

You'd be surprised how often I sit here (where I'm sitting now) without a clue of what to put here, either because I've nothing to say or what I have to say I've said before. It's over two years of this stuff and there's only so much going on in the world. Usually, I just start rambling and see if I can make it to the end: Last night I ordered some clothes from American Eagle over the Internet. Today I received a coupon in the mail for 15-percent off my next shopping order. When I got home from work on Friday night I spent a few minutes gathering up stuff and changing clothes for a bike ride to the local gym. I went downstairs to fetch the bike and found the rear tire was flat. That's a pisser. Upon further inspection I found that the tire had a quarter-inch gash in it, which is where I reasoned the air escaped. Rocket science. So, I had to use the car to buy a new tube and tire and while I'm out, go to the gym. What puzzles me is how I got the bike h...

I love thunderstorms. It seems, like other things, that they were better when I was a kid. We get them infrequently around here. Maybe I should move to Arizona or Ohio. When one is on the way, I perch my camera on the tripod and wait. Having southern exposure may be nice for sun worshippers, but for lightning worshippers it sucks. Once in a while I get lucky, but like Dirty Harry, it's not all that frequent. Mostly, we get that flashy-thingy lightning and not the bolts that look cool on camera. To get one in the east is a big bonus. Lucky to be here. By the way, those jeans from yesterday - $89.50. That's why I don't shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. If you want to see my butt crack, I'll show you for a lot less than $89.50. I see that the recent upsurge in the price of gasoline has prompted some school districts and local governments to go to a 4-day work week. At first that sounds like nirvana, but it's really just 4 10-hour days. Most people I talk to think tha...

“Sexy and casual, the perfect pair of jeans,” was the e-mail title. Yes, I’m hip and smart because I get e-mail from Abercrombie & Fitch. Do I shop there? Hell no. The ad says, "Low slung for the perfect fit." Really? What I found interesting about the ad is the new trend toward the ass crack. Women have started showing it and now I suppose it’s the men’s turn. I’m not sure we always want to see crack, and I don’t think we’re trustworthy enough or comfortable in our self-assessment to know whether or not we should be showing crack. The guys in the ad don’t seem to have a problem with it, but they’re professional models who are paid not to eat too much and spend their days grooming and lifting weights. I don’t know any models. Most of the people I know wouldn’t benefit from a pair of pants that don’t get pulled all the way up. I see guys wearing those pants and they always look like they’re going to fall off. The thing to do is to wear your boxers on the outside, or so...

This Larry Mendte/Alycia Lane deal is interesting to me on several levels. For the uninitiated, a local news anchor (Mendte) has been charged with reading his co-anchor's (Lane) e-mail several hundred times over the course of three months or so. Without going into details, which you can read here , the interesting line in the local paper that caught my eye was when the prosecutor said, "This is the tip of the Mendte iceberg." That's fascinating to me, because as we all know, deviant behavior isn't an isolated incident. There's a lot buried under the surface. When you add in the fact that Larry makes $700,000 for reading and his wife (Dawn Stensland) makes about half that much, you'd have to stop and ask yourself how much money people need to be happy. Apparently, Larry was unhappy because Alycia made $50,000 more than he, and as a result he began hacking into her e-mail (or Mendte-mail as I want to call it) in an attempt to discredit her and make himself...

No witty banter today. It's late, so here are a few photos from my trip to see the Phillies at Shea Stadium on Tuesday night. The Phils pulled out a dramatic 9th inning comeback, scoring 6 runs in the ninth inning to win 8-6. Sadly, I wasn't driving and was made to leave in the 8th inning when the Mets were ahead 5-2. Somehow the drama was lost on the radio. Somebody needs to explain to me the logic of driving almost 3 hours to see a game and leaving before it's over. It was pretty much a glorified business trip with a baseball game attached. The tickets were given to us, but cost somebody $118, so I figured I'd better pay attention to the game. As it was, I only got about $113 worth. Clicking on them a couple of times should bring them up to full size, if you're interested in full size. The Great Outdoors. Pre-game, as dusk falls on Flushing. The view from my seat in the Diamond Club. La de da. Free food and beer. They're building the new joint just bey...

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch author, philosopher and scholar (1466 - 1536) I think about that quote every time I see a big fuss made over someone merely because there is no one else over which to fuss. And I think about that every time I see Danica Patrick. She's kind of cute and all, but for a race car driver she's a hottie. If you put her on a runway modeling clothes they'd call security to get the audience member off the catwalk. Chances are, you work with at least one other woman as pretty as she, but because she is in an office with a lot of other women, she doesn't stand out. Put her in a fire suit and see what happens. Go to her web site and there's a full-screen presentation, complete with a song (which I think is called "Super Girl") and it's clear that it's all about glamour, Indy car-style glamour. Marketing is a cruel friend. It can be used and it can use us. Sometimes we...

Yesterday, during the Phillies/Marlin game on Fox, the announcers declared John Baker the Pepsi Clutch Performer of the Game . That's great, only it was a 7 to 4 game in the bottom of the seventh inning. Don't you think that there might yet be a clutch performer to emerge or do you think that Pepsi wanted their name on the broadcast before most of America tuned out? I'm thinking the latter. What it amounts to is a commercial and not a real award. Why not just put up a big PEPSI banner on the screen and get it over with? We need more junk on the screen, right? Meanwhile, over on ABC we're watching The Open. America calls it The British Open, but the rest of the world calls it The Open. The announcers (them again) tell us that we're "watching ESPN on ABC." Huh? I thought I was watching ABC. In fact, I was watching ABC. ESPN had a fishing tournament and billiards. This cross-marketing thing is amazing to me. I know that ABC owns ESPN and Disney owns them b...

This is my blog on Wordie . It's an Internet toy that generates word clouds from text you provide or a link to your blog. I linked it to this blog. Frankly, I thought I used fuck a lot more than Wordie says I used it, but there ya go. From the looks of it, it doesn't go back very far for text. Try it. To quote John Blutarski , "It don't cost nothin'." I am completely out of touch. As I said the other day, I exist in a strange Universe that fails to acknowledge the existence of people whom the rest of the world idolizes. I have no idea who K-Fed is, other than his name is Kevin Federline. How he earns a living, I have no idea. Presumably, he earns it from royalties over the use of his name or just by following Britney Spears around. Salma Hayak's marriage is off. I had no idea she was engaged. I also had to look up the spelling of her name. I think she was engaged to a French sports car. A Pinault , whatever that is. Probably a two-seater. And who is th...

Joker this, Joker that. Joker, Joker, Joker. I'm already reading buzz that Heath Ledger is a shoo-in Academy Award nominee, presumably for supporting actor, although from the way it's going he's the lead in this film. I haven't seen it - and probably won't - but suffice it to say I'd hate to be one of the other 4 actors nominated against him next February. There's no way a voter is going to give anyone else the award. So, my advice if you're looking for success ... die. Death is strange business. In April, local baseball legend John Marzano died in his home, presumably of unknown circumstances. Yesterday, the coroner's report came out that said "postural asphyxia contributed to by blunt trauma and ethanol intoxication," said Jeff Moran, spokesman for the medical examiner's office. Moran said he could not elaborate. I can. Ethanol intoxication is being drunk. It's the leading cause of death among children (of all things) and cont...

John McCain's 2007 tax return shows Social Security benefits of $23,157 for the year, an average of $1,929.75 a month. McCain reported a total income of $405,409 in 2007. As a senator, he is paid $169,300 a year. Last year, he donated $105,467 to charity, his return shows . My mother is 84 and receives the same $1,929.75 a month as McCain, but unfortunately, she doesn't earn $400,000 a year working like he does. First of all, I have a problem with millionaires helping to bankrupt a bad system. Second, I thought there was a limit to how much a person could earn working while still collecting a Social Security check. In fact, I know there is. "How does McCain manage to collect a check?," I ask myself. Facial acupuncture treatment, dubbed "nonsurgical face-lift" has grown in popularity over the past few years. "Ten years ago, the alternative was Botox, fillers and all that stuff. Now, 10 years after, people are looking for alternatives to Botox and fill...

It's over. The annual exhibition game that is designed to make us misty-eyed over baseball's past and present. This year, it was designed to make us misty-eyed over that and the fact that they're tearing down an American icon - Yankee Stadium. I've never been much of a Yankees fan. In fact, I sort of enjoy it when they lose because it makes them angry because they think they're supposed to win. Since the team can't be counted on to win, the owner figured that the next best thing is a building that will consistently win. [That way, you don't have to count on the team] They're tearing down Yankee Stadium and putting up another one right next door, only this one will have expensive luxury boxes and seats behind home plate that will cost more than some people earn in a week. That's a winner, and I'm not the least bit misty-eyed about it. Television however, is in the business of making us think that something is more important than it really is,...

Ralphie : Oooh fuuudge! Ralphie as Adult : [narrating] Only I didn't say "Fudge." I said the word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the "F-dash-dash-dash" word! Ralphie as Adult : [narrating] It was all over - I was dead. What would it be? The guillotine? Hanging? The chair? The rack? The Chinese water torture? Mere child's play compared to what surely awaited me . - "A Christmas Story" "A Christmas Story" takes place in 1940. The "f-dash-dash-dash word" was only slightly more taboo than it is now. It's used in polite conversation, in anger and happiness, on the performance stage, movies and TV. Well, not so much on TV. At least until Monday night. That'll teach me not to watch the Home Run Derby. Our boy, Chase Utley uttered it in response to getting booed by some displaced Mets fans in Yankee Stadium during the introductions of the Home Run Derby. Did you hear it or did you need the subtitles? I thi...