Morning Seditionists

Yesterday was a big day – my Kindle was delivered. In less than a day of playing, I haven’t uncovered all there is to know about it just yet, but my first impression is that this thing is really, really (really) great. I read myself to sleep last night for the first time in longer than I can remember. It really is like looking at a printed book, with the exception that you don’t need to hold it in two hands (in fact, you can set the font size as large as you need to, so you can just set it in your lap and read), and you just press a button to turn pages. (more…)

It’s supposed to be up into the 90’s again today, making it an official heat wave. And we all know how I feel about that. But it’s supposed to cool off for the weekend, so that’s good. As for the weekend, I’ll be kicking it off right by having a tooth yanked tomorrow afternoon. Apparently it was too infected to pull yesterday, so I need a couple days of antibiotics to keep me from getting blood poisoning. I’m looking forward to having the damn thing gone, and am promising myself to be a good boy from now on, and get regular dental care again. My goal is to have myself in relatively decent shape (tooth, blood pressure, and weight-wise) in time for my 50th birthday. I’ll start drinking beer again when I retire. (more…)

Far be it for me to tout the wonders of Upstate NY, but here’s a story that I just don’t think you’d find in your highfalutin big city-type areas. Last night, the cops (sheriffs, actually) caught some guy trying to break in to a vending machine (not exactly bank robbery or anything). When the cops tried to apprehend the perp, he (and his “moll”) stole a dump truck and led the cops on a “high speed” chase (no doubt this was a “souped up” dump truck, capable of speeds exceeding 40 mph on the highway) across railroad tracks and through neighborhoods, trailed by twenty or thirty sheriffs cars and “Air One” – the sheriff’s helicopter. Eventually the cops boxed the dump truck in, and which point the accused vending machine burglar rammed one of the sheriffs’ cars. I guess this is when things stopped being fun for the cops, so they shot the idiot (apparently Andy let Barney put the bullet in his gun). (more…)

I’m off today, but not to have any fun. No, instead I’ll be accompanying the home inspector to see if the house I’m about to buy is getting ready to fall down or not. It’s my last chance to get out. Otherwise, it’s full speed ahead, with a trip to the mortgage dude to sign off on all that shit before racing back to try and make my appointment to have needles shoved into me (and take a half-hour nap while they work their magic). I’m not used all this activity. In the past, a big day for me was stopping at the grocery store to buy beer on the way home from work. Tomorrow doesn’t get much much better. It’s work in the morning, with a break to go to the dentist to see if he can end the agony where my filling dropped out. I haven’t had a dentist in a while now, so this probably won’t be pretty. Unfortunately, pain has overcome fear, so I guess I gotta go. The counter-clockwise decay of my body continues. It started with my right foot, moved to my right shoulder, and is now in the left side of my mouth (I guess I’m lucky it skipped my brain on the way around; coulda had a nice little brain aneurysm or something before the toothache. Well, maybe on the second trip around). (more…)

So, as part of my preparation for moving, I’m looking into whether I should stick with DirecTV or go with Time Warner cable (after all, you gotta worry about the important shit first). I’d like to consider FiOS TV, but while that’s an option where I live now, it isn’t available where I’m going (instead of fiber, out there they just use string and tin cans). One concern I have is that TW doesn’t appear to have Comedy Central in HD, whic is pretty close to being a deal breaker, since I’ve gotten quite used to the Daily Show and (especially) Colbert in HD. Anyhow, while perusing the TW site, I noticed a link for ‘live chat’ so I figured why not ask them what the deal is. I also had a few other questions, like how big is the hard drive in their DVR, does it support an external drive, such as eSATA, and what percentage (give or take) of their on-demand content is available in HD. So, after having to sign in with my first and last names and zip code, I was hooked up with ‘Alex’ so he could answer all my questions. It went something like this… (more…)

It’s a Katrina kind of day today on Press the Meet as we ‘celebrate’ the fifth anniversary of the hurricane that should’ve changed everything, but didn’t. I guess Gilligan Gregory couldn’t handle things, so they’re bringing in Brian Williams to chat with the Landrieus – DINO Mary Landrieu and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Then it’s an interview with the vampire Brad Pitt, founder of the Make It Right Foundation – aimed at building 150 green, affordable, high-quality design homes in the Lower 9th Ward, and a discussion with Wendell Pierce (New Orleans native, star of “Treme” and “The Wire”, and President of the Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corporation), New Orleans journalist Garland Robinette, and Historian, former Tulan professor, and author Douglas Brinkley. (more…)

Oops, been up so long I forgot to put a thread out there. Even got the grass cut and weed whacked. Amazing what you can accomplish when you’re not hung over every morning. I still think I prefer the beer drinking, though. But, it’s all about saving the money at this point. And if my blood pressure goes down so I don’t have a stroke, that would be an added bennie. Yep, Vernon, we’ll sell the current home, though it needs work to get it into sellable condition. If there’s anybody out there with ties to CNY and/or the Finger Lakes region who’d like a quaint little handyman’s special as a summer cottage, let me know. Or, actually, let Granny know. It’s her house. No reasonable offer refused. My big hope for the weekend is to go at least 48 hours without having to talk to a Realtor, Home Inspector, Lawyer (on a professional basis; be happy to chat with one of you people about anything other than real estate), or mortgage lender. You may find this hard to believe, but I really don’t like talking to people or (especially) calling them on the phone, and this has all been on me. Sans alcohol. Oy. I wish I could pay somebody to handle off of this, and just wake me up when everything’s moved in. Being a grownup sucks.

Let’s hear it for Jimmy Carter, who secured the release of Aijalon Gomes from North Korea. Republican Presidents piss the world off, and Democratic ex-Presidents smooth things over. I guess. Though I suppose the North Koreans aren’t quite as endeared to Harry Truman as we all are. (more…)

Shocking news this morning. Are you sitting down? Good. ‘Cuz it turns out Dubya’s 2004 campaign manager and former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. (more…)

So, it’s hump day. It appears that my internal clock has decided that 4:30 is plenty late to sleep in. Actually it would have had me get up even earlier, but I’m stubborn. I’m finding life to be quite tedious these days, and I think that’s got a lot to do with not drinking beer. I may be saving money, but there’s a empty void in my life. I’m also wrestling with this whole putting in an offer on a new house thing. I haven’t gone through this hoo-hah in about 20 years, at which point I bought a two-family home with a friend of mine so we could live in one flat and rent out the other. Sadly, we were both rather stupid and naive, and, while it wasn’t a horrible experience, we paid more than we should have, had lots to do to fix the place up, had the neighborhood go from not-too-bad to kinda crappy, and eventually had to pay money to walk out. Needless to say, I’m rather reluctant to repeat that experience. (more…)