Maron in the studio with Sammy today – hopefully they’ll get the Sammy Cam up and running early.  The only thing more exciting than watching one guy sit at a desk and talk is watching two guys.  Actually, the between segments banter might be pretty funny.  Then, of course, it’s the Season 11 premiere of Comedy Central Presents, starring you-know-who (and perhaps even a view or two of some Seditionists in the audience) at 10 PM EST (replayed at 4 AM, I think).  Plus, it’s a three-day MLK weekend (shockingly, the holiday is on his actual birthday this year – which also happens to be my dad’s birthday).   Too bad they’re both dead.  My last weekend of freedom – and the last one where you won’t have to listen to me bitch about school (for a while, anyway).  Have a good Friday (so to speak).

It’s nice to be home again, except I just realized that school starts again next week.  Man, does that suck.  I was just getting settled in to my vacation.

Well, I had such an effective day spreading my seed resume throughout the federal government, it looks like there’s not much more left for me to do, except pack up my schwag, and head back to the great white north (just in time to see some snow, even).  With a little luck, I might even get home before dark. The dog, at least, should be happy to see me.

Well, here I am at the Mayflower in DC.  Didn’t get much sleep last night – some redneck-sounding hick was pounding on a door down the hall, hollerin’ “Laura, honey, please, let me in baby!  You know that bitch Condi don’t mean nothin’ to me.”  When I went out to see what the hell was going on, two guys wearing sunglasses (at two o’clock in the morning; what up with that?) and earpieces told me to get the hell back in my room.  Oh well, I should be able to sleep through all the speechifyin’ today.

In the meantime, join me in wishing a happy birthday to Tricky Dicky Nixon, Gypsy Rose Lee, Les Paul, Bart Starr, Bob Denver, Joan Baez, Jimmy Page, and Dave Matthews. Also, for those of you in Connecticut, Happy Ratification Day.

Time to go see if anybody will give me a job, I guess.  See ya

It’s up and out early for me this morning.  I hope to be on the road between eight and nine, which ought to get me to DC before rush hour.  I hope.  I don’t know how much bloggering I’ll get to do the next few days, so you guys’ll just have to hold down the fort. Have a good one.

Here we go, another chance to see the best an the brightest, right there on the teevee.

On Press the Meat, Timmy Potatohead has the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. MBNA, plus li’l Lindsey Graham of the Armed Services Committee, on to discuss Bush’s surge. Then it’s a roundtable with the NY Times’ administration shill, Michael Gordon, WSJ hack, John Harwood & CNN’s Judy Woodruff, on to discuss how ineffective the Democrats have been since taking control of Congress.

In a move no doubt destined to spark outrage and charges of liberal media bias, Bush buddy Bobby Schieffer does a one-on-one with Nancy Pelosi on this week’s Faze the Nation,

On the ever more irrelevant Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace interviews House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer plus Senate Republican prick, Mitch McConnell.

On the Goebbels Network, George Snufalufagus hosts Charlie Rangel, Dan Obey, and Henry Waxman, on to talk about why they aren’t being bipartisan enough yet. Also, Brent Scowcroft will be on to talk about Bush’s “plan” for Iraq (he’s been workin’ real hard on it, and havin’ some good discussions). At the Roundtable, it’s Harold “where the white women at” Ford, Cokie “the hag” Roberts and George :jerk: Will. And, in the touchy-feel segment, Diane Sawyer talks to Oprah, who is attempting to outdo both Angelina Jolie and Madonna, by opening a whole goddamn school in South Africa.

Over at CNN’s Late Emission, it’s a few Republican assholes, an Iraqi or two, Barbara Boxer, and the only guest of any real interest, Dennis “I told you so” Kucinich.

Later, on 60 Minutes, this just in – Gerald Ford is still dead. Also, Bob Simon looks at who killed Alexander Litvinenko, and Dame Helen Mirren tries to get Morley Safer to take his clothes off. Let’s hope she is unsuccessful.

And, you can get ready for next week’s season premiere of Rome on HBO by watching back-to-back-to-back episodes starting at eight o’clock (EST).  There’s also a new American Dad after The Simpsons – and this week, special guest George W. Bush is coming to have dinner with the Smiths.
As for me, I’ll mostly be packing. I really (really) don’t want to go. Have a good Sunday.

Another weekend.  Whoopie.  The good news is that – around here, anyway –  you can go to the post office and get a free screening for cervical, breast and colorectal cancers – with the best part being a free home stool test kit.  Wow.  No word on whether you need to go to the post office, or you can just make a deposit at your nearest mailbox, but you folks 50 years or older get a $5 gift certificate when your stool tests are completed. Wow, I can hardly wait.  Should make hitting 50 more than worthwhile.

Damn, the Democrats have been in charge for almost a whole day now, and the haven’t fixed everything that the Republicans have managed to fuck up over the last six years. I knew it I knew it, I knew it. They suck. The sky is falling. It’s all terrible. One more thing I’ll have to straighten out when I’m in DC next week, I guess.

Maron on Seder today. Enjoy.

Oh, if you haven’t seen these Marc dates yet, better enter them in your Palm Pilot:

Things have been kind of frustrating with this web host the last few days (longer than that, really, but the last few days – particularly in the afternoon – have been pretty abysmal).   I apologize for that, but since I can’t physically (or even virtually) get my hands on any of it, there’s not a hell of a lot I can do.  It’s clear that tech support isn’t much help.  Things look fine to them, I guess.  So, I’ve been scoping out some other hosts, and, unless things get a lot better, will probably be making a move one of these days.  I’m reluctant to do much of anything until I get back from DC next week, since I have a fair amount to do to get my shit together.  If and when it happens, though, I’ll have to shut everything down so that I can (hopefully) preserve the database and all the past entries.  That goes for the forums, too (though they don’t get a whole lot of use).  There are a lot of other things I have to putz around with, too, which is why I’m putting this off (plus, I hate to go through all this aggravation, just to find out that the new host isn’t any better).  So, please try and bear with things for a while, and cross your toes that it gets better all by itself.

Happy first day with the new Congress.  See ya.

After watching as many hours as possible of the Twilight Zone Marathon the last few days (OK, I’ll try not to mention that again until next year), we were sufficiently motivated to make a pilgrimage to the Lakeview Cemetery in Interlaken to visit his grave (if nothing else, it was a good excuse to go and drive around the Finger Lakes area – didn’t hit up any wineries, though).

It was a dark and rather bleak-looking day when we started out, but before too long the clouds broke up, and we enjoyed a beautiful view heading down Cayuga Lake. It’s a bit odd to be driving around this time of year with no snow on the ground (sort of like being in, well, the Twilight Zone). It seemed more like late October than it did January (though there was a rather cold, bitter wind once we were outside of the car). We didn’t know exactly where the grave was (except that it was at roughly “two o’clock”), but it’s a fairly small cemetery, and Granny found the grave (where she left an angel – not the first to do so, apparently – as a way of saying thanks) fairly quickly. I saved the location in my GPS, so now we have the latitude and longitude, should we want to come back again. Thanks for the memories, Rod. I just wish you’d laid off the cigarettes.

By the way, if you’d like to learn a little more about Rod Serling – about this 5’4″ boxer, demolition expert, paratrooper, Bronze Star and Purple Heart winner, who was one of – if not the – most prolific writer in American television history, this 1968 speech he gave at Moorpark College might be a good place to start.