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).

Watch out everybody, Earl’s coming. As things stand right now, the worst we’ll get where I live is a few clouds. You folks on the East Coast might not be so lucky. Could be a wet Labor Day for you. Not that it matters, of course. It’s only a matter of time before the bed bugs take over dominion of the planet from the humans. Another bunch of bloodsuckers – same as the old boss.

Major combat operations in Iraq have ended (again), and President Obama will be making an address tonight that will NOT include the phrase ‘Mission Accomplished.’ Hopefully they’ve focus-tested a different slogan and come up with something better.

I braved the waters of Time Warner ‘support’ chat again this morning, this time to try and find out the price of cable AFTER the promotional period is over. It isn’t on their website (they have a FAQ asking what the cost will be, and the answer is “it will revert to the regular price”), and the chatbot apparently can’t tell me either. I guess it’s a secret.

Everybody keeps asking me if I’m ‘excited’ about buying a different house. I guess I’ve just got too much Jack Benny in me to get excited at the prospect of spending that much money. Plus, I can’t for the life of me figure out how in the hell everything’s gonna get done and moved out of where I live now (let alone all the work that needs to get done where I’m going). Just the thought of it all gives me a headache. Thank goodness I’ve got a toothache to keep my mind off of it.

Oh well, I guess I’d better get ready to go deal with the day.

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…

Alex: Thank you for choosing Time Warner support live chat. My name is Alex. May I first have your full name?

Never mind the goddamn thing just made me sign in with first and last names required. Maybe this was a trick to see if I was lying or something. So, whatever. I gave him my name (or a reasonable facsimile.

Alex: Thank you providing me with your full name. Now may I have you zip code?

Jeezus H. Christ, dude. Zip code was required, too. But, OK, whatever.

Alex: Thank you. How may I help you.

At last, we finally seemed to be getting somewhere.

Me: Just a few questions. First, I’d like to know if Comedy Central is available in HD.

Alex: I understand you would like to know if Comedy Central is available in HD. Is this correct?

Me: :nod: Yep.

Alex: I would be happy to assist you with that. One moment please.

Me:

Me: :jerk:

Me: :yawn:

Me:

Alex: I am pleased to tell you that Comedy Central is available on the Classic and Standard tier.

Me: 🙄 That’s nice. But is it available in HD?

Alex: One moment please.

Me: …………

Alex: An HD receiver/HD DVR box is required to receive programming in high definition.

Me: 😡 Uh, that’s nice, but if I had an HD receiver/HD DVR, would I be able to see Comedy Central in HD?

Alex: Correct!

Me: :growl: Correct, what?

Alex: You would be able to receive programming in high definition if you had an HD receiver/HD DVR.

Me: :fustrate:

At this point, Alex and I were, sadly, disconnected. It’s too bad, because I was really looking forward to Alex enlightening me as to the Time Warner DVR hard disk size, and the availability of HD on-demand content.

I’ve had more cogent conversations with A.L.I.C.E. (not to mention fake Kirk).

I then e-mailed their customer support, but it appears I’ve stumped them as well, because, other than the auto-response I got about 46 hours ago assuring me that a tech support person would respond within 24 hours, I’ve heard nothing.

Something tells me I’ll be sticking with DirecTV.

I must confess that not only did I not watch last night’s Emmys, I didn’t even know they were on. Since I haven’t actually seen many of the shows that won, I can’t really comment on the winners, except to say that I like Nurse Jackie, so I’m glad Edie Falco won, I like the kid from Big Bang Theory (which I also think is a good show), and I also like The Closer, because the character of Brenda Lee Johnson is just so gosh darn cute.

Speaking of cute, the normally rather adorable Anna Paquin’s dress made her look pretty stupid. It appears she was wearing some kind of ancient Egyptian football shoulder pads. Oh, Sookie. You have to wonder who talks them in to this stuff.

In other exciting news, after being down since the beginning of the month, Sedition Radio is back on the air. I kind of debated on whether or not to even bother with it, but then I found a Shoutcast host willing to give me a free 25-user server. I still need to run it locally, but it gets relayed to them. Not that anyone cares, but Morning Sedition lives on – at least for a little while longer. It’ll need to be down for at least a while when I move, and since it’s been almost five years now, well, that might be a good time to just say goodbye and thanks for all the fish. But, we’ll see.

Oh well, I guess I’d better get to work. Got a house (and a tractor, and a plow, and a pellet stove insert, and a shitload of fencing and…) to pay for.

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.

Over at Faze the Nation, Bob Schieffer has Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller, FL Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, Mississippi’s cracker governor Haley Barbour, and Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

At Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has a tribute to the successor of Martin Luther King’s legacy, the man, the myth, the legend – the greatest deductive mind since Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the one, the only, fresh off his triumphant Beckapalooza, it’s an exclusive interview with Glenn Beck (how did they ever score a coup like that). If you want to see the future of American, you’d better tune in.

Over at the Gobbles network it’s, oh I don’t know. Tony Blair or something. Who can concentrate in the glow of yesterday’, oh what would you call it? Beckiosity? Glennism? Bleckness?

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria is all about ideas – the next big ideas that are shaping our world now and will continue to do so, long into the future. Which I think means Glenn Beck.

Are China and the U.S. on a collision course? Is a confrontation inevitable? China is busy beefing up its navy, buying new ships and weapons. What does it all mean for the home team (you know, us)? Geo-strategist (nice work if you can get it) Robert Kaplan tells us, and and explains why the South China Sea will soon be the most important place on earth (except for wherever Glenn Beck happens to be).

Then, What in the World? Do you know the significance of the number 311? It’s not just a phone number any more. It might be a key number for reducing America’s nuclear arsenal. But then again, the only number that really matters is 2012.

Is the Internet really dead as Wired Magazine claims? Is it really making us dumber? Personally, I just think it’s Wired magazine that’s making us dumber; that, and mindless devotion to brand names). But Farred will get the real scoop from Internet guru Clay Shirky (question: if you’ve never heard of somebody, can they really be a ‘guru’?) on the state of technology in our culture today…and what the future will bring.

Then, is there a bright side to the recession? Author and economist Richard Florida on the change that always comes with economic crisis…and the good things that he thinks will come out of this one. Like, I dunno, cheap labor and Mexicans fleeing back to Mexico to find jobs. And finally, the Last Look: the next big idea in military fashion. Apparently with the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in sight, camo is out.

Just a couple more True Bloods left. Then I guess I can dump HBO for a while (at least until ‘Boardwalk Empire’ starts).

Have a good one.

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.

In other exciting news, my new Kindle has yet to ship, but is expected to ship today and be delivered Monday. I’m rather looking forward to getting it. There are a boatload of free books available for it, and there are ways, to, um convert other books that are out there to a Kindle-readable format. I’d been resistant to the whole e-reader thing, but it looks like the Kindle 3 is a winner, and I’m looking forward to getting back to reading something other than reference books again.

But I guess the most exciting news (from my perspective, anyway) is that, pending the results of the inspection, which is now my only ‘out,’ it looks like we bought a house. Thank goodness for the shitty housing market and low interest rates, ‘cuz I’d never be able to afford this (let alone be willing to actually shell out the bucks) otherwise. On the dark side, though, I’ll really miss my brand new appliances, and I won’t be able to quit my job anytime soon (not for at least 15 years, anyway). Good thing I don’t work for USA Today.

Oh well, time to get my act together and close out this week.

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.

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview.

All that sex with dudes shoula been your first clue, buddy.

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life…. The process has been something that’s made me…happier and better”

And gayer, too, apparently.

This has got to be quite a blow (so to speak) to Republicans. Not the gay part, of course, but the hypocrisy, which is so unusual for them. 🙄

Hopefully Lindsay Graham, Karl Rove, Wide Stance Craig, and Mitch McConnell will now come out with statements condemning Kenny Boy for his clandestine behavior, but praising his courage for coming out. Larry Craig might even offer to make room for Ken under his big tent.

Former Japanese Democratic Party Leader Ichiro Ozawa called Americans ‘simple-minded’ yesterday. All I have to say to that is, “well, duh.”

“I like Americans, but they are somewhat monocellular,” the former Democratic Party leader said. “When I talk with Americans, I often wonder why they are so simple-minded.”

Me too, Ichiro-san. But it’s part of our charm.

We’re like that affable but really stupid dog that wags his tail and drools all over everything, then craps on the floor. You try and get pissed at us, but then you look in our big goofy eyes and you just can’t stay mad. At least until we elect a George Bush and contract the equivalent of rabies and get all aggressive and invasiony and shit.

Then you realize we’re too goddamn big to have put down, and you start getting nervous.

Today is a big day here in these parts. It’s the opening day of the New York State Fair, which signals the beginning of the unofficial end of summer (the end of course coming on the final day of the Fair, which is Labor Day). As always (now that I’m old), the start of the Fair has taken me by surprise. Where has the summer gone?

Features include the world famous butter sculpture, which this year has the “green technology” theme of “Dairyville 2020” (which is funny since the display case is a big refrigerated room that’s got to be at least as old as I am, and probably uses about eleventy-million KWh a day.

On one side is a dairy farm with 14 cows, a barn and an anarerobic digester. On the other side of the sculpture is Dairyville, which is powered by electrical lines carrying power made from the cow manure.The exhibit shows how the manure from these cows can be used to generate electricity using the digester, how composted manure can be used as natural fertilizer and, of course, how these cows produce nearly 50 gallons of milk a day.

Wow, butter and manure. It doesn’t get any better than that!

After the fair, students from the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse will convert the butter into biofuel to fuel the college’s buses.

Well good for them. Beats making 2.3 million pieces of toast.

Also, it’s also a big night for geezers (and geezers at heart), as tonight’s act at the grandstand is Aerosmith.

I won’t be attending this year’s Fair, because out of the blue a few months ago, the State Fair Director decided to fire all the union trades people (electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, etc) that traditionally work the Fair and get the grounds ready each year, and then hired a bunch of scabs for a lot less money.

To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have gone anyway. I haven’t actually gone since 1998, I think, when I manned the voter registrstion booth for my union, and got my picture taken shaking hands with former NYS Comptroller H. Carl McCall (had he won the election for Governor, NY would be in much better shape right now) at a luncheon for union activist types. He made me look very, very short.

The rides on the midway are too expensive (as are the beers), I’ve already seen plenty of horses and cows, and, all due respect to Melina, chickens don’t really do much for me. Oh, there’s a lot of other stuff, but it mostly amounts to people trying to sell you shit (I could use a free cleaning of my glasses with the miracle anti-fog juice, I guess), and shit I’ve seen before.

Oh well, looks like I’m running late here. Have a good Thursday.

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.

As it stands right now, the sellers say they’re willing to move “some” on their price (but “not a whole lot”), while I need them to move “a lot” in order to justify the years of work it’s gonna take to get the place into shape. Hell, there’s still a shitload of work to do on the current place. Oh well.

So, I didn’t pay much attention to yesterday’s primary, but I see that St. John McCain trounced the teabagger nut he was running against. And the Meek may not have inherited the Earth, but he appears to have inherited the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Florida. Let’s hope he can manage to be the first black Senator from FL come November (I think with the Republicans at least theoretically split between Crist and Rubio, he’s at least got to have a chance).

The NY MTA is considering a fare increase to $130 for a monthly MetroCard (it’s $89 a month now). It’s not actually ‘monthly’ though, as they sell them as 30-day unlimited use. That’s $4.33 a day, and if you only use them to commute five days a week (at an average of 21.67 working days a month – 52*5/12), that would be more like $5.97 a day. Of course, it’ll hurt those who can least afford to pay more for the privilege of going to work the most, but then that’s how the world works, I guess.

Oh well, I think it’s time to go and do what it takes to get out the door.

Washington Monthly has released a list of colleges ranked “based on their contribution to the public good in three broad categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country).” With such namby-pamby categories, it isn’t surprising that five of the top ten schools in the “National Universities” category are in Communist California, the University of Texas in that socialist enclave of Austin comes in at #5, or that hoity-toity Harvard comes in at #9. I was, however, rather pleasantly surprised to see Syracuse ranked at number eight.

That’s higher than any Ivy League school, MIT, Georgetown (which, as we all know, sucks), and, well, any school east of the Mississippi (except for #7 Michigan, which I’m not counting; actually, if I leave out Michigan, I can say east of the Rockies). So, good for my alma mater, but you’re still not getting any money out of me (that double late fee adding up to $130 on a $25 balance was the last “donation” you’ll ever get from me).

You’ve no doubt heard that an activist US District Court judge has halted the appropriation of funds for stem cell research. No matter how you feel about the issue, you have to admit it’s pretty cool that it’s based on something called the “Dickey Wicker” amendment. That’s a great name – sounds like the kind of material they’d use to make a really funky condom. Sadly, it’s actually the name of an appropriation bill rider passed in 1995, and signed into law by Bill Clinton. It prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services from using appropriated funds (including funding for National Institutes of Health) for the creation of human embryos for research or for research where human embryos are destroyed.

In a battle to see who’s more racist, teabagger Mark Williams has called injun-fighter Mike Bloomberg a ‘Judenrat’ for Bloomies support of the Mooslam community center in the old Burlington Coat Factory. At least Williams didn’t say teabaggers need to march over to Bloomberg’s office wearing brown shirts and carrying Mausers to “enforce” the will of the people.

It’s primary day in AK, AZ, FL, and VT today, so, if you live in any of those places, go out and vote for, um, well, I guess you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself. It’s getting harder to justify the effort to vote for anybody these days. Our electoral process just seems like masturbation to me these days (not that I have anything against masturbation, of course), and with such an easily manipulated electorate and corporate ownership of candidates, I don’t see us ever being able to turn things around via the political process.

Time to build a bunker, I think.

I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, yesterday it rained. Actually, it rained and rained and rained and rained. It rained hard, and it rained constantly. In fact, we got nearly 4¼”, which – they tell me this morning – broke the old record for 8/22 by about three inches. Now, in my darn near half a century here, I’ve seen a lot of weather (snow, mostly, though there was that microburst in ’98 that devastated the area and knocked our power out for two weeks – which stopped being cute after about eight days), but I don’t recall this much rain in one day since the remnants of hurricane Agnes went through way back in ’72. Boy howdy (OK you geezers, who used to say that? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I’m thinkin’ Heath – played by Lee Majors – on ‘The Big Valley.’ I recall being shocked as a kid when Heath said “I’m you father’s bastard son!” ‘cuz I had no idea you could say that on teevee back in the sixties – though I must confess that my mother may have called me a little bastard a time or two back in the day. She also used to call me a son-of-a-bitch, which I of course agreed with whole-heartedly – which I think is what may have prompted her to call me a little bastard), that was a lotta rain.

The MacBook Pro I use (courtesy of work) has learned a new trick. Or, more accurately, has unlearned an old trick. Now, it has no sound (though it will pop a bit from time to time). So, the touchpad doesn’t ‘click’ (actually, if you push it a couple hundred times, it may actually work once or twice), the WiFi drops out for no reason whatsoever, and now there’s no sound. As much as I like it (and I really do like it), I’m really glad I didn’t actually pay for it. I could have bought two non-Apple laptops (with more RAM) for what this one would have cost, and while they wouldn’t have the ‘cool’ factor, I also wouldn’t have had to jump through all the hoops I’ve had to in trying to get this thing to do what I want it to do. This is my first long-term experience with a Mac, but now I can see why the TCO (total cost of ownership) is, statistically speaking, so much higher, and why you definitely have to get AppleCare if you buy one.

Sookie married Bill! Not on ‘True Blood’ but in ‘Real Life.’ Aw, what a nice couple they make, and that Bill (er, I mean Stephen) is a lucky man to have such a cute little bisexual wife. I mean, just imagine the possibilities (I know I am :hubba: ).

Oh well, I guess I better go make sure my car didn’t float away over night.

Update: The sound is back! After the computer locked up (in a very Windows-like manner that Mac people say never happens, but actually happens fairly regularly) and I had to kill it and restart, the sound started working again. Yay! I should have tried that before, I guess, but I try not to restart since the touchpad preferences don’t kick in until after your profile loads, which means I have to tab around to log in (not a huge deal, but a hassle nonetheless).

OK, carry on.

I’m not in a booblehead kinda mood this morning (kinda trying to figure out whether to make an offer on what we saw yesterday). If there’s anybody who knows (and cares) what talking heads are on tap, please feel free to let us know. Otherwise, I advise you to spend the day getting ready for tonight’s True Blood.