I hope Sue and everybody else down in NYC are doing OK this morning, after a nasty storm (possibly a tornado, even) ripped though last night. If nothing else, it’s gonna make it a real pain in the ass for everybody down there to get to work today, so I hope Sue and hubby can just stay home and not have too much clean up after (though Mayor Bloomie says he expects all the schools to be open today). The money quote from Bloomberg? “While it may be an act of God, it doesn’t make it any easier for us.” Um. Why would it, Mr. Mayor? I’ve never heard anybody refer to an “act of God” when they were talking about something good.

Anyhow, it’s one thing when a storm rips through up here. It’s not a particularly unusual event, and we aren’t packed in at over 2,000 people per square kilometer (after all, it is a 30 minute drive in the pickup to Sears and all). So something like this down there with all those people definitely sucks. Better than if it happened in Mumbai, though, which has damn near 30,000 people per Km² (who are mostly providing Dell tech support).

Otherwise, we come to the end of a long week for me, and a short week for Granny (‘cuz she was off). I much prefer it when she’s off, because it’s better for the dogs that way. Not as good as it would be for them if I was off, of course. But unless there are some winning lottery numbers in my future, the poor boys will just have to get along without us.

The money hemorrhage continues, as I had to buy homeowners insurance on the new house, and decided to switch the auto insurance as well. More money down the toilet, though it turns out the old insurance company (who I won’t mention, but it rhymes with “Hate Charm”) was screwing me pretty bad, and the new one will be about half price. Still, it means shelling out the cash while I wait for a refund.

After last week’s rather disappointing football game at Washington (where, thanks to fumbles and foibles, a 10-0 start turned to shit), it’s the home season opener tomorrow for SU at the Dome. For the first time, they’ll be selling wine.

Wine.

At a football game.

Oh, the shame.

They’re also introducing a new service, where, if you spill your beer (because you’d never drink wine at a football game, fer chrissakes), you can text the maintenance people to have them come clean it up. No word on whether they’ll bring you a refill or not.

The Republican candidate for Governor, Carl “the mope” Paladino, has given us a little insight into what makes him tick in an in interview with the NY Times. For one thing, he doesn’t care for Andy Cuomo.

Insular I think is a very good word for him. Just carrying around this air about him. This entitlement. And I noticed it first when I was watching him on the newsreels….

Ah, yes. On the newsreels. While most of us were making our way to the concession stand to buy a 5 cent pop (which is what they call soda in Buffalo) and a bag of popcorn, newshound Carl was watching the newsreels, and caught that footage of Andy in between the updates on the War in Korea and the cat playing ping pong.

Carl’s not too keen on all the traffic in Manhattan, either. But there’s good news for Queens and Staten Island.

Staten Island and Queens are much the same as like Buffalo. You don’t have traffic jams every red light, all right? Look at the time you have to spend to get around Manhattan. I mean, try to get someplace.

I guess Carl’s never heard of the subway (which is odd, ‘cuz they’ve got one in Buffalo, though it pretty much just runs up and down Main Street – which is a good all-American name for a street that I doubt you’d find down there in New York will all their fancy street numberin’ and “Avenues” and whatnot), and I’m sure the folks in Queens will be really happy about being called “much the same as like” both Buffalo and Staten Island.

And Carl’s knows what to look for to straighten out Albany.

Who are the political hacks hanging around the office that are there for patronage and causing a morale problem?

Um, we call that the State Senate and Assembly, Carl.

How do they handle take-home vehicles? Does everybody have a take-home vehicle? Because we heard that’s a monster of a problem with state government.

Yes, I heard that too. I think I saw it on the newsreels.

Oh well, time to head off to work before Carl takes my job away. In the meantime, here’s Carl’s favorite newsreel music video. He wouldn’t want his son to marry one, but he sure does admire the way those colored girls dance.