I am so completely uninspired this morning, I don’t see how I can possible get out there and function. It was a pretty good weekend, as weekends go. On Saturday, I cut lots of grass. First at home, where I’m really getting the hang of dealing with the extension cord on the electric lawnmower, and then at my sister’s place, where I finally got to play with my new tractor. I cut lots of grass out there, and played around digging with the bucket a little bit, too. That was fun, even if I did have an audience (I don’t like having people watch me). I must say, that little sucker handles amazingly well. I can’t wait to close and get it out to the new place (though there’s not a whole lot of grass cutting weather left this year, it’ll be snow season before you know it.

In other news, Newt Gingich has taken a brave stance against Sharia Law, insisting that federal legislation be enacted to prevent its use here in the good old US of A. You’ll have to forgive Newt’s ignorance (if you want). He and his ilk who always seem to want to impose Christian Law and the ten commandments and whatnot upon the rest of us are apparently unaware of a little known clause in an obscure government document called the US Constitution – more specifically the First Amendment (which, on your hit-parande of amendments, comes in at #1), which starts out something like

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….

So, kinda sorta case closed there, you’d think.

Now, were these wingnuts and teabaggers not so incredibly irony-challenged, at this point they’d realize why people shouldn’t be prevented from building a church, mosque, synagogue, or community center on privately owned property, and also why religious dogma ought to stay the f*ck away from public places. ‘Cuz, frankly, I think you’d could whomp up a fair amount of public (majority, even) support from throwing Fred Phelps and his coven into prison, and maybe even tossing that mosque burning “pastor” Michael Palin or Graham Chapman or whatever the hell his name is, into the stocks to be taunted and hit with water balloons.

But of course we don’t do that in this country, where you’re free to handle all the snakes you want (as long as you don’t try and get little boys to handle your snake for you; but let’s leave the Catholic out of this), thanks to the First Amendment.

Pretty crafty, those founders (for people who condoned – or even actively supported – slavery, were up for wiping out the natives, and who oppressed – or at least didn’t exactly enable women – except for John Adams, who, as an ugly little bastard probably felt privileged to be married to Laura Linney).

None of them could have held a candle to Newt, though (who strikes me as somebody who’d really enjoy having a candle held to him).

Oh well, time to go, I guess.

On Press the Meat today, it’s two of the most popular Republicans of the 1990s – Bill Clinton and Colin Powell.

Faze the Nation also has Bill Clinton, along with fellow Republicans Michael Gerson Ed Rollins.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has AK nutjob Joe Miller, and everybody’s favorite Republican, Karl Rove.

Over at the Goebbels network, Christi Amanpour has the other Clinton – Hillary, plus she’ll interview President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Iranian Tea Party. Speaking of teabaggers, Christi’s roundtable talks about the effect they’ll have on the upcoming elections with Delaware State Republican Chairman Tom Ross, George :jerk: Will, David Sanger of the New York Times, and Peter Beinart.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria talks about the Lehman Brothers collapse, an interview with one of Osama bin Laden’s comrade-in-arms, an “all-star panel” with CNN’s newest prime time co-host, Kathleen Parker, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, Reuters’ Chrystia Freeland and Dan Senor. Also, Fareed takes a look at what’s going on in Cuba, and a “last look” at somebody who’s been tapped to fight poverty (but you’ll have to watch to find out who she is).

Then there’s a full day of football ahead, before the premiere of Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson (based on Nucky Johnson) in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

Me? I’ve got work to do.

Have a good one.

I was trying to kill the work week yesterday afternoon (with my mp3 player on shuffle mode, as it typically is, and the tunes cranked as loud as I figured I could get away with – which was fairly loud, what with the office tending to be pretty sparsely populated on Fridays after two o’clock or so) when a thought suddenly came to me: “Keep on Chooglin'” is a stupid song. That, and Stu Cook looked an awful lot like Maury Muehleisen (who died along with Jim Croce 37 years ago this coming Monday; when the hell will musicians learn not to take small charter flights?). What can I say? My mind tends to wander on Friday afternoons.

Fortunately, the day (and week) finally ended, and I celebrated by sleeping in ’til damn near four o’clock this morning (I was awake earlier, rolling back and forth in bed, but finally decided to just get it over with and get the hell up). I have no idea why I’ve been getting up so early the past couple weeks, but I think it has something to do with not drinking beer and reading in bed.

Sobriety gives me no reason to stay up at night, and the reading seems to knock me out like being hit in the head with a shovel. Since it’s nice having the extra time in the morning, I kind of like it (though the inevitable exhaustion tends to make my mind wander in the afternoon). It’ll come in pretty handy in the winter when I have to plow the driveway in order to get to work.

Today I get to go and play with my Kubota (so to speak). My sister is graciously allowing me to cut a few acres of her grass for her (which I will do gladly, even having read Tom Sawyer about 50 times; I should look for free Mark Twain eBooks, now that I think of it), and then later on tonight I’ll watch as SU (hopefully) stomps all over the Maine Back Bears – with Floyd Little (speaking of the Kubota) being honored at halftime. Not that I’ll be going to the game, mind you, but it’s on SNY (though probably not in HD, sadly).

Just saw a commercial for Cialis on the teevee. It cautioned not to drink alcohol while taking it. I guess fat, drunk, and aroused is no way to go through life (besides, you should probably save the alcohol for your partner). Fortunately, that’s one portion of my anatomy that remains in working order, even at my advanced age (worry if it lasts for four hours? Shit, I’ve had one that’s lasted since I was 13). I think it’s the Irish in me (we’re breeders).

Speaking of breeders, the Octomom is facing bankruptcy and foreclosure (her 15 minutes were not particularly lucrative, I guess), due to the rather sizable expenses related to raising 14 kids (and she’s thinking about having another one). A white knight (of sorts) has appeared on the horizon, however, with porn producer Vivid Entertainment purportedly offering a half million dollars for her to star in a one-hour porn video (now there’s an antidote for Cialis). Sounds like a win-win. Enough money to stave off bankruptcy, and a potential supply of dozens of willing sperm donors.

Well, time to get a move-on and quit all this lollygagging. Hell, the sun’ll be up in another hour and 10 minutes.

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.

Instead of dicking around with the idiot Republicans (and idiot Democrats like Chris Dodd, who I once thought was a good guy, but I guess they’re pretty much all the same), President Obama has apparently decided to name Elizabeth Warren a “special adviser” to set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will allow her to act as an interim head without needing Senate confirmation. Hopefully she can be quietly named as permanent head somewhere down the line (note to the Prez: better do it before the new Congress in January, when your lame-duckedness will officially begin).

In the meantime, the aforementioned idiot Democrats seem likely to push the White House into accepting an extension of the Bush tax cuts for rich people. This is pretty stupid, and whether it’s because they’re so cowardly and stupid they think that the tax and spend label will stick to them, or whether they’re so corrupt that they want to protect their rich pals and donors, I dunno. Both scenarios seem equally as likely.

Democrats (and the President) have nobody but themselves to blame for the upcoming Republican storm. Having entered office with much potential (and with control of both Houses of Congress), their spineless timidity and failure to do what they were elected to do has opened the door for Republicans to take over and send us back to the stone age.

You probably already saw the video of the Tennessee Titans mascot (I think that’s what it is; it doesn’t look like a “titan” to me, but what do I know?) eating a cheerleader, but I think it’s pretty funny and I don’t really have much else to say this morning, so here it is again.

I have to admit, she does look pretty tasty.

Speaking of tasty NFL tidbits, you’ve no doubt heard of the “controversy” involving TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz. I know I was shocked – shocked, I tell you – to hear that a bunch of professional athletes were rude, crude and obnoxious around her. Should their behavior be excused? No. But should we be surprised when a bunch of steroid-infused, muscle-headed, pampered millionaire athletes (who have, no doubt, been treated like gods since junior high) act like idiots? No, I don’t think so.

On a side note, in looking at the photo that Sainz apparently posted to Twitter as an example of the type of outfit she wore when getting harassed, I have to wonder, are those pants comfortable? I mean, they don’t look very comfortable to me, but then nobody wants to see me in jeans that tight anyway.

Oh well, time to get ready to go and get through another day. I’m really not up for this. I’d rather go play with my new (used) tractor, which was delivered to my sister’s place on Tuesday, and which my brother-in-law has been kind enough to go over with a fine toothed comb and PM for me. I guess I’ve have to wait for Saturday.

Well, we learned at least one thing from yesterday’s primary election here in NY State: Rick Lazio is an even bigger loser than we thought. Not only did little Ricky lose to Teabagger Carl Paladino, he got freakin’ trounced by almost 2-1. Uncle Carl now faces Andy Cuomo in the general election, and, while I’d normally think that Paladino wouldn’t have a chance, who knows? We the People aren’t very happy with politicians, making a mope like Carl seem appealing (apparently). He doesn’t do much for me, but then neither does Cuomo.

This election will an exercise in moving to the right and demonizing the government and public service, and it looks like my choice for Guv will be to decide which candidate who will demonize public employees less (Cuomo decided that Labor Day – of all days – would be a good opportunity to pen an op-ed in the NY Daily News declaring that “public employees unions must make sacrifices for sake of the state” and comparing NY State’s budget problem to that of NY City back in 1975; sadly, it doesn’t surprise me that Andy sees NY State in terms of NY City). That’s how it works here.

They can pretty much ignore us, unless they want to ram power lines through or something. As Hizzoner the Mayor Ed Koch has stated, Upstate (where you have to drive half an hour to buy a gingham dress at Sears) should aspire to be the source of cheap labor and raw material that NY City needs (we’re kind of like Colonial Africa, and NYC is Belgium or something).

So maybe I might as well get some teabagging meathead from Buffalo. He might be interesting, and, as David Paterson has showed us, the Governor of NY really can’t do shit if the dysfunctional State Legislature doesn’t let him.

In other primary news, not everybody I voted for lost, amazingly enough. The guy I voted for for State Assembly in my district (to replace the woman who was a friend to labor, seemed like a nice person, always showed up at any union event I’ve ever gone to, and had been in that position for longer than I can remember – which isn’t necessarily all that long) actually won. Even better, he’s a black guy, which really shouldn’t matter, but in the ‘burbs where I live, that’s pretty impressive (and, I think, somewhat unprecedented).

And Eric Schneiderman actually defeated Kathleen Rice in a close race for the Democratic nomination for NY Attorney General. I thought this was pretty surprising, since I saw zero ads for Eric. My guess is his campaign just didn’t bother with Upstate and concentrated where all the people (and Democrats) are, Downstate.

The thing I like best about NY’s system is that the primary is one of the latest ones of the season, and we’re only subjected to the political ads for a relatively short time. In about seven weeks (still too long) it’ll all be over.

There were a few glitches with voting machines around here, but not to the extent they had them down in NYC. Of course, if you had, say, problems in 1% of precincts, that’s a small number up here, but a much more sizable number down there.

Where I voted, there was only one ballot scanner. So, if that sucker crapped out, you’d be SOL (presumably they’d just collect the ballots and scan them all later when the thing was fixed or replaced). Assuming they didn’t lose them. They also ran short of ballots in some places, and had to hand out “emergency” ballots, that of course won’t get counted unless there’s a close race. That doesn’t seem right to me.

What I didn’t like (and as Sue alluded to yesterday) was that the machine didn’t tell you who you voted for and give you an opportunity to confirm or reject the result. I’d wondered about that when reviewing how the machines worked, and my suspicions were confirmed when I voted. All it tells you is the number of things you voted for, and that it got accepted.

This would seem like a no-brainer to me. It should say, “You voted for X, Y, Z. Is this correct?” I think that blows, but then the lever machines never confirmed who you voted for either (and at least they can go back and count the paper ballots, though that doesn’t help if you marked it incorrectly).

Oh well, that’s progress for you.

It’s Primary Day here in New York State, and I’m in a bit of a quandary as to whether I want to bother with it, but I suppose I will. It’s a good opportunity to how many of the old people manning the polls croaked since last November, and if nothing else, I want to get some practice on the new ImageCast ballot-scanning voting machines. It’s the first election of any sort for me (ever) without my good old friends the lever machines (which were good enough for my parents, damn it), and since I doubt there’ll be much of a line, it’s a good opportunity to get acquainted with the new system. Not that it should exactly be difficult, but, as we all know, change is bad. I’m not sure these things even give you a chance to verify your selections. You mark the ballot, and then stick it in the shredder scanner, and off you go. Not that you could tell anything was happening with the lever machines, of course, but it felt like you were voting when you slammed that big old stick back and the curtains snapped open. Now I guess you go to a table with a urinal privacy screen around it and mark your ballot with a “special” pen (hint: it’s a Sharpie).

As far as who to vote for, there aren’t many exciting races. Though I don’t really feel like a “Democrat”, I’m registered as one (you have to register one way or another here in order to get a voice here in NY), so I’ll have to vote in the Democratic primary, and there aren’t really many interesting races. Katrina vanden Heuvel seems to feel entitled to tell me who to vote for AG. No offense, Katrina, but I don’t recall asking for your opinion. The Working Families Party seems to concur, though, so I reckon I’ll vote for her candidate anyway – Eric Schneiderman. Since my vote is typically the kiss of death, I reckon that means he’ll lose, plus Kathleen Rice seems to be the one with all the money and the teevee commercials. I honestly don’t know much about either one (except that Kathleen is a nice Irish-Catholic girl – single with no kids, though, so you know what that means – who went to Catholic University, and, for all I know, may very well have lived in the same dorm room I spent my DC summer from hell in, back in ’06), though that I’m guessing that I could count the number of times either one of them have been north of Westchester on one hand, and odds are they think the most prevalent crime in Upstate NY is cattle rustling.

There’s no option in the Governor’s race, as Andy Cuomo has that locked up. It’s unfortunate, because I don’t like him, and I think he’ll be very bad for public employees and organized labor. Not as bad as either of the Republicans running, though. That’s a close race, and it’ll be interesting to see which one of them wins (Loser Lazio vs. the mope from Buffalo, Carl Paladino). At any rate, come November, I’ll be voting for perpetual Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins.

Oh well, I guess I better go study my ballot options (which, of course, is code for “shop for tractor implements”).

We have a railroad bridge around here that’s 10’9″ above a four lane road. I don’t know when it was built, but it looks pretty old (it looks like something they made back in the good old days when they didn’t cheap out on material), and it certainly predates me. Every now and again, a vehicle that’s taller than that (typically a tractor trailer) tries to drive underneath it, which generally results in the top of the trailer being peeled back like the top of a sardine can, and the truck getting stuck, holding up traffic for hours as they try to pry the damn thing out.

Over the years, they’ve tried pretty much everything short of lowering the road (it’s right next to a lake, and would probably flood constantly if they did that) or raising the bridge (did I mention this thing looks awfully solid), including painting the edge of the thing fluorescent orange, adding flashing lights, and putting a humongous yellow warning sign across the road about a mile away, equipped with flashing warning lights. I get the feeling that drivers must think they’re kidding or something. Still, people keep hitting this thing (I think the score is something like Bridge: 47, Trucks: 0, and, as far as I can tell, the bridge hasn’t moved even a faction of an inch in all these years).

Anyhow, in the wee hours of Saturday morning, a “Mega Bus” (which is apparently what we call double-decker buses up here) sitting about 12 feet, 8 inches high and on its way to Toronto, got lost, missed a turn, missed all the warning signs, and slammed into the bridge and flipped over, killing 4 people sitting in the front of the top deck (whose heads, if you do the math, would be, well, not in a very good spot), and sending a whole lot more to the hospital where I work. Pretty nasty looking crash.

So, anyhow, while I’m sure the view is very nice from the top level of one of these buses, my advice is to sit on the first level (and toward the back).

The first Sunday of football season is in the books. The Bills lost, which is always nice to see, and I hope Eagles fans are happy now that they’ve finally gotten rid of Donovan McNabb, who didn’t have a spectacular debut with Washington, but at least beat the Cowboys (which is the team I most enjoy seeing lose – not that I saw the game, ‘cuz I go to bed pretty early these days). Speaking of games on too late for me to watch, the Jets play tonight. Let’s hope they manage to come up with a win, after a less than impressive (and fortunately meaningless) preseason.

Oh well, time to get going. I have a tractor to pay for.

It’s a big day today on Press the Meat, as Former Mayor NounVerbNineOneOne Ghouliani is set to regale us with tales of heroism about how he single-handedly saved the day back in 2001. Also on, White House PR man David Axelrod. Then it’s a roundtable with Dee Dee Myers (who, say what you will about her and/or her former boss, Bill Clinton, does not – unlike that twit that Bush hired, whose name escapes me at the moment – look like a Nazi chick), frequent Bill Maher (new season premieres next week, BTW) guest Reza Aslan, Republican creep (no offense to committees to reelect the president) Mike Murphy, and Ron Brownstein.

On CBS, Faze the Nation has Poppa John Boehner, House Representative Keith Ellison (on to represent Mooslams), and 9/11 Commission Co-Chair Tom Kean.

At Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has the totally irrelevant, yet for some reason omnipresent, Newt Gingrich, plus the new Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Austin Goolsbee (who I think is related to Sybil Gooley, the checker down at Ferguson’s Market). Plus, ‘Power Player of the Week’, Washington Redskins Head Coach Mike Shanahan.

Goolsbee also heads on over to the Goebbels network to chat with Christi Amanpour on This Weak. Also up, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, plus a member of the president’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships and founder of Interfaith Youth Core, Eboo Patel, advocate for reform in Islam, Irshad Manji and founder of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, Rev. Richard Cizik. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a rountable with George :jerk: Will, Arianna Huffington (who will hopefully update us on how her aunt Zsa Zsa is doing), Kate Zernike and Jonathan Karl.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria has a 9/11 retrospective, plus an “exclusive” with the first high ranking official to leave the Obama administration – Peter Orszag, and a look at how to tell the Taliban that it’s been fun, but it’s time for them to go away.

Then it’s the first Sunday of football season. Hard to believe there are only 17 weeks left (plus the playoffs). February 6th will be here before you know it.

Later, it’s the season finale of True Blood (the season is over? Sookie, say it aint so!).

And, finally, in my quest to spend every dollar I have, here’s what I bought yesterday (I realize of course that, with the exception of my sister, nobody but me actually cares but, well, take away the beer and this is all that’s left in my life – except for the dogs, of course). No, it’s not a big honkin’ monster with a cab, cd player, GPS, and a/c, but I’ve no need to plow the back 40 before lunch, either.

It is, however, a 2004 with a brand new engine and only 320 hours on the rest of it, with a front end loader and a 60″ mower deck, and it should be exactly what I need to plow the driveway, cut the grass, do some landscaping work, and help me cut and clean up the trails through my woods.

By the way, here’s a shout-out to the good folks over in Osaka: if Kubota would like to start sponsoring this blog, I’d like to point out that I’m willing to work cheap (in descending order: a PTO-driven generator, a set of forks, plow shoes, or any item in your assortment of fine Kubota brand apparel). I will shamelessly plug whatever you want me to, and am willing to rename this the Kubota Happy Tractor Morning Fun Joy Blog (or, conversely, agree to pay me off, and I’ll keep your name out of it – whatever works for you).

Back to work tomorrow. That sucks.

At lunchtime yesterday, I decided to take a run over to the local “club” store (you know, the kind that sells toilet paper by the case – like Costco, but in this case it’s called BJs, which I think is an East Coast thing) to do enough grocery shopping to last me through to Sunday. Normally l go after work, but I figured I’d get it out of the way early, and, besides, how busy could it be on a Friday? Turns out, it was apparently prime time for the humongous among us to go shopping. I’m not talking about your typical bulk food shopper (let’s face it, a store that sells Ding-Dongs by the palette doesn’t exactly attract a health-conscious clientele – myself, sadly, most definitely included). These folks, however, were definitely the large economy size.

This had both pros and cons. On the plus side, though I’m not exactly svelte myself, being around these folks made me feel like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. The disadvantage, however, was that I was in a bit of a hurry, and, well, trying to maneuver though this group didn’t exactly make it easy to get in and out of the store quickly.

For one thing, they’re very hard to get around, since they’re nearly as wide as the aisle, and they tend to walk in a lumbering, side-to-side manner (reminiscent of Mongo’s ox in Blazing Saddles; all they need is ‘Yes/No’ tattooed on their asses), making frequent stops to admire the baked goods, and to contemplate whether or not Crisco is an acceptable dip for Nachos. Plus, when it comes to checkout time, being stuck behind them takes forever, since they have lots and lots of items (these people shop with flatbeds), and are apparently mystified by the intricacies of the self checkout system (though, to be fair, this disability doesn’t seem limited to plus-size shoppers).

Needless to say (so why say it?), I eventually made it out and back to work, but whilst standing around and waiting, I noticed that they were selling Keurig coffee makers for $129. Having led a mostly sheltered life up until this time, my first exposure to one of these things came at the training I took a while back in DC. You insert a little sealed plastic shotglass of coffee (called a K-cup or, more generically, a “pod”, which has a filter built into it), and the machine pierces the top and bottom, injects 204 degree water, and out comes a single cup of joe. In the commercial version, it even magically disposes of the pod. Total time, under 30 seconds.

I’ve toyed with buying one of these things since i saw it, because it seems like a great way to save on coffee, I’m an “on-demand” kinda guy, and, let’s face it, it’s really, really cool. I’m not into all the disposal of plastic, but they also make refillable pod so you can grind your own coffee. In the spirit of 9/11 (which, as I recall, was all about capitalism, consumer confidence, and the need to “keep on shoppin'”), I ought to buy one. But right now I’m supposed to be saving money, not spending it (and I now have to fire off a check for $200 so some company can do a “drive-by” appraisal of the house I’m buying for the bank). So, no new coffee maker for me.

Speaking of 9/11, I suppose I should try and summon up something touching and poignant in honor of the anniversary of the “day that changed everything”, but I guess I’m just not up for it. It was, obviously, a really shitty (and stunning) day, and a lot of people lost their lives and loves ones (the Burlington Coat Factory even lost one of its locations, which is better left vacant than to be used as a community center).

Sadly, it was but one of many shitty (and, unfortunately, not unusual) days in human history that have happened before and since, where people do horrible things to other people (typically in the name of religion). Instead of effecting change for the better as it might have, all that day really managed to do was give a group of powerful people the justification they needed to scare a whole bunch of sheep into allowing them to invade another country (or two) and foment hate and racism throughout our fair land.

And today some megalomaniacal “pastor” of some shitty little cult in Florida will burn somebody else’s word of God in the name of his own God as some sort of twisted protest against a group of people being allowed to build a house of God, because it isn’t his God, and our brave “Fourth Estate” has elevated this moron and his inbred idiot followers to a level of pseudo-importance that must be beyond even Pastor Numbnutz’s wildest masturbatory, balloon-boy fantasies.

Just what the world needed – more hatred and bigotry.

So, congratulations America. This is what you’ve come to. You must feel so proud on your special day.