It’s been a tough week, fire-wise. That gas line explosion out in San Bruno looks pretty scary. Vernon, I hope you’re OK out there. And now it appears that the wind fueled wildfires out in Colorado may sweep through Boulder. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Best of luck to everybody.

A federal judge has ruled that the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy is unconstitutional. Well, duh. My one question is, nobody’s figured this out before now?

The NFL season officially got under way last night, with the Saints beating the Vikings. Say what you want about Brett Favre, but, on behalf of all us Walter Mitty geezer types, I have to say there must be a little part of you that enjoys seeing the old guy out there playing. Since he’s already broken George Blanda’s interception record, you have to wonder if he’ll go ahead and switch to placekicker when he can no longer manage at QB.

Irish Fest begins today here. Why September? No idea. But it’s a time when those of Irish descent can gather and drink beer (as opposed to, oh, every other weekend of the year). Unless you happen to be an Irishman that gets high blood pressure from drinking beer, and you’re hoping to outlive your lovable but short-lived forebears. Then you have to content yourself with sobriety.

In order to watch the SU game tomorrow, I was forced to add the DirecTV SportsPack. In order to help mitigate the cost, I dropped the HD Extra package. I’m looking at other ways to save money as well. For instance, with True Blood ending on Sunday, I thought about dropping HBO. But then Bill Maher starts up again in a week or so, and of course the new Steve Buscemi show starts this month, too. I could drop Showtime, but I like Weeds and The Big C, and Dexter will start again soon, too. So, not much I can do there. Sucks to have to pay so much money for what amounts to a handful of shows, and I’m not really watching as much teevee these days anyway (have I mentioned I’m really digging the Kindle), but well, whattya gonna do? Maybe when I move I can make some changes.

Oh well, time to get this very long four-day week over with.

This whole burn the Koran thing has more or less escaped my detailed attention up until now. I’ve certainly heard of it, and, clearly it’s disgusting, but, like so many things these days, I just plain try not to look at this shit. I mean, there’s no point in giving up beer in order to lower my blood pressure if I’m just gonna let this shit get to me anyway. I can either drink and watch the news, or I can stay stay sober and read Isaac Asimov. The worst thing about it all is that this nutbag “pastor” is taking Terry Jones’ name in vain. But what really amazes me is that people seem to be so “surprised” that some pissant hate filled Kristian sect is acting all crazy. Shit, have you never heard of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Fred Phelps (never mind “Saint” Augustine – who invented the notion that “thou shalt not kill” didn’t apply to collateral damage in warfare – Torquemada, and Adolph Hitler – yep, a good Roman Catholic boy who was never excommunicated, unlike, say, Martin Luther)?

These people are just as insane, intolerant, and impervious (to irony) as the radical Islamic fundamentalists who think it’s OK to kill people (even other Muslims) in the name of Allah. Or those who think “life” is so sacred they’re willing to walk into church and murder a doctor to prove it. So why be surprised? This nation has a long history of crazed religious intolerance that goes back to attempting to eradicate the people who were here before the white folks came in order to save them by killing them, and drowning “witches” to see if they would float, and were therefore made of wood. Or something.

It’s time to do what the Founders should have done 200+ years ago: ban all religion. Religion has been the single most destructive force in the history of the planet (even worse than Capitalism), being responsible for more death and destruction than the Christmas tsunami of 2004, the Great Chicago Fire, and the killer asteroid of 65 million years ago combined, and it’s time for it to go.

Begone. I cast ye out. If you wanna keep begttin’, you best begettin’ the f*ck out.

I’m not talking about busting into people’s homes to try and catch them praying, or even closing churches, mosques, and synagogues. Unlike “religious” people, I’m not interested in what people do in private. But as far as religious preferences and dogma go, it’s time to institute a policy of don’t ask, don’t tell. As long as you keep your yap shut and perform your voodoo rituals behind closed doors, fine. Do what you want. Go ahead and handle your snake incessantly, for all I care. I just don’t want to hear about it, and you’re no longer allowed to try and influence public policy with your bullshit hypocritical fairy stories. And no tax breaks. Render unto Caesar, bitches.

We tried to let you f*cking people have your way, and all you had to do was act responsibly (never mind consistently), but you just couldn’t keep your shit together, could you? So STFU, and we’ll start using all that new tax revenue to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, provide health care for all, and teach our children how to love and respect each others.

You know, like that Jesus guy would have wanted. Look him up. I think you’ll be surprised to find out what a Godless, bleeding heart, cheese-eating liberal he was.

I can’t think of many things worse than losing your home and everything in it. Certainly, the most important thing is to have your family and and all your critters make it out OK, ‘cuz stuff is just stuff, and most stuff can be replaced. A lot of stuff can’t, though, and even the stuff that can be replaced requires a lot of time, money, and hassle to get back again. So, to everybody in the Boulder who’ve lost their homes in the wildfire, our thoughts are with you. I’ve only been in the vicinity of Boulder/Denver once (well, twice I guess; once on the way out to Utah, and then on the way back), but it’s a beautiful area, and the loss of all that beautyl and wildlife is also a shame. I only hope the godless socialist government can provide at least some relief. Apparently the fire started as the result of a vehicle colliding with a propane tank, which is never a good idea.

Here, things remain the same. Yesterday was (predictably) one of the longest days I’ve had the misfortune of suffering through, and I was quite happy to get home and go to bed early last night. Unfortunately, a cold front came though in the middle of the night bringing thunderstorms and scaring the dogs. In other words, not much sleep for me. Oh well, at least it should be nice and cool today.

It was 44 years ago today – September 8, 1966 – that Star Trek premiered on NBC. Despite its premature assassination at the hands of witless network executives in 1969, the Star Trek universe has managed to live long and prosper, as several generations of characters have continued to explore strange new worlds, and to seek out new life and new civilizations.

Speaking of seeking things out, my search for a tractor continues, and I think it’s gonna involve a road trip to a used tractor place in Binghamton (which is about an hour south of here) on Saturday. None of the used tractor places around here seem to have what I’m looking for at my price range. I feel as if I’m hemorrhaging money at this point, and I haven’t even closed on the new house. It will, of course, only get worse.

Although a lot of kids actually went back yesterday (apparently they have this thing now where they bring the incoming freshmen in a day early to acclimate to high school; there was no such consideration back when I started 9th grade), today is what we always referred to as “Black Wednesday” – the first day of school. From what I understand, a lot of kids are excited to start school again after the summer. I never was. Oh, it was OK to see friends you didn’t see over the break, but, for the most part, I was always quite content to be on vacation, and I would be quite happy to win the lottery and retire right now.

That doesn’t seem likely, though, so I guess I’ll just have to slog through another day, and boldly go where I have mind-numbingly gone so many times before. To work.

As if the end of summer isn’t depressing enough (to be honest, I’m happy to see the hot weather go; I love the cooler fall temperatures and the red, orange and golden leaves against the clear, crisp blue autumn sky; not crazy at the prospect of it getting dark at 4:00 though), there was another very sad moment for me yesterday. I’d gone to the store, and needed some extra room for the frozen stuff I bought. So, in a very emotional moment, I took the beer mugs out of the freezer in what I used to think of as my beer refrigerator, and put – of all things – food in it. Food in my beer fridge. This is what things have come to. 😥

I know you’re all on the edges of your seats, so I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. The NYS Fair did not hit the one million mark yesterday – they fell 155 people short, which was still good enough for third place. Had they not fired all the union workers before the start, I feel certain they’d have crushed the record. As it is, f*ck ’em. And what the hell is it with all the goddamn country music? This is New York State, not Alabama, fer chissakes. The ‘entertainment’ this year consisted of country music, geezers (like Rush and Aerosmith), and teeny-boppers. That’s almost as bad as food in you beer fridge. Whatever happened to the good old days of my youth, when they had class acts like the Cowsills and Sonny & Cher?

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but we’re really into the political ad campaign season here, and I’m already extremely annoyed with these things. The Republican Gubernatorial primary pitting perennial loser Rick Lazio against Buffalo “businessman” Carl Paladino (who looks like a cross between Danny Devito’s “Penquin” character in Batman, and Madeline Albright) is getting lots of play up here, at least as far as Paladino is concerned. He’s been on the air attacking both Lazio and “Liberal Elites,” in ads that appear to show him wearing a bowling shirt out at the company clam bake (Carl really puts the “goober” in Gubernatorial), and has claimed that Barack Obama isn’t a Christian, because he “worships himself” (well, at least he aint a Mooslam). I’ve yet to see any Lazio ads, but maybe he figures it’s a lost cause up here, and he’ll focus on his home turf downstate.

Speaking of election season, it seems that Republicans are poised to make huge gains in Congress this November, thanks to the “sucks” factor. The economy sucks, the Democrats suck, and the President sucks. That’s Sucks³, which is pretty hard to overcome. Even harder to overcome will be the second-coming of the Republican Revolution. I think it’ll pretty much do us in, and I’m just hoping I can continue to hang on and do my best to ignore everything that’s going on around me. Good thing I’m white, I guess, and while I don’t live in Canada, at least I live in a relatively progressive state (even if its government is corrupt and dysfunctional) and have a job that (for now, anyway) provides fairly decent health care.

I just need 15 years to pay off the mortgage and then retire. Hopefully then I’ll get a good 10 years or so to enjoy myself before I have a stroke or runaway global warming wipes everything out.

In the meantime, though, hi-ho.

Well, it’s here. Labor Day, and the unofficial last day of summer. All that shit you were gonna get done this summer? If you’re like me (you have my condolences), you got a few things accomplished, got a lot of things half-ass done, and left a lot of other things on the “to do” list. I now have a much longer list of shit to do, which includes everything that needs to get done (soon) around here, and a monster load of shit to get done at the new place.

Toward that end, I went out and bought $1,000 worth of goat fencing, gates, and posts on Saturday, which I’m storing out at my sister’s place until we close on the new place. I’m also eagerly perusing the used tractor listings (I’ve all but decided to buy a farm-type tractor with a front loader and a finish mower attachment instead of a plow truck and lawn tractor). By the time I close, there won’t be much lawn cutting left to do, but I’ll be needing something for snow removal in a hurry, and a shovel just isn’t gonna cut it (it’s about a 150 foot driveway into a pretty massive parking area and huge three-car garage). It’s very white out where I’m moving (not just the snow – they get quite a bit more of that out there than what we see here – but the demographics as well, with the population of 1,800 or so people being 97.5% White; according to the most recent statistics, there are 18 Hispanics, 6 Black folks, and 5 Asians).

The President is out on the road, touting his economic recovery plan. That’s a pretty tough sell, of course, seeing as the economy sucks, and the official unemployment rate is now up to 9.6%. What with it being Labor Day, I might suggest that the government need to invest massive amounts of money putting people to work fixing all the shit that’s gone to hell while the Republicans were out there cutting taxes. That won’t happen, of course, so mostly things will continue to get worse so that the Republicans can make the Democrats look bad (as if the Democrats needed any help), and then take the House and, possible the Senate. Then things will get even worse, as the Republicans will prevent Obama from accomplishing anything (again, not that he needs any help there – sorry, I just don’t see his “accomplishments” on HCR and Wall St. reform as being particularly accomplished, though of course some people will, in theory at least, be marginally better off) in an effort to get a Republican elected President. And then things will go from shitty, to really, really shitty.

Personally, I think I’ll start building a bunker and stockpiling weapons (legal weapons, of course) so I can keep those 18 Hispanics from taking over my land and working hard for slave wages.

Of course, today is also the last day of the NY State Fair, where we’re in sight of setting an all-time attendance record, and/or at least hitting the 1 million visitor mark (918,000 so far). I’m sure that doesn’t sound like much to you big city folks, and, well, it isn’t really all that interesting to me, either, but I guess it’s better than forcing you to read about SU football.

Anyhow, I reckon I’d better get busy and get some stuff done. Kinda sucks that a “day off” means a day to get work done.

Normally I wouldn’t bore everybody with this, but, since this is first time it’s happened since 2003, I feel obliged to mention that Syracuse has started out the football season at 1-0. It was far from perfect (some pretty poor special teams play – except for a blocked field goal attempt for a touchdown – two botched extra points and three turnovers – two deep in Akron territory that surely left points on the board, and one that gave the Zips the ball on the SU 18 that led to their only points), and the opponent wasn’t exactly a powerhouse (no offense, Kevin), but the offense gained 433 very balanced yards (over 200 rushing and passing), the defense held the Zips to 3 points and 166 yards of total offense, and SU wound up winning 29-3 on the road (plus we took a knee on the one yard line at the end of the game so as not to run up the score), and, well, we’ll take it. It’s good to get a win, and hopefully the first game mistakes will get taken care of before next week – a decidedly more difficult trip to Washington to play the Huskies. Anyhow, on to the boobleheads.

Let’s see, not much of interest on Press the Meat. L’il Lindsey Graham is on for whatever purpose it is he serves, plus Barack Obama’s campaign manager Daivd Plouffe. Then at the roundtable there’s Erin Burnett (whose at least easy on the eyes, if nothing else), Charlie Cook of the National Journal and The Cook Political Report (not so easy on the eyses), the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, and the National Review’s Rich Lowry (who has TWAMF written all over him). All-in-all, not worth setting your DVR for.

Then again, Faze the Nation makes Press the Meat seem fascinating, with guests like Laura Tyson, Former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Mark Zandi of Moody’s, Gretchen Morgenson, NYT Assistant Business and Financial Editor, CBS’s Nancy Cordes, and Jim VandeHei of Politico.

Things don’t get any more exciting on Fux News Sunday, as Weaselface Wallace hosts St. John McCain and DNC Chair Tim Kaine. There will be the usual fuxheads, of course, plus a little something for all you NASCAR fans out there with this week’s ‘classic’ power player, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Yee hah!

On the Goebbels network, it’s hard to tell, but it looks like Christi Amanpour has Tony Blair :yawn: and a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, Paul Krugman, Mary Jordan and flat head Tom Friedman.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria has the story of William Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, whose money made him a target. Then, despite Britain’s crackdown on radical Islamic activity over the last few years, homegrown jihadis continue to preach their message in the U.K. Plus, Zhang Xin grew up in the slums of Hong Kong and is now worth billions of dollars. Well goodie for her. And, finally, a golf course where the water hazards could be truly deadly. Ooh, scary.

You might note that, yet again this year, there seems to be not a moment devoted to Labor Day or the role that working people have played in making this country great (back when it was still great). Instead, they’re all about Wall Street, which has us rapidly circling the bowl on the way down and out to the sewer.

No new True Blood this week, as we’ll have to wait until next week for the season finale. At least there’s no work tomorrow.

Have a good one.

Well, it’s a big day today. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you all, because no doubt you’ve had this date circled on your calendars for the past nine months or so, but, lest you’ve forgotten, today is the first Syracuse football game of the season, and one where Kevin and I renew our bitter rivalry, as my alma mater takes on his – the Akron Zips – on the road in the Zips’ brand new “InfoCision Stadium-Summa Field” in Ohio. We have high hopes for the season here, but then we’ve had high hopes before. Terrible as we’ve been for the past few years, it’s not like we’re looking for a National Championship. A winning season would be just fine – and a trip to some minor bowl game (the inaugural “New Era Pinstripe” bowl would be cool – literally, since it’ll be played on December 30th outdoors at Yankee Stadium) would have us all ecstatic. But things could go into the shitter rapidly with a poor performance today.

Speaking of poor performances, if you’ve been looking forward to the second debate between the candidates for Governor in Arizona, you’re SOL, because the current Guv – Jan “Prune Puss” Brewer – says she won’t do any more. This is apparently because of her piss-poor showing in the first debate, and the fact that she only participated in that so she could claim over $1.7 million in public funds. Of course, Jan “Take the Money and Run” Brewer tells a different tale (actually, she tells lots of tales, like the one about headless bodies strewn about the AZ desert by illegal Mexican terrorists, which would be a good bedtime story, but isn’t exactly grounded in what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call “truth”). There will be no further debates because Jan “Washington Irving” Brewer says

“I don’t believe that things come out in proper context in an adversarial atmosphere….”

Not to worry, though, because I’m sure plenty of Arizonans (hey, spell check says that’s a real word; cool) still love Jan “I won’t fight for you, me or Arizona” Brewer for her righteous stance against evil Mexicans and their plot to take over America by working hard for slave wages (and no benefits). After all, it should be Americans (and white ones at that) working for slave wages and no benefits. And by God Almighty, as soon as we get rid of the goddamn unions (what with it being Labor Day weekend and all), that’s just what’ll happen.

Turns out you can’t go to the National Archives and ask them to hand over George Washington’s hand-written first inaugural address so you can put your oily paws all over it – not even if you’re the almighty Glenn Beck. Go figure. I mean, I thought you could just just get a Library of Congress card and check it out for a couple of weeks. It’s only a 220+ year old priceless piece of American history.

But Beck had a good reason for lying about it. Turns out, the truth would have been too awkward to explain to his legion of devotees, whose IQs are not exactly on the level of Einstein, and whose emotional maturity levels are somewhere in the three to five year old range. I think we can all relate to that. I mean, when a four-year old asks you where babies come from, you don’t get into the whole messy truth. You just tell ’em something simple and comfortable, like daddy put love in mommy’s tummy.

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.

I’ve already got the thing loaded up with more than its purchase price of free books (not even counting the Oxford English Dictionary and the New Oxford American Dictionary both come with it, which is pretty nifty, ‘cuz you can move the cursor to a word and it’ll display the definition at the bottom of the “page” with an option to view more, see synonyms, search, etc. Not that I need to look up words, of course, but some people might).

It has a web browser as well, which is actually not too shabby, though it’s limited (both by the fact that this is grayscale only and also by the nature of e-Ink, which doesn’t allow for video), but is perfectly acceptable for checking web-based e-mail (which is nice if you’re not near a WiFi hotspot and want to check your e-mail via the free 3G).

Mostly, though, it’s for reading books (and magazines and newspapers, which you can subscribe to – for a price), and unlike a back-lit LCD screen, it’s much easier on the eyes (and, since the only time energy is required is to change the page, not to display it, it uses a lot less electricity; with the WiFi/3G off, the battery is supposed to last for a month between charges).

Oh well, enough of that.

It’s finally Friday – and another 90+ degree day at that. The good news is that I get to leave work a little early today. The bad news is that it’s so I can go to the dentist. Strangely, I’m looking forward to it. As part of my impending midlife crisis (though, truthfully, I’m way past the midpoint and have been on the down slope for quite a while now), I’m pledging to get myself in reasonably decent shape. But I guess I mentioned that before, huh?

Well, that’s what happens when you get old; you repeat all your stories ad nauseum, to the point where people who aren’t related to you just sort of politely smile and nod and think to themselves, “oh Christ, not this story again), and your relatives (especially the youngsters) squirm, fidget, and finally scream out loud in exasperated frustration (at least until you’re finally old enough for them to stick you in a nursing home somewhere and pay somebody else to listen to all your old goddamn stories).

Oh, by the way, did I mention my Kindle came yesterday?

If you’re in the vicinity of the Eastern Seaboard, I hope you avoid the wrath of Earl as he passes by. Up here, we’re just gonna get some blessed relief from the heat (which isn’t even Earl-related, I don’t think), so I may actually get some much needed work done.

Batten down the hatches, and have a good one.

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.

My new Kindle is supposed to finally be delivered today (I have my doubts, though; it didn’t leave Memphis ’til 3:00 this morning). I signed off on all the contingencies, have my mortgage rate locked in (3.875% without points; I remember when 8% was considered ‘fantastic’), so this will probably be the last non-house related purchase I’ll be making for a while, now that I’m about to saddle myself with untold debt and endless repairs on my little fixer-upper out in the country. If anybody has a used plow truck for sale (cheap), let me know.

Oh well, time to go.

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).

As for the perps, Clyde went to the hospital with a flesh wound, but Bonnie appears to have made it through the episode unscathed, and I’m sure the sheriffs managed to put together a bevy of evidence, including plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one detailing the crime, plus pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner, the vending machine, and the aerial photography from the helicopter.

In other exciting news, it’s a big day at the State Fair today, where untold throngs are expected to attend, as Justin Bieber (who is some little kid that’s apparently a big deal with all the teenybopper girls out there; I guess he gives them “Bieber Fever”) comes to the Grandstand, and country singer “Lady Antebellum” appears as tonight’s free entertainment. Lady Antebellum? Do these people actually understand what that means? Antebellum, as in “before the war,” or, more specifically in American history, the good old days of slavery and Southern Gentility prior to that mean old Mr. Lincoln and the Civil War (aka, the second American War for Independence). Yee-ha!

But wait, there’s more. Syracuse will be the feature on tonight’s episode of “Man vs Food” at 9:00 on the Travel Channel. I have no idea what this show is, but it’s apparently a rather popular program about a guy who goes around the country eating food. Not sure I get the appeal, here, but since the Travel Channel is in HD, I’m recording it. I may also pitch a show of my own to them: “Man vs. Beer.” I think it’ll be a big hit.

In personal news, I had my $610 home inspection yesterday, and I really liked the guy that did it. He seemed to know what he was doing, and it turned out that my sister knew him from the olden days (she was friends with his sister, and had even stayed at their house), and my brother-in-law knew his sister from his olden days, too. The house, well, it needs a lot of work. I knew that already, of course, and he found a few more things I hadn’t seen (including some roof structure issues that I’ll need to address before the snow flies (and piles up). But I reckon we’ll forge ahead anyway, and I’ll make an effort to kind of put everything out of mind and just go with the flow.

Fortunately, one of the skills I’ve developed over the years is to not think about shit ahead of time, lest I obsess over it and get my gut all twisted up into knots for days on end. Mostly, I just say “OK” a lot, and it’s gotten me through a lot of things. For instance, I’m counting on it getting me through my dental appointment this morning. I’m rather cowardly when it comes to the dentist (it all stems from bad experiences I had with my childhood dentist, whose dental techniques bore a strong resemblance to those of Dr. Christian Szell – aka ‘Der weisse Engel’ – played by Laurence Olivier in “Marathon Man”), and am actually somewhat terrified at the prospect of going.

I had a lot of work done years back, and promised myself I’d never let things get bad again. But then the dentist I had started whining that the insurance wasn’t paying him enough to make it worth his while to work on me and I got tired of him. Then I went back to school and had no insurance for a couple of years, and then, well, I kinda didn’t think about it when a filling or two fell out (admittedly a drawback in my “ignore it” survival strategy). But now I guess I’ve gotta bite the bullet (so to speak) and go.

I’m just gonna try not to think about it.