Hey, today’s my anniversary. Thirteen years. Thirteen long, long years. Bill Clinton was President, my mom was still alive, I was a grease monkey Refrigeration Mechanic, there was a World Trade Center in NYC, my dogs weren’t born yet, and I still lived in that other damn house, except the crazy f*cking neighbor hadn’t moved in next door yet. Ah, those were the days. Things are better now, except I was still young back then, and now I’m old. My dog’s getting kinda old, too, which I try not to think about. Oh, and all things considered, I think Clinton was a better President (though he was pretty disappointing, too). Anyhow, I’d like to celebrate by taking the day off and hanging out in the water (did I mention it’s supposed to be hot today?) but, sadly, that aint gonna happen. At least it’s an early day, so I’ll get home before it gets too late.

I was driving around yesterday and something popped into my head that I wanted to write about. Something very interesting that would be a lot better than, “gee, it’s supposed to be hot today.” Unfortunately I can’t remember what the f*ck it was. Sorry. It was gonna be good, too. This getting old shit sucks. But I can only think of one way to stop getting old, and that’s not particularly desirable either.

I did, however, hear the “week in sports” segment on Weekend Edition (I think that’s it – the one with Scott Simon and what really is beginning to sound to me like his fake and overly-exuberant laugh) and some guy who wasn’t Stefan Fatsis. They did stories on the upcoming World Cup Football (I’m feeling European this morning) match between the US of A and Brazil and, um, some other apparently less-than-memorable (see above) shit. What they didn’t think was worth mentioning was that John Mackey passed away this week.

OK, so maybe I only care because he went to SU, but it still seems like his death was at least worth a passing mention.

Never mind that John Mackey redefined the position he played. He took a lot of shit when, as head of the NFL Player’s Association, he did something nobody had ever done before – he stood up to the slave NFL owners, orchestrated a player’s strike in 1970, and led a successful antitrust challenge to “The Rozelle Rule” – ushering in the modern era of free agency (which I suppose you can like or dislike – I’d be willing to admit that, from a personal, selfish standpoint, I think sports were a lot better when teams more or or less stayed together and players didn’t move around like mercenaries playing for the highest bidder, though I can’t imagine I’d find it acceptable if I couldn’t go and work for whatever employer I thought offered the best deal for me and my family – but at the very least, it seems like a significant development).

Mackey also fought for the “old-timers,” and it would seem both newsworthy and sadly ironic that, at a time when brain injuries in football are making the news, he suffered from frontotemporal dementia – which almost certainly resulted from his years of playing. And it would also seem rather shameful that an NFL Hall-of-Famer (whose induction was delayed until 1992, most likely due to the feathers he ruffled by his union activism) couldn’t pay his medical bills, forcing his wife of 47 years, Sylvia (Mackey’s college roommate – a guy by the name of Ernie Davis – leant him $5 and the keys to his car so John could take Sylvia on their first date), to go back to work at the age of 56 as a flight attendant.

But I guess John Mackey’s story wasn’t compelling enough to warrant a mention on NPR. Maybe Scott Simon couldn’t fake a laugh over it.

Oh, and gee, it’s supposed to be hot today.

I finally get HBO and a new Realtime, and he’s got Anne f*cking Coulter on. And not even for a “sit in the chair” segment that I can fast forward through. This is how you reward me, Bill? :tap: Do you want me to just cancel my subscription right now (fer chrissakes, HBO has True Blood – that should be all the vampires they need). He appears to be trying to make it up to me by having Maron on next week. I hope Maron is good. Or, should I say, I hope he’s allowed to be good. Maher is kind of a dick sometimes. Oh well, a lousy two-day weekend this week, so I guess I better go do shit.

Ah, finally. After the longest two days I can recall, this week is on its way out. And it may be a big day, as (if the weather cooperates, which last I saw was unlikely), today will be the 135th and final launch of the 30 year space shuttle program. That’s an average of 4.5 launches a year (and you may recall there were a couple gaps in there, after one shuttle exploded on takeoff and another burned up on reentry), turning manned spaceflight into something about as pedestrian as a flight to Hawaii. In a sign of how far we’ve fallen, the nation that put a man on the moon (or constructed one of the most elaborate hoaxes in modern history – take your pick) will soon not even have the ability to launch people into orbit. Instead, we have to grovel to the Russians (of all people) to hitch a ride. In my humble opinion, this is pretty humiliating. I also feel the need to point out that the NASA budget is something like $18 billion, amounts to just a hair more than one half of one percent of the US Federal budget, and has been responsible for an amazing amount of private sector science and technology. Personally, I think it’s been a bargain. But we don’t approve of all that sciencey stuff these days, and that money would be better off being spent by Wall Street millionaires, so let’s give it to them.

Speaking of NASA and the space program, I caught the tail end of this rather excellent documentary on JFK last night on HBO. I hesitate to compare Kennedy with the current president, because, well, I’m kind of tired of this particular president. Let’s just say I didn’t know John Kennedy, but Barack Obama is no John Kennedy.

Oh well, time to read up on what’s new on Casey Anthony, and then get ready for work.

What is it with bugs? I mean, they know they can’t swim (except for the ones that can, but I’m talking about the other kind), so why do they keep jumping in the pool? F*ckers. Are they suicidal, or just plain stupid? Bastids. I feel like one of these crazy old men, stalking the edge of the pool with my trusty net. Or in the water as the “bug whisperer,” helping the little assholes into the light (except the light, in this case, is the skimmer). Well, shit. It beats going to work and sitting in a dark, windowless cave trying not to slowly (or not so slowly) go insane. Today is worse than yesterday, as far as that goes. I’m filled with dread and depression (which is pretty irrational) at the thought of it. Gotta get my mind right – it feels like I woke up with someone else’s blues (sadly, I couldn’t find a good live version of that – maybe Vernon can dig something up).

Speaking of work, it’s a big day today, as we officially acquire another local hospital – adding about 800 employees to the fold (much to the chagrin of the union that, until midnight last night, represented them; the employees now become members of one of the three NY State Public Employee unions). Since I support the systems that get people hired and paid (among other things), this means that things will no doubt be all kinds of a pain in the ass for a while. This is only exacerbated by the fact that one of our team members just went out on maternity leave (leaving us with 3.5 people to support about 7,000 employees and over 80 applications, all written in-house). I’m trying to figure out a way to get knocked-up myself, but I guess I’m too damn old. Maybe I can take hormones or something.

Bleh. In a desperate act to avoid going to work today, I finally put a new battery in the Armageddon Clock and let it run. I figured if the world came to an end, I’d at least get the day off. In retrospect, this may have been a little bit premature, as I have enough vacation time and sick leave to take me at least through Labor Day. But, whatever, it didn’t work, and here we are.

Not only do I have to go to work today, but it also happens to be a rather unhappy anniversary. My mom died, let’s see…. Holy crap, it’s been a dozen years already, which means my dad’s been gone for almost 17. Hard to believe. In some ways it seems like forever ago, and in others it feels like yesterday.

Oh well, time to get going, as it’s an early day. At least I should get home in time for the afternoon rain they’re predicting.

This is going to be a long day.

Yesterday was perhaps the best day of this year – the best in recent memory – as far as the weather goes. Sunny, low humidity, about 85°. All on a holiday, even, which meant the parks were packed with happy smiling people having fun. Luckily, I didn’t have to be around any of them.

There was one thing that kinda bugged me, though. On the radio and teevee, it seemed that everybody was falling all over themselves, thanking the “troops” for keeping us free and all that. Not that I don’t appreciate them, of course (I only wish the people that stick them in all these crappy, dangerous places were actually concerned with our “freedom” instead of protecting corporate profits), but when did July 4th start being one of those “thank the troops” holidays? I thought it was about declaring independence from our tyrannical overlords, and rejecting things like quartering British troops in our homes and basically living under the thumb of a foreign power.

Not that there hasn’t been a long history of celebrating war and destruction associated with the holiday – the fireworks, the parading about, the Sousa marches and all that. But, well, am I the only person who finds it creepy that we’re kinda turning into 1930s Germany, here?

Oh well. I don’t have to go to work today, which was a good call on my part. Sadly, tomorrow looms on the horizon like a dark, soul-eating cloud. I should’ve taken the whole week off. But I guess I should just enjoy the day today.

I shoulda been one of those rich, fancy-pants elitist teachers the teabaggers are always whining about, who get paid millions of dollars to take the whole summer off. Of course, that would imply that I was responsible for my own life and what I did and/or didn’t do with it, which, as we all know, goes completely against the whole teabagger as victim of liberals and big government doctrine.

I wonder if there’s any money in hosta farming?

Yesterday’s sunshine seems to have vanished (they say it’ll be back this afternoon), but we avoided the storms that passed by overnight. So I’m just gonna hang out here for a while, and play with the MacBook, which (I’m afraid to say) has been behaving itself lately. Unfortunately, it seems ridiculously difficult to just take a picture and get it into PhotoShop.

I’m sure I’m not doing it right, but it seems like I ought to just be able to save it directly from PhotoBooth w/o having to fart around with iPhoto (which kinda sucks). I guess I could just drag it from PhotoBooth to the desktop (or someplace else), but, like, why? Oh well, why ask why?

Hope y’all are have a very patriotic weekend.

As for me, I’m just gonna hang out by the pool and pretend I’m a Republican who’s gonna get a huge tax cut for my LearJet®.

Ah, the weekend is finally here, and it’s a holiday weekend, so it’s even better than a regular weekend. I don’t think I approve of them making July 4th a Monday holiday but, well, what the hell. If you’re planning on heading out to the park to grill up some veggie burgers and toss the old frisbee® around, must be you don’t live in Minnesota. Guess you better sit home and read a book instead. Or maybe go to Wisconsin (as repugnant as that may be to you – just don’t feed the Supreme Court justices; they look all cute and everything, but they might bite, and some of them are rabid). If you live in NY State’s Southern Tier, you better hit the parks as much as possible this summer, ‘cuz Jeezus only know what will become of them once Governor Snotball clears the way for hydrofracking the Marcellus Shale. There may soon be a desolate void stretching from just to the south of Syracuse down to Harrisburg, PA.

I know Michele Bachmann is nuts and all that, but I happened to see her husband (I think his name is Randy) yesterday, and well, golly. Seems like she could do better than that. Aren’t there plenty of Krazy Kristian fishes in the sea (and, if not, couldn’t she have had her own personal Jesus turn some loves of bread into a good lookin’ dude)?

Of course, you probably all (or should I say, “both”) saw the reason Randy made the news yesterday, and that was because he’s a Kristian “Kounselor” who de-gays people. I think we all know what that means. :nod:

Anyhow, Mr. Crazy Bachmann says that “the gays” need to be disciplined and whatnot so that they won’t turn down the sinful path. Clearly, Herr Bachmann must consider the sinful path a delightful path that takes a great deal of holiness (and discipline – nasty, nasty discipline, which I’m certain Michele is more than happy to mete out with whips, wearing a black leather bustier and spiked dog collar) to avoid.

Now, maybe it’s me, but I don’t think that’s fair. Speaking on behalf of those of us who have never felt a desire to stick anything up the sinful path (not there’s anything wrong with that), it just doesn’t seem fair that God would plant that evil desire into some folks heads and not others. If I didn’t know better, and if I was Mark Halperin, I might conclude that God was being kind of a dick.

So I’m forced to conclude that Mr. Bachmann is yet another closeted, overcompensating dick. Which would explain why he married the Lady Gaga of the Republican Party.

It’s supposed to be hot today, and since my shoulder is pretty much seized up tighter than a, um, something that’s seized up really tight, I don’t think I’ll be doing much of anything constructive. Which is what holiday weekends are for, I guess.

BTW, if anybody knows where my sunglasses are, please let me know. Somebody keeps hiding all my shit around here.