Have you ever suffered through one of these commercials where the pitch man yells at you at about 120 decibels, and thought to yourself, “gee, whatever it is they’re selling, I want me some.” No? Me neither. In fact, I will go out of my way to never, ever buy anything from these people – even if I want it. I say this, because the only commercials I sit through these days are the ones on the morning lo-cal news, and “AMERICAN FREIGHT, AMERICAN FREIGHT, AMERICAN FREIGHT!!!! appears to be one of their prime sponsors. I hate that guy. I think he’s the same guy as the NATIONWIDE WAREHOUSE guy. :growl:

A huge car chase and crash in Syracuse last night, ending with shots fired (nobody hit though). Not a big deal, I guess, except they believe it all started with an armed robbery at the Dollar Store. Really? I mean, by definition, you wouldn’t expect to see a ton of money there. Though I believe it’s a cash-only operation, so there’s that.

Maybe it just means I’m officially old, but I personally take umbrage at anybody knocking over the Dollar Store. I mean, an 8-pack of batteries for a buck? A gallon of Liquid Nails? You just can’t beat it.

A while back around here, a Pitt Bull (now named “Princess”) was found chained up and starving outside in the freezing cold. She was rescued and is now flourishing (and a real sweetheart of a dog, by all accounts), and today is getting a visit from the “Pitt Boss” – Shorty Rossi (I don’t know how many Animal Planet fans, but you gotta love Shorty).

I’ve decided to run for President on a “Family Values” platform featuring a good amount of homophobia and rabid opposition to gay people getting married on the premise that it will destroy the sanctity of marriage and ruin families. First, I have to see if my wife will agree to an “open marriage.” If not, out the door she goes (may seem harsh but, hey, it’s not like she’s got cancer or anything). Not that I have any prospects for a mistress at this point, I’m sorry to say (though there is a new Help Desk babe at work whose assistance I could use, if you know what I mean).

What with me not being a pompous, pig-faced, fat old white guy, I reckon I’m just not very appealing to the ladies. Not having a million dollar line of credit at Tiffany’s might have something to do with it, too.

Damn cold out again. I’ve really gotten spoiled during this mild winter, I guess. It’s got my shoulder acting up (in addition to everything that normally hurts). I might have to borrow some of Siggy’s Tramadol.

Or get more coffee. TGIF.

Things have settled down a bit around here. The night before last, we had some nasty wind. Nasty enough to knock our power out for a couple of hours. We weren’t alone, as something like 15,000 homes went dark (and not in protest of SOPA, either). Fortunately, ours was back on by about 12:30-1:00 AM, because, between the warm weather and rain of the previous day or two and the melting snow we got before that, my sump pumps were running yesterday. Just one more thing to worry about, I guess.

The real thing to worry about is my dog, Siggy. I mentioned his “face” thing a couple weeks back, and, other than it’s pretty nasty to look at, it really hasn’t gotten and worse. Unfortunately, about the same time, he developed a bit of a limp (not unusual, what with him getting to be an oldtimer, and his little brother Fritz lacking any respect and running him over all the time; Fritz has never seemed to understand the whole Alpha dog concept), which has steadily gotten worse.

Things were pretty bad Tuesday. I didn’t get any sleep Tuesday night, and took yesterday off to get him to the vet (which in itself is a hassle, as he can’t get in and out of the car very well). To be honest, I didn’t know if he’d be coming back home.

The vet suspects that there’s some calcification in his spine, causing it to become like a solid rod, making him stiff and in pain. The cold weather isn’t helping, either. So, now he’s got some stuff for the pain, which is hopefully making him feel better. He seemed to sleep through the night, so that’s good. But it’s hard to watch him limp around. I’m not expecting any miracles, and I know how this eventually ends, try as I might not to think about it. At this point, I’m hoping he can have another summer to lie around in the sun.

I just wish I could stay home with him.

Anyhow, if you haven’t signed a petition or contacted your congresscritter to tell them you’re sick of them taking bribes from the likes of the MPAA and RIAA and you want them to kill these ridiculous SOPA and PIPA bills, you should go and do that.

The problem with the people in Congress is that they are greedy and ignorant. SOPA would give the right to, say, the NY Times to erase the DNS entry in all the US-based DNS servers for this website because somebody posted an excerpt from one of their news stories here. This, in effect, would remove it from the Internet speed dial list. If you happened to know the IP address, you could still get here (in reality, probably not, because cheapo web hosting used shared IP addresses and host headers to direct traffic to different websites, though if you knew the directory structure, you could figure it out).

This would break the way the Internet works, and would spark a rise in “alternative” DNS servers (located outside the US). So you could switch your settings to use a different DNS server. Except, while that DNS server might have the entry you’re looking for, it might also resolve, say, amazon.com to someplace that looks very much like Amazon, but in effect is actually a site set up to steal your Amazon password. Or install a rootkit on your computer. Or any number of other unpleasant things.

And then people will quit buying shit online, quit using online banking, and only go to official, corporate-approved websites (or not go online at all).

So that would suck.

Happy 89 to Jean Stapleton. That old LaSalle really did run great.

Today, (or yesterday, as this won’t be visible until after midnight, I think) there’s an Internet blackout in support of the fight against SOPA and PIPA, with sites like Reddit, Wikipedia, Boing Boing, Mozilla.org, and Tucows participating. And this place, too. If you want to find out where your congresscritter stands on this issue (and how much he or she got paid for it), you can do so here. Much to my surprise, I appear to be on the same side as Michele Bachmann on this one. Kirsten Gillibrand, Pat Leahy, and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz? Not so much. Fuckers.

I stayed up too damn late last night watching basketball, and now I’m tired and feel like crap. Just wanted to share that with you. Of course, I’d feel a lot worse had the results of the game been different, so I shouldn’t complain. Plus, it’s warm out. And it may even hit 50 degrees today, though that’s not gonna last long, thanks to some cold air coming from the Midwest. Damn you, Minnesota! Keep that shit to yourself.

Today’s Knute Rockne/Sarah Palin award for tenacity and sticktoitiveness goes to… John Huntsman. Yes, John has decided to pack it in and endorse the Mitt. Huntsman narrowly beat out Italian Navy Medal of Honor winner Francesco Schettino for the award. Now Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrinch can battle it out to see who gets to be the “Anybody but Romney” candidate (oh, and there’s also Ron Paul, who is beloved by people who have never really listened to what he says).

Sad news yesterday, as it appears that even Jesus hates Tim Tebow. I can only hope the Broncos trade him. Although, with my luck, he’d probably go to the Jets. Timmy in Sin City? That might be good for him. But the Jets already have a QB that throws like a girl. In other sad religious news, the Saints lost to godless San Francisco. It was a tough day all around for Jesusy and/or God-related shit yesterday, as the Providence Friars got stomped on, too. To be fair, they were playing the #1 team in the nation. Speaking of Catholics, Notre Dame lost as well. I hate Notre Dame, so it’s always good to see them lose.

There wasn’t a Republican debate last night, but there was some other stupid sort of thing sponsored by Mike Huckleberry Hound, at which the Newt said he’d like to purge the Federal employment roles of all those goddamn liberals. Not only would this be illegal, but who the fuck else is gonna work for what the government pays (though they have that godless socialist healthcare thing going for them)? I mean, other than stupid and incompetent Kristian Konservatives that think Jesus rode to Jerusalem on a dinosaur and that Climate change is a silly old myth.

On a side note, Jesus and the Moneychangers would be a good name for a band. I bet there’s already one named that.

Although tomorrow is the holiday, today is Martin Luther King’s actual birthday. More importantly, it’s also my dad’s birthday. He’d be 92 today, if he hadn’t gone and died.

He’d have enjoyed seeing Notre Dame lose, too.

Still seems to be snowing out there, and the temperature keeps dropping. We wound up getting more snow yesterday than I’s thought. Not sure what the “official” total was, but, judging by our back deck, I’d say we got in the neighborhood of a foot. Of course we get a bit more out here in God’s Country. Looks quite beautiful.

Not much in the works for today. Have to take a trip into Pixley to go to Tractor Supply. Probably need to plow the driveway (as soon as I fix my plow, which I broke yesterday), and then there’s some kind of a basketball game on the teevee later on. I guess the #1 team in the nation is playing, so I should probably watch some of that. Though I’ve got bad vibes on this one.

Watching basketball makes me drink an awful lot of beer. Nice to hear how good it is for you, though I’ve long suspected it was the only thing keeping me alive. Ironically, it’ll probably be what kills me, in the end.

Oh well, one more cuppa joe, and then I reckon I ought to put some clothes on and put some pellets in the pellet stoves.

When I got up this morning, it was raining. Then, all of a sudden, it was snowing. We’ve got maybe an inch on the ground already and, while we’re not supposed to get all that much, really, the schools are all bailing out and closing. Buncha wimps. They never closed when I was going to school, goddamnit (though I see my old high school is neither closed nor delayed this morning; good for them. We always were tougher than everybody else. We also had a reputation for smoking lots of pot. Coincidence? I think not). Go a few months without snow, and everybody flips out.

That doesn’t mean I’m not glad I don’t have to go to work today. My wife does, though. Sucks to be her (especially the being married to me part, but, hey, she’s the one that begged me, so she has nobody but herself to blame).

End of an era today, as “One Life to Live” airs its last episode. Personally, I was more of an “Edge of Night” fan, which featured the likes of designing woman Dixie Carter, Kim Hunter – she was one cute little monkey – Dorothy Lyman – I’m sure all you “Mama’s Family” fans remember her – Donald May, Amanda Blake – yeah, Miss Kitty – Frank “The Riddler” Gorshin, and Mandel Kramer – the final, and some would say best, Johnny Dollar. Of course, none of them can hold a candle to the ultimate soap – “Dark Shadows.”

Golly, it’s late. After 7:00, must be, because the insipid and annoying GMA is on. I can get caught up on the chick who walked into an airplane propellor, hear all about Heather Locklear’s frightening trip to the Emergency Room, get a “behind the scenes” look at the Miss America Pageant (they still do that?), and find out what Madonna really thinks about Lady Gaga (and a live performance from Tom Petty; must be geezer day). Oh, and apparently there’s a whole new world of people who get free sperm donations from strangers – frequently consummating the transaction at Starbucks. :yuck:

This is when I start to think maybe going to work isn’t such a bad thing after all.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future.

Stop the Censorship

It’s January 12th, and it’s raining out. Pouring, in fact. This has been a very strange year indeed. Not that I’m complaining, of course. Some people are. For instance, the salt mine may have to lay people off (yeah, that’s right, there really is a salt mine around here). The bars “up north” are languishing, because this is the time of year when snowmobilers like to sled on up the bar and get hammered before sledding on home again. If you bought the “per season” driveway snow plow package, you lost this year. So far, anyway.

It could all change at any moment, and, in fact, the weather is supposed to take a wintry turn starting during the day tomorrow, when a cold front is supposed to turn rain to snow for the morning commute. This will suck for some people, but not so much for me, as I had the foresight to take tomorrow off. By Sunday, we’re supposed to be down into the single digits. Whether that’s just an aberration, or we’re about to get some payback for getting half the winter off this year, we shall see. The end of January thru February can be pretty nasty if it has a mind to be.

But, basically, I just need to get through today. There are several cold beers in the fridge all vying for my attention (beer bottles are such shameless hussies – throwing themselves at me every time I open the refrigerator door. Some even seductively peeling their labels down past their shoulders).

Oh well, time to see if somebody slopped up all the coffee, or if there’s a little left for me.

As expected, Mittens won big in New Hampshire (or, as Mitt put it, he “made history”). Must be pretty discouraging for Newt and the Frothman, because they didn’t even finish in the top three (Ron Paul and John Hunstman took second and third). Shocking news, as you’d think New Hampshirites would have flocked to polls and voted for Newt, given the strong endorsement of Crazy Uncle Carl Paladino. Of course, they’re unwashed, godless, commie liberals in NH, and things promise to be different down in South Carolina.

It’s the day of the hump. Well, technically, I guess I’m over the hump because I decided to take Friday off, giving me a four-day weekend and preserving my string of four-day weeks. Of course, this means the weather will turn to shit but, hey, that’s OK. With the high temperature expected to be damn near 50 today, no matter what happens, we’ve gone through damn near half the winter more or less unscathed. Personally, I’m more than ready to cede the Golden Snowball to somebody else.

We haven’t had our stupid every-other Wednesday meeting in quite a while now, but I don’t think we’ll get out of it this week. It’s a real waste of time (you’d think “management” would have all kinds of important shit to do; makes you wonder what their purpose it), but, well, whattya gonna do?

I know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get more coffee.