The hospital for which I work has been declared as one of eight official Ebola centers in NY by Governor Snotball (my boss passed along a memo from our head of Emergency Preparedness, who I know is qualified because he’s got an MBA). I’m fairly certain this distinction comes without a budget, but I’m pleased nonetheless because it’s very important. As we all know, Ebola is easier to get than mono at a frat party, and we’re all pretty much gonna die horrible deaths from this “outbreak.” Right now, hundreds of thousands of Ebola Zombies (mostly from Kenya and Mexico, but probably a few Canadians, too) are staggering across our borders at this very moment, looking to infect us normal (and by normal, I mean “white”) folks. Thanks, Obama.

The other reason I’m pleased is that it’s mid-October, and, were it not for this Eboma (or is it Obola?) stuff, the media would be wetting their pants over flu season and how if you don’t get a flu shot, you’re gonna die from the flu (but not before infecting innocent children and people who are allergic to eggs). It’s nice that they have something else to obsess over, even if ti’s just for a little while.

Speaking of death, I have to go to a wake tonight after work. This is one of those unpleasant grownup things that you have to do even though you really don’t want to. Like going to weddings or not passing a stopped school bus. This one is for the father of someone who used to be a very good friend of mine, but who I rarely see these days what with him not living around here anymore. And having been on the other side of these things (that is, as a family member of the deceased, not, as of yet, the guest of honor), about all I know is that it’s weird and it sucks, and there’s really nothing anybody can say or do that will stop it from sucking but on some way it actually does help to know that there are people who care.

So you do the right thing and you go and you kneel in front of the casket and pretend to pray (I guess that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, right?) and then you go and make small talk and see a bunch of people you haven’t seen in a while (and may never see again – at least, not vertically) and try to pretend there isn’t a dead guy (or gal) up there in the front of the room.

But, hey, at least it’s Friday.

I caught about 15 minutes worth of a documentary about the Cowsills this morning. If you’re my age or older, then you know who they were and if you’re much younger than that (like Google Chrome spellchecker, apparently), then you don’t. I’d say they to the Partridge Family as the Beatles were to the Monkees, except you probably wouldn’t know who the hell the Partridge Family was either (plus however they came into being, the Monkees actually had some good stuff, whereas the Partridge Family, not so much).

Anyhow, I had no idea that Bud “daddy” Cowsill was such a dick, but apparently he was. I had to leave just as the grown up (by that I mean “old”) Cowsills were getting ready to sing the National Anthem or something at Fenway Park, and one Cowsill was being a dick to another Cowsill because the second one apparently wasn’t singing right. Or something. I dunno, I was trying to get ready for work.

I also watched an hour or so of Ron Howard’s “Rush,” which is about the Formula One rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda. I’ll be honest, auto racing isn’t a subject I’m particularly interested in (though if I was going to pay attention to any of it, it would be Formula One – though the couple of times I went to DIRT races, it was fun watching them kick all that dust and dirt everywhere). When I was a kid, they used to have Figure Eight races on the Wide World of Sports, and got a kick out of them and the demolition derby.

Anyhow, what I saw of the movie was really good, and I may have to watch it from beginning to end one of these days. I’d also like to google Suzy Sparkle, just ‘cuz I love the name. Unfortunately, I was experiencing network difficulties last night, which I mostly tracked down to a bad cable this morning (upon further review, I’m expecting to find mouse-related damage – further strengthening my resolve to wage all-out war, if not genocide on the little bastards).

So now I have network connectivity to my home office for my Genie Mini, PlayStation, and Roku – but sadly there still seems to be an issue at my main computer. Which I’ll need to fuck around with some more tonight.

Looks like I picked a good time to give up giving up drinking (though to be honest, I gave giving that up a while ago).

Seeing as we’re all gonna die horrible deaths from Ebola, what’s the point in abstaining?

As usually happens, this four-day week is proving to be a long one. I’m not sure how all this time warp stuff works, but yesterday felt like Monday all day long, so I should technically be a day ahead. But today for some reason feels like Thursday (I even keep checking the calendar to make sure), so I’m mentally a day behind. It’s like I have to work six days instead of five (never mind four).

It just aint right.

It was on this date back in 1978 that Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337, amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 with respect to excise tax on (among other things) home production of beer and wine, thereby making home brewing legal. For that, and because I never actually got drafted, I forgive him for reinstating military draft registration two years later (starting with males born in the year 1960 – making me one of the first to be forced to go down to the post office and register since the draft was abolished in 1974). I really should celebrate by digging out (and cleaning) all my homebrew equipment that has languished in my basement since moving four years ago. But I need to do kegs, ‘cuz I aint messing with any more bottles.

Happy Columbus Day! There are those that turn their noses up at today being a holiday, but I say fuck ’em. A day off’s a day off. Hell, if they wanna give me a day off for Hitler’s birthday, I’ll take that, too (though it wouldn’t be Nazi paraphernalia I’d be celebrating 4/20 with). It’s definitely a good time for a three-day weekend, and I’ve even been slightly productive.

On Saturday, I cleaned my bathroom, which was starting to get kind of a gas station vibe (and there was what appeared to be a small black and gray dog sleeping in one corner) going since it’s become my exclusive domain (it’s the master bathroom, and I of course, am the master) and we apparently fired the cleaning lady. So, twice year, whether it needs it or not, I give it as good a cleaning as I can manage given that I’m not all that fussy.

Well, I cleaned the shower and toilet, anyway. The vanity, I think I’ll just get a new one one of these days. And the floor. I should replace that, too. The big problem seems to me to be that somewhere along the line they “improved” all the cleaning equipment to the point where they’re basically useless.

We don’t even have a freakin’ toilet brush. We have these plastic sticks that hold really crappy scrubby pad/ sponge-type things (with a button on the stick that you’d think would squeeze the water out of the pad, but you’d be wrong because it actually releases – more like “launches” – the pad into the toilet bowl.

And after about two seconds of manly scrubbing action, the pads are worn and worthless. The advice I got was to do it “every week.”

Hah! Like that’s gonna happen.

I also wanted a scrub brush with a long handle (so as not to have to grovel on my knees) to clean the shower. When I asked if we had such a thing, I got the kind of look you’d give a crazy person. Instead I got this “glass surface” cleaner with a telescoping handle (that would have extended it from about 12 inches to 18 inches – not exactly what I had in mind – if the thing that locked it into place actually locked it into place, which it did not) and a head that – according to the box – you were supposed to cover with a “microfiber” cleaning cloth. Which of course was not in the box, but wouldn’t have helped anyway because I needed to do some good old-fashioned hard scrubbing (somebody had allowed several layers of what I would describe as “soap scum” and some other stuff that if I didn’t know better might have mistaken for mold).

At any rate, I managed to get things fairly clean. I’d have cleaned the floor, too, but another thing they have apparently decided to “improve” are mops. ‘Cuz as far as I know, we don’t have one (you know, the kind with a sponge and a scrubby thing that you pull the handle and it wrings out the mop instead of launching it across the room like that poor excuse of a toilet cleaning thing).

Oh we’ve got a plethora of other devices (some of which even plug in, for what purpose I do not know) that look to be somewhat related to mops, but I have no idea how to use any of them and they all appear to require some sort of disposable pad type of thing (what the fuck is it with throwing everything away these days?), but if we have any of those I have no idea where they are. And I can’t ask, because whenever I ask where something is, it turns into a recitation on how much I suck – a fact to which I am more than willing to stipulate, and which, frankly has been already entered into evidence repeatedly.

So screw it. I did the best I could with what I had to work with. Some time between now and April, I’ll just have to order some regular cleaning supplies (assuming they still make that kind of stuff).

Anyhow, so that was Saturday. Well, that and watching SU lose but not as badly as we all expected to #1 Florida State. In fact, it was entirely watchable, all things considered. In fact we did well enough to drop FSU from #1 to #2 despite the fact that they beat us by 18 points (which tells you a bit about what the pollsters think of us). So, not a win but not the 59-3 debacle of last year, either.

I got the pool closed up yesterday (I will now commence to spending all winter worrying that I did something wrong) and put the cover on.

Mice managed to eat some pretty large holes in the cover (after four years, they’ve suddenly decided it was tasty?), the little bastards. I’ve now decided to declare a full-out war on mice. Yesterday, I ordered $50 worth of mouse traps from Amazon to add to my mouse trap collection, and I’m pledging to be diligent in placing, checking, and replacing them. Enough is enough. I’d rather not have to kill them, but I’ve tried reasoning with them and threatening them, and now I’m afraid the little assholes are just gonna have to die.

Sorry PETA.

Speaking of death, it appears that God has lifted His veil of protection from Texas. Hurricanes, drought, floods, and now Ebola. It’s time to build a fence around Texas and hire border patrol agents to keep them from sneaking out. I might be willing to make Austin kind of an East/West Berlin type of thing. We’ll see.

Today I’m trying to decide if I should cut the grass one last time and get the mower off, or (since it doesn’t really need it) wait a week. I think I’m leaning toward waiting ’til next week. After all, it’s Columbus Day!

About a year ago, I got a notice from the Town to renew the dog license for Siggy, who (as some of you may recall) unfortunately died back in 2012. So I checked the box for “deceased” and mailed it back in, only to get a second notice a few weeks later. This time, I called the Town Clerk’s office (they’re always very nice) and told them that I had sent the first notice back and that Siggy was no longer with us. You’d have thought that would be that, but no.

A couple months later, I got a rather threatening form letter from Jim, the Dog Control Dude (DCD), saying that if I didn’t cough up the money for the license (and provide proof of an updated rabies vaccination), I might have to go to court.

I had visions of having to waste an evening sitting in court with Siggy’s collar, ashes, and certificate of cremation (they don’t give you death certificate for a dog – at least, not around here) in order to prove that, yes, Siggy was dead. In fact, if it didn’t make me sad to think about him, I’d have even considered doing a version of Monty Pythons’ “Dead Parrot” sketch for the just, indicating that poor Siggy “is no more, has ceased to be”, and is bereft of life.” Instead, I called the Dog Control Office, got voicemail and left a rather stern message. I followed that up the next day and spoke to Jim, the DCD explaining that Siggy was dead and I really didn’t want to have to go to Night Court over this.

Jim, of course, was pleasant, the threats ended, and once again I thought that was that about that. Until last week, when I got yet another license renewal notice for Siggy, with the year+ expiration date highlighted in yellow.

So I once again filled out the form, marked Siggy as deceased, highlighted that portion in orange, and added a letter explaining what I’d been through last year, indicating that Siggy was, sadly, still dead, and that I would gladly pay the six bucks if it would bring him back but as that seemed rather unlikely, I’d appreciate it if they could take him out of whatever system(s) he’s in so that I didn’t have to get an annual reminder of the fact that he’s no longer with us.

Hopefully this will be the end of this nonsense, though I’m not getting my hopes up.

I’m sure Governor Snotball is proud of his “B” rating by the rightwing Cato Institue “think tank,” though I have to wonder what his poor dad thinks (Mario must feel even worse about his evil spawn than Mike Wallace had to have felt about his fux-boy Chris).

Four governors received “A” grades from the conservative think tank, and they are all Republicans: North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory; Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback; Maine Gov. Paul LePage and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

Cuomo was one of three Democratic governors to get a “B,” along with Earl Ray Tomblin of West Virginia and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

As a corrupt, arrogant little asswipe, Andy fits right in with the teabaggers of the world, but he earned his rating by going above and beyond the line of duty with actions like this:

Cuomo administration edited and delayed key fracking study

ALBANY—A federal water study commissioned by the Cuomo administration as it weighed a key decision on fracking was edited and delayed by state officials before it was published, a Capital review has found.

The study, originally commissioned by the state in 2011, when the administration was reportedly considering approving fracking on a limited basis, was going to result in a number of politically inconvenient conclusions for Governor Andrew Cuomo, according to an early draft of the report by the U.S. Geological Survey obtained by Capital through a Freedom of Information Act request.

A comparison of the original draft of the study on naturally occurring methane in water wells across the gas-rich Southern Tier with the final version of the report, which came out after extensive communications between the federal agency and Cuomo administration officials, reveals that some of the authors’ original descriptions of environmental and health risks associated with fracking were played down or removed.

The final version of the report also excised a reference to risks associated with gas pipelines and underground storage—a reference which could have complicated the Cuomo administration’s potential support for a number of other controversial energy projects, including a proposed gas storage facility in the Finger Lakes region that local wine makers say could destroy their burgeoning industry.

I’m so proud that “liberal” NY will be re-electing this piece of crap in a couple of weeks.

Now that fall is here and election day is approaching, it’s time for our incumbent NYS government officials to play, “buy me some votes.” Oh, there’s the usual pork offerings of course, but this year (and for the next three years, I believe) there’s a little something special for some NYers. And it’s kind of a two-fold thing. First, if you have kids 17 and under (and make between $40,000 and $300,000 a year), you’re gonna get a check for $350. Because those of us without kids aren’t getting screwed quite enough. And because if you make less than $40K and have kids, well, fuck you too I guess. OK, that takes care of people who have voluntarily (assuming they don’t work for Hobby Lobby, of course) decided to inflict themselves (and the rest of us) with children. But wait, isn’t there another group of victims we can help out?

Why yes, yes there is: rich people. Assuming you live in one of the vast majority of NY school districts that stayed under the 2% property tax cap, presumably by doing something like “my” school district did – namely shoving a needless $18.5 million off-budget school renovation referendum down our throats (and may I just say, VOTE NO! on October 18) that will cost me, personally, about $125 next year – you’re gonna get a check for the difference between this year’s property tax bill and the year before.

For instance, in my district, property taxes “only” went up about 1.25%. So if your tax bill was, say, $4,000 last year, it would have been $4,050 this year – and Governor Snotball will cut you a check for $50. Sweet, right?

Of course, if you’re Elmer J. Fudd, half-millionaire (the cutoff for this deal is $500,000), and own a mansion and a yacht and had a $40,000 property tax bill last year, you’re gonna get $500 (on top of that $350 breeder’s bonus).

And if you’re a single-mother (or father) working two crappy full-time, $9.50-an-hour jobs just so you can pull in $39,520 a year (half of which goes to pay the rent – which we all know is too damn high), you’re gonna get…. Let me see, multiply by…carry the one…. Yeah, roughly ZERO. Zip, nada, nothing – not even a thank you. Maybe an “aint ‘merica great” from George Dubya Bush, but that’s about it.

Now, somebody’s gotta pay for all these rebates to the breeders and the wealthy out there, so I have to assume taxes will need to go up for somebody – and it aint gonna be those rich somebodies who can afford lawyers and tax accountants, that much I can guarantee.

Hey, it’s a win-win for everybody. Well, everybody that counts, anyway.

I always occasionally wondered why they refer to going from not drinking to drinking as “going off the wagon.” Seems to me more like you’re getting back on the wagon when you start pounding ’em down again. I guess maybe it’s ‘cuz you have to get off your horse and get into the wagon or something (this guy says it comes from the early 20th Century when they used to have a water wagon go around and wet the streets to keep the dust down, implying that if you were “on the water wagon” then you were abstaining from alcohol, though Snopes poo-poos that claim, and says it’s more likely a variant of “on the bandwagon” – as in on the temperance bandwagon).

Either way, I can’t think of a more miserable place to be, as it often epitomized in movies and teevee by the dour, sourpuss members of the temperance movement (particularly, though not exclusively, soldiers of the Salvation Army) mostly portrayed by hefty Irish women (presumably they’d grown tired of their shiftless husbands spending all the house money on booze) and mousy self-righteous men.

Better to laugh with the sinners and all that, though a life of drinking doesn’t typically last long.

Of course, there’s drinking and then there’s drinking. I always figured as long as you weren’t knocking down a fifth of vodka every night, you were doing OK. But I’ve been doing a bit of research into what’s considered excessive drinking, and, I dunno – who comes up with this shit? Not the folks I’ve generally run with, that much is certain.

For instance, they (whoever “they” are) say it’s OK for you to have two drinks every day (if you’re a guy – the ladies only get one), or you can have up to four a day, but only up to 14 in a week. And you’re not even allowed to have all 14 on, say, Saturday night. Just the four.

Who knew?

I have to say, this seems rather preposterous to me – especially as it applies to beer. I mean, six shots of whiskey? Yeah, that seems like a lot. A six-pack over the course of an evening before bed? Doesn’t seem all that excessive to me (I mean, why the hell else would they sell them in multiples of six?). I’ve always figured if you can keep track of how many you’ve had, you haven’t had too many.

So, as dangerous (or unhealthy or whatever) as this alcohol stuff appears to be (in contrast to every beer commercial I’ve ever seen), why does the government think that’s OK, yet consider smoking pot to be not only be a criminal offense, but a Schedule One drug on a par with Heroin, LSD (which gets a bad wrap, but I would agree it’s not something you wanna use to wind down with after work), and Ecstasy?

I mean, cocaine is Schedule Two, Vicodin is Schedule Three, Valium is Schedule Four, and friggin’ Robitussin with Codeine is Schedule Five. You know what isn’t on the schedule? Alcohol, that’s what (or tobacco, for that matter).

So here is my demand: either legalize pot, or tell me it’s OK to drink as much beer as I want. Those are the two choices – and I need a determination by about 5:00 tonight, so let’s get rolling (so to speak).

So we’ve made it through September and are on the relentless march toward winter. How exciting. And now it’s October, aka, “Beer Month,” which is ironic since I haven’t had a cold frost one in almost two weeks. I find this to be horribly depressing and, frankly, not a life worth living since it was the only thing I actually had to look forward to, and now it’s gone. For the time being, anyway. I was somewhat concerned that my new dizziness thing was a result of my blood pressure (which the beer isn’t particularly good for). After some research, however, I think what I have is BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo), which is unrelated to the beer.

But the beer is bad for the gout, and my blood pressure is certainly high (and I have my Annual Health Assessment coming up on Halloween, so it would be nice to not get bitched at for having high blood pressure – as if bitching at me is gonna make it lower). So maybe I can hold out until then, and maybe it’ll help. At the very least, I’m saving money (even if I’m depressed and all I want to do is go to bed as soon as I get home).

I really wish they’d make pot legal here in NY. I don’t think I can through the rest of my life sober.

In other news, after renovations, they re-dedicated a building at SU the other day with none other than Oprah Winfrey as the guest, um, ribbon-cutter or whatever. Afterwards, she went to one of the poorer neighborhoods around here to check out the Mary Nelson Youth Center. I guess she liked what she saw, because she whipped out her checkbook and cut a personal check for $100,000 (seriously – just said, “so you need, like, what? About a hundred grand?” And then wrote out a check). Whatever you may think of Oprah, that’s pretty impressive. I mean, I don’t even carry a checkbook around with me (truth be told, it’s always a struggle to find it to pay the property tax bill).

Speaking of taxes, they’ve decided that they need to spend $18.5 million renovating our local schools (mostly the high school), which look a lot nicer than the schools I went to as a kid (and I went to some pretty nice schools). If this passes, it’ll raise my taxes about $125 a year. Doesn’t seem like much, but I’m getting pretty tired of it. I think I may need to run for the school board, because those of us without kids need to have a voice in all this stuff.

Well, I’ll go and vote against it, for all the good it’ll do.

If you’re like me, no matter how much you don’t give a shit, you’ve been forced to hear that NY Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter is retiring at the end of this season. To all of us, last night was bittersweet as Jeter drove in the winning run on a wlak-off single in the ninth inning of his final at-bat at Yankee Sstadium last night. Bitter, because now there’s even more hype than there was before, but sweet because the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs and their season is finally almost over. I, however, would like to think that Jeter will always be remembered in this way as he walked off the field in NY one last time:

I couldn’t help but be reminded of another great moment in Yankee Stadium history:

Fret not, Jeter fans. Derek still has a couple of games left at Fenway Park, and says “out of respect” for Red Sox fans, he’ll play. Gee, what a sacrifice on his part. I hope those Sox fans are suitably impressed.