I just finished listening to the latest WTF podcast with Barry Crimmins. I highly recommend you download and listen to this one (and not just because Barry is from the next town over from me – though that doesn’t hurt, either). He wrote all the best stuff that Randi Rhodes ever said on her show back in the AAR days (I know, because we had the chance to go and see him at the Unitarian Church near where we used to live, and I recognized a lot of what he said). Definitely an interesting guy – and a good lefty.

It’s a big day here today, as the DirecTV guy is here right now. Yes, I decided to switch from Dish (thanks for all your input on that), so tonight I should be able to record Haven, Bill Maher AND Dracula all at once. Assuming I can figure out all the new channel numbers, anyway. I also ordered a new TV for my office – nothing fancy. Just something a little bigger than the decidedly non-HD 15″ one I have now. That way, when I hide in my office and watch football, I won’t have to sit four inches away from the teevee. Though tomorrow’s football game will probably be painful to watch no matter how far away I sit.

Not that I’ll have time for football tomorrow, as I have to install the new dishwasher. Aside from trying to figure out how to tear out one cabinet without totally destroying the one next to it, it looks like I’ll have to re-plumb the sink drain lines. That’ll be a pain. If I manage to get that done, I also need to change the oil and the fuel filters on my tractor.

Hopefully I’ll have time to watch a little teevee.

I looked out the window at about 4:00 this morning, and my first thought was “must be a full moon” ‘cuz the grass looked all white. Then I thought “funny, we should only be a little past a quarter moon, and it should have set at like one or two o’clock this morning.” My final thought (at that moment – hopefully for the rest of the day) was, “oh, shit. That’s snow.” Yep. A nice little blanket of snow on everything. It wasn’t unexpected, but you still kind of hate to see it start, ‘cuz it’s a long, dark stretch ’til spring. On the bright side, now that we’ve had enough snow to track small animals, we can have Indian Summer (and it does appear that it’s gonna be sunny and about 50 this weekend – maybe not summer, but we’ll take it).

Somebody called “Macklemore” was in town for a concert last night. He’s apparently famous – the latest generation of “white rapper.” The review says he appeared with “his” DJ (this is what concerts have come to, I guess – why pay a bunch of musicians when you can twerk around to a record?). It also said he had to play the same song twice – once as his closer – because he apparently doesn’t have enough songs to fill a whole show. Or something. Used to be you could go to a Dead show four nights in a row and not hear the same song twice.

Kids these days.

In other news, it appears that “Wall Street” is all agog at the thought of Elizabeth Warren running for President. This is all because of a story at The New Republic that quotes an “unnamed former staffer” as saying:

“Yeah, Hillary is running. And she’ll probably win,” says the former aide. “But Elizabeth doesn’t care about winning. She doesn’t care whose turn it is.”

So, clearly, Warren is running, despite the fact that she says she isn’t running, she endorses Hillary, and that Hillary should run.

A shame she isn’t, since I’d be much happier voting for her than I would for Hillary. But, jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Can we start worrying about 2016 when it gets a little closer to 2016? Like maybe after the Super Bowl in 2015?

BTW, I’ve been trying to talk myself into switching from Dish to DirecTV. Anybody out there have a setup with the “Genie” whole home DVR (five tuners – no more recording conflicts, ‘cuz I can’t see there ever being more than three decent things on at the same time, let alone five)? If so, let me know (either here or privately, if you’re bashful). There’s the older HR34 that I’ve read there have been some problems with, and then the HR44. DTV tells me that they are officially shipping the HR34 to new customers, so that’s holding me back That and the whole overcoming inertia to switch. And having to clean the house before I can let the installer dude or dudette in.

Oh well, time to go do my volunteer work for Porn for the Blind and then get to work.

Way back in 1918, the first war to end all wars ended. Mostly. The news didn’t travel as fast back then as it does today. It was also the beginning of the end of the Ottoman empire (which I don’t recall learning about in high school history, but then I may not have been paying attention). Being American, I don’t think I was taught much world history as a kid. American history, of course. And the history of the area where I live before the white folks came and fucked everything up, yeah. But an ottoman was just something Dick Van Dyke tripped over every week.

Of course today is now known as Veteran’s Day here in the US. A day where there’s no mail and the banks are closed (don’t worry – the malls are open!), and, while I’m not off today, I do earn a day to use later, so that’s good. It’s also a day when the hypocrites in Congress will no doubt do a lot of speechifying about how they support the troops and whatnot. And Obama is probably scheduled to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier (or else face the wrath of Fux News and Rush Limbaugh, who will then have to find something else to bitch about, like that his flag lapel pin isn’t big enough of something).

Anyway, Happy VD to all you vets and future vets out there. I hope wherever you’re at, you get back home to your families soon.

We’re supposed to get a bit of a turn to cold weather here. Not surprising, what with it being a third of the way through November. Hopefully we won’t get too much snow, but I guess I better make sure Granny knows where the shovel is, just in case. My main goal this weekend was to get my snow tires on, and I managed to accomplish that fairly early on Saturday morning. Also got the tractor all greased up, but didn’t put the chains on just yet. That was about it.

Next weekend should be a busy one, though. I ordered a dishwasher as an X-mas present for the house, and it’s supposed to get delivered tomorrow. So next weekend I’ll have to install it, which will no doubt be a much bigger pain in the ass than it ought to be – especially since I have to rip out a cabinet. But I get to use my favorite carpentry tool. :jason:

Oh well, back to work.

It’s the day you’ve all been waiting for. Yes, the official start of the Syracuse basketball season. Tonight, SU takes on the Big Red of Cornell. We’re optimistic about this season, though you never really how things are gonna work out until you really get into it.

In other news, the beleaguered president of the fine institution for which I work has decided to resign for the good of the University (and so he can spend more time with the Mayor of Toronto). I really feel bad about the whole thing – he struck me as a good guy. Shows what I know.

Happy 64th to one of my all-time favorites. I finally just had to pick one of these, otherwise I’d spend my whole day just watching one after another. I’m sure Vernon can find some good ones.

First, the bad news…. My write-in candidacies seem to have failed (though I’m still holding out hope I can get the Toronto Mayor gig that might be opening up soon). On the bright side, Democrat Mary Jo what’s her name defeated Republican incumbent Dan somebody to win out Town Supervisor race. In fact, it was Ladies Night across Upstate New York, as Rochester elected its first woman mayor, Syracuse re-elected its woman mayor, and Albany also elected a woman as mayor. Fitting, as yesterday was the anniversary of Susan B. Anthony walking into a polling station in Rochester back in 1872 and casting a ballot (which of course was illegal and got her arrested). No woman in NYC, but at least they elected a Democrat (and one with a sun who has a rather impressive Afro).

In other results nobody not from NY cares about, Casinos passed but age extensions for Judges didn’t. One of the land swap deals passed, but I can’t find any info about the other one to the mining company yet, so I hope it failed. So far I see no results for the other propositions either. Must have been too close to call.

I’ll be sure and keep y’all in the loop.

Outside NY, it’s legal to smoke pot in Portland ME now (other than those pesky state and federal laws), and everybody’s favorite Syracusan Terry McAuliffe was elected governor of Virginia, beating Tea Party darling Ken Cuccinelli (or, as his former boss Bill Clinton might have put it, he really “stuck it to the Cooch”). Oh, and Chris Christie won, but we already know that was gonna happen.

Well, time to get back to getting ready to seize the day.

Ah, here we go, the vaunted “off year” election. An event that occurs every couple of years when I try to determine whether or not it’s worth my while to get off my ass and vote. Let’s see what I have to choose from.

First up, NY State Supreme Court Justice. I can vote for any two, which should be easy ‘cuz there are only two people running – both on the Republican, Conservative, and Independent lines. Then I can vote for a County Legislator. Only one guy running there – again on the Rep/Con/Ind lines. Not much voter motivation there. Next up, the Town races.

Town Clerk? Only one Republican running. Ah, but for Town Councilor we actually have a race on our hands. Three people running for two seats – and one of them’s even a Democrat (of course, he’s also on the Conservative line, but I guess you take what you can get around here). And it’s another Demservative candidate running for Town Supervisor. She’s a woman running against an incumbent male, and while that’s extent of what I know about her, that’s good enough for me.

That’s pretty much it for candidates, but there are actually six proposed NYS Constitutional Amendments up for consideration. The first one is to authorize casino gambling. Seems to me that’d be stepping on the good things the Native Americans have going around here, so I think I’ll vote no. Plus, until they put legalizing pot on the ballot, I’m gonna vote against everybody else’s vices.

Proposal number two is to grant veterans with disabilities additional Civil Service credits. No-brainer there.

Prop three is to let municipalities keep excluding debt for sewage facilities from their constitutional debt limits until 2024. Hey, why not? Maybe they’ll extend sewers to my house and I can get off the old septic system.

There are a couple of proposals dealing with land exchange in the State Forest Preserve. Basically a land swap between the State and private entities. Sounds innocuous, but one of these deals with land to be used for mining minerals up in a very pretty area of the state by Lake Champlain. Screw that – I say no!

And finally they want to allow judges to serve until they’re 80. Forget that – time to make room for some young judges.

So I suppose I ought to get out there and vote after all. But I think I’ll wait ’til it warms up a little.

Not only is it Sunday, when I have the opportunity to sleep in a little bit, but it’s also the return of Standard Time, when I could even sleep an extra hour later. So naturally I got up at five four o’clock. I’m sure I’ll feel like sleeping late tomorrow when I have to get up to go to work. I’ve come to one very strong conclusion this morning, though: we have way too many goddamn clocks in this house. Way too many. Every time I think I’ve gotten to them all, I stumble upon another one – and then there’s still the car (which has two, but I’ve never figured out how to set the one on the radio w/o reading the directions, so I don’t bother).

I had very simple goals for this weekend. I wanted to take the mower off the tractor, put the front end loader on it so I could put the mower in the shed, and then if I was feeling really ambitious, I thought I might even put my snow tires on. So I pulled the tractor out into the driveway, dropped the mower, and went to start the tractor back up to lift the mount out of the way so I could get under there and unhook it from the PTO.

Unfortunately, at this point, the tractor decided not to start back up (no lights, no flashers – nothing).

Usually that happens because the battery terminals get all kinds of nasty and need to be cleaned up. They weren’t all that bad, but I cleaned them up anyway.

Still wouldn’t start.

What did start at that point was the rain. :fustrate:

If it wasn’t gonna start, I really wish it hadn’t waited ’til I got it outside.

So, for the first time since I moved here, my poor tractor spent its first night outside in the cold, and now instead of spending the day not doing much of anything but reading and watching NFL Redzone, I have to mess around with that and hope like hell we don’t get a foot of snow or something before I can get it going again.

If you live east of, say, Sudbury Ontario and have a clear sky this morning, you’ll get to see a partial solar eclipse at around sunrise (if you live in Africa, you’ll get to see a very rare hybrid annular-total eclipse). I’m not sure if I’ll get to see anything, because I think it’s cloudy out at the moment (too dark to tell for sure, but I don’t see any stars), and it might be over by the time the sun gets high enough to clear the hills and trees to the east of me. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be on teevee.

The interesting thing is that while I was trying to find a satellite weather map, I stumbled upon a series of French spy satellites called Systeme de Radio Communications Utilisant un Satellite. Yes, that’s right – Syracuse (how did I not know about this?).

The Syracuse-3 (Systeme de Radio Communications Utilisant un Satellite) series spacecraft are the third-generation military communications satellites for the Délégation Générale pour l’Armement (France’s Ministry of Defense’s procurement agency).

Syracuse 3 consists of a Spacebus-4000B3 platform, hardened to resist nuclear attack in compliance with NATO specifications.

Yeah, baby. We scoff at your nukes.

If, like an idiot, you missed Mike Boettcher in Syracuse last week, you can make up for it by hearing him on “The Campbell Conversations,” which is a program on one of our local NPR stations – WRVO – at six o’clock this evening. You can, of course, listen to the live stream or go to the website and listed to it later (also available via iTunes, if you do that sorta thing). This promises to be the best episode since they had John Keeling – brewmaster at London’s Fuller Brewery.

Oh well, 45 minutes ’til sunrise. I guess I should get ready to see what I can see.

Hope y’all have a better Sunday that I probably will.

So, this is it – the last day of October. Hard to believe November is almost here. No snow in the forecast yet, but it’s only a matter of time. It’s a big day at work today. First off, the folks from employee health are coming out to do our Annual Health Exams. In an effort to bring my BP down to something approaching normal, I haven’t had a beer since Friday night in Las Vegas (really any in opportune time for a trip out there). I’m also taking lots of magnesium, which the wife tells me is supposed to help. We’ll see. I’ve been taking it regularly at home, and while it seemed to help for a few days, it was still relatively high yesterday. Oh well, I guess the worst they can do is nag me.

Besides the AHA, it’s also parking re-registration day, where we all have to bring our vehicle registrations in, show our IDs, and get new parking stickers. I then proceed to take mine and stick it in my glove box, because I only need it is if I ever were to go down to the hospital (and not really even then, unless for some reason my ID doesn’t work to get me out of the garage, in which case I guess I just fall back on the old, “oops, I guess I forgot to put it on” story). I never go to the hospital, though, which I reckon is a good thing because NYS has a new rule this year, intended to intimidate and embarrass healthcare workers. If you don’t get a flu shot you have to wear a mask if you go into a patient care area or to an area where patients might be (like the cafeteria).

Oh, that’s the other thing. Along with the AHA, those who want can get a flu shot. Though they push it every year, I continue to decline. I haven’t gotten a flu shot in years. In fact, I think the last time I got a flu shot was the last time I got the flu.

As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also “you can wear a costume to work today” (for a suggested – though not mandatory – donation of $5). You might think this would sound really stupid to a bunch of professional adults, but you would be wrong. For some reason this is a big deal. Go figure.

This year, I think I’ll go as somebody with high blood pressure.

Y’all have a Happy Halloween, and don’t eat too much candy tonight. As for me, I think I’ll have a beer.

I’m currently waiting on hold to get a copy of my hotel bill e-mailed to me. You know how you can tell that your call isn’t very important? When the f*cking recording keeps repeating “your call is very important to us” every 30 seconds. Never mind that they were supposed to e-mail me a copy of my bill after I did the express checkout via the teevee in the room. I know they have my e-mail address, ‘cuz they sent me a survey (which I foolishly already filled out). Oy.

Sad to say, we didn’t get to meet Mr. Farmerkat the other night. I think the screening must have been cancelled, as I didn’t get an e-mail from OKat letting us know what time the screening was. I also didn’t realize Monday was the 28th until my wife mentioned it to me on Tuesday (the 28th would have been my parents’ 67th wedding anniversary, which means my oldest brother, Tim, must be getting pretty damn old).

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen OKat around here lately – I hope everything’s OK.

Well, finally off hold with the hotel. I guess I’d better get back to work.

It’s good to be back home. Got here yesterday morning, and felt pretty wiped out all day. In fact, I still feel pretty wiped out. On the bright side, it took a while, but now that I’m home, I’ve finally adjusted to Pacific Time. I think what I need to do tomorrow is go to work on PDT, and leave on EDT. Hopefully I can get fully readjusted before I have to adjust to falling back an hour next weekend.

If I can get my shit together, I’ll put my snow tires on today. And maybe take the mower off the tractor. Odds are, the best I’ll manage is to get my laundry done so I have something to wear to work in the morning (just the thought of having to go to work tomorrow makes me want to puke).

Speaking of puke, I see that Ann Coulter is going to be on Bill Maher next week. I really don’t understand why he has people (and I use the term loosely) like that on. There just doesn’t appear to be any value added to having them on. This week was kind of nice in that respect, though it wasn’t one of the better shows I’ve seen. Bill likes to get on his “mooslams suck more than other religious types” a bit too much for my taste. He likes to say that the Kristian Krazies aren’t out there shooting girls for trying to get an education or beheading adulterers And that’s true – but it’s not that they don’t want to, they just haven’t taken over our government yet (but they sure keep trying).

Keep thinking that they’re more “civilized” than those radical Islamics, Bill, and you just might wake up one day tied to a stake and smelling smoke.

Damn, 11:00 already? Or is it 8:00? I’m so confused. Whatever time it is, I guess I’d better go see about accomplishing something. Like at least unpacking my suitcase.