Not much going on Sandy-wise here. It got a little breezy for a while last night, and it rained a bit (but not too awful much), and now things are damp, but calm (as far as I can tell – it’s still quite dark out). They say that the hills around here broke up the wind and rain, so we were spared. New York City wasn’t so fortunate, I’m afraid, as they were swamped by a record 13-foot storm surge that left most of the place in the dark. Good luck to everybody down there – especially Sue and her hubby. I reckon it might be a couple of days before we hear from Red Hook. Good luck.

Well, I guess I spoke too soon. As I attempted to leave the house this morning, I found a tree down across the driveway. Too heavy to pull out of the way, but fortunately we could drive around it on the lawn (good thing it isn’t winter with a five-foot high snow bank). I guess I’ll have to get the chain saw out when I get home. It was too dark too see if there was any other damage, but I guess I’ll need to walk the fence line to make sure there’s no way for the varmints to escape.

Oh well, at least we have power.

Get ready for the “terrifying megastorm” (as the lo-cal paper puts it this morning). I don’t think it’ll be a major deal up here, but it doesn’t sound so great for the NY Metro area. Let’s hope things aren’t quite as bad as they’re making them out to be. Though I guess it’s probably not a good day to take the ferry to Staten Island.

Congratulations to the SF Giants for their sweep of the hapless Tigers. Any time you can get the World Series over in four games, it’s a good thing. I just hope that your part of the city went unscathed in the after math of the “celebrations” last night (I assume that the media blew the “riots” out of all proportion, and things were nowhere near as dire as they were made out to be).

Speaking of Giants, congratulations to the NY Giants for spanking The Cowboys last night. It’s always enjoyable to see Dallas lose – especially at home, and especially after they clawed their way back from a huge deficit, only to fall short in the end. As Nelson Muntz would say, “ha-ha!”

Meanwhile, election season crawls to a merciful end. I just hate the thought of Romney winning (though I think if he “wins” at this point, it will be due to the fix being in in the swing states, coupled with the massive amount of Super PAC money being thrown out there), so I guess I just won’t think about it. Let’s just hope the wingnuts don’t take the Senate.

Oh well, time to get ready to get out there and face another week. Stay out of the subway.

I knew my car battery was getting a little lame, since it’s hasn’t been turning over very rapidly lately. I figured I’d better get a new one before winter sets it, and since it’s the original battery in a 2004 model year car, I guess it’s about time. But of course I hate to spend money before I absolutely have to. Thankfully, the car made it an easy decision for me when it wouldn’t start this morning. Even with the portable jumper thingie, I was barely able to get it started. So, off to the big box “club” store it was, to not only get my weekly bulk shopping done, but to also pick up a car battery. I’m quite happy that it did it today, rather than tomorrow morning (or, worse, tomorrow at the end of the work day). Hopefully we’re good for another nine years or so. The only problem is, now I have to figure out how to set the clock again.

Today is a fairly crappy day around here. Foggy, drizzly, and about 45 degrees or so. No wind yet, though all that’s supposed to pick up tonight, with lots of wind a rain on top Monday, Tuesday, and even into Wednesday and Thursday, depending on how the “frankenstorm” turns out. They do their best to scare everybody, but I’m not terribly worried, myself (it would be a different story if we were into snowy weather, but, as my house is at about 1,000 feet above sea level, rain’s not much of a big deal for us).

Still, I ran the generator for a while yesterday, just in case we lose power for any appreciable amount of time. It would be nice if they’d cancel work, but I know that won’t happen. I just hope there isn’t any lightning, ‘cuz that scares Fritzi, and it it happens at night, there’ll be no sleep for me (not that I got any sleep last night, either).

I heard some sort of “around the breakfast table” chat on NPR this morning from Austin, TX. It was a bunch of young kids (well, kids to me – probably in their 30s) talking about the election, and they seemed like the kind of dopes that make me worry about this election. They very much seemed to equate the two candidates for President as being both about the same, and not knowing what it’s like to be a young person (with all their troubles; gosh, being young is almost as tough as being wealthy, I think. Thank goodness I’m old and not rich). I won’t go into the whole thing – just to say I found them kind of annoying.

Oh well, I guess I’d better get going and batten (or as my sister says, “button”) down the hatches. Y’all stay dry.

One more warm sunny day here, and then the weather’s supposed to get cold again. So I figured it was a good day to burn a vacation day. Things are supposed to really turn to crap on Sunday night as hurricane Sandy hits the area. We won’t have it as bad as wherever it hits the coast (predictions have it hitting anywhere from Mayrland to a direct hit on NYC, which would be a bummer for the folks down there) but they say even we have the potential for 50 mph winds and heavy rain. Then Sandy is supposed to generate a monster Nor’easter that will dump on us on Tuesday or something. Thank goodness it isn’t going to be cold out, or we’d get a couple of feet of snow (which is not a good thing when there are still leaves on the trees, though all this predicted wind might take care of that). Still, they’re trying to scare us into thinking we’re all gonna be sitting around in the dark next week. I guess I should fire up the generator and make sure it works.

So I guess everybody heard that Colin Powell endorsed Obama for Prez (whatever that’s worth). John Sunubaru heard, too. And he says that’s ‘cuz those schwarzes all stick together. Speaking of Johns, John McCain was not one little bit happy about Powell’s endorsement.

Aw, poor Johnny. And pretty soon he won’t even have Joe Lieberman to play with anymore.

Oh well, I guess I’d better go find something to do until the sun comes up.

So, did you watch the big foreign policy debate last night? I didn’t, and I wasn’t really even tempted to. Depending on who you listen to, Obama was either the big winner, or it was pretty much even (the NPR coverage this morning seemed to be mostly of the “he said – he said” variety). Everyone pretty much seemed to agree that there isn’t much difference between the two of them (except Romney’s gonna “indict” Ahmadinejad for genocide because he said mean things about Israel). And so, all that’s left is the actual election, which is exactly two weeks from today. I’ll be glad when it’s over (unless Romney wins, in which case I won’t be very happy about much of anything).

Speaking of the election, I thought I’d be voting for a Republican for the first time in my life, when voting for NY State Senator. It’s the first time he’s been up since I moved into his district, and he’s always been a supporter of (and supported by) unions, and is what Republicans used to be back in the olden days. But he isn’t on the Working Families Party line (nobody is, and there’s no Democrat opposing him), and there’s a Green Party person running and his name’s Donnelly, so he sounds like a nice Irish boy. So, what the hell, I’ll vote for him. There’s a lot of freedom knowing your vote doesn’t matter.

That’s not the case in my Congressional district, however, which is looking to be a very tight race. As I’ve mentioned before, we have a teabagger darling in office now, and the choice is between her and a typical Democrat (not my first choice, but then my first choice wouldn’t be electable). I think the Democrat would have the edge, were it not for a Green Party candidate running as well.

I appreciate the sentiments of those who would vote for her out of principle, but, in reality, the choice is between the teabagger and the Democrat. And I just can’t stand the teabagger.

Oh well, just two more weeks of this nonsense, and it’ll all be over. Probably not for the better, but hopefully not for the worse.

I don’t ordinarily pay much attention to Catholic-type shit, but today’s canonization at the Vatican was difficult to ignore in these parts, main because one of the new “saints” happened to be a nun from here in Syracuse. Mother Marianne Cope was the head of the Syracuse Franciscan sisters, and opened the first two Catholic hospitals here (whose charter stipulated that medical care was to be provided to all, regardless of race or creed, which was a somewhat unique concept in 1870). She was the administrator of the first public hospital in Syracuse (St. Joseph’s, which happens to be where I was born), and was instrumental in the move of the Geneva (NY) Medical College to Syracuse, where it eventually turned in to the place where I now work. Marianne Cope is probably best know for her work with leprosy patients on Molokai.

And the other person canonized today was Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk woman, and the first Native American to be declared a saint. So that’s good, I guess.

Sad to hear that George McGovern passed away. I’m sure he’ll never be canonized, bu things would have been a lot better if he’d beaten Richard Nixon in 1972. A shame Eagleton never told him about the depression and shock treatments.

Oh well, I guess I’d better go and see if my laundry is done.

When I saw that John Fund was gonna be on Bill Maher last night, I knew I’d be annoyed, teamed up with that Boris guy (who looked like he should be part of Tony Soprano’s “waste management” crew), it made for one of (if not the worst Realtime shows I can remember. Not even Matt Taibbi could save it, because the panel (including some MSNBC person named Goldie, who also sucked) was just abysmal. Tale about a couple of guys being inside the rightwing bubble. Oy. It was worse than having Dana Rohrfucker and my other brother Darryl Issa on together would be. Close call there, though.

I don’t know why he insists on having these assholes on. Conservatives, fine. Get one with a brain who’s willing to speak rationally and I’m OK with that, even if I disagree. He’s had some on from time to time, and they don’t make me squirm in my chair and want to scream. But I suppose finding an intelligent and rational Republican is like finding a needle in a haystack these days.

So just go with Bernie Sanders, Cornell West, Rachel Maddow, Matt Taibbi, and people like that.

Oh well, it’s a little cool this morning, but the sin is shining, the sky is blue, the leaves are red and orange and gold, and SU actually won a football game, so all is right with the world. Except my back is killing me, but, hey, you can’t have everything, right?

Well, I wasn’t going to watch the debate last night, but, in the end I just couldn’t help myself. I don’t think I made it through the whole thing, but I saw enough to know that Obama did OK. The general consensus (among non-Rombots) is that Obama “won,” though Romney didn’t suck nearly as bad as Obama did in the first debate. I doubt this will actually change much of anything, but who knows?

Some sad news today, and not just because the new Daily Kos/SEIU poll has Romney up by 4% nationally (and at the 50% mark), or that the latest Gallup poll has Romney and Obama tied among women in battleground states (what the hell’s wrong with you women? I expect more from you than that). No, the truly sad news is that George McGovern is in hospice. Details are not (yet) available, but you don’t go into hospice because you’re expecting a quick stay and then back out again.

“We can confirm that Sen. McGovern is a patient at our Dougherty Hospice House, but we really don’t have any information beyond that point,” Avera McKennan spokeswoman Michelle Pellman said.

The Associated Press reported that his daughter, Ann McGovern of Sioux Falls, said: “He’s coming to the end of his life.” She declined to elaborate.

Good luck, Senator. Wherever you go from here, I hope your journey is a good one.

Tonight’s the big round two debate, of course. As I mentioned yesterday, I don’t think I’ll be watching. For one, thing, I just plain despise hearing anything that comes out of Mitt Romney’s mouth. It’s certainly curtailed my NPR listening lately (thank goodness it’s pledge drive time – more begging, less Romney. Though if Romney wins, I have a feeling begging will be the norm for many American).

So if things go well tonight, I’ll read about it tomorrow. And if they go bad, well, I’ll do what I do the day after an SU football game: avoid the news at all costs.

Being in a very solid Obama state, I haven’t been subjected to the anti-Obama attack ads, but we have a very tight race for Congress here, between current teabagger Anne Marie Snorkle, and the guy she (barely) beat last time out, Dan Maffei, and there’s been a ton of outside money dumped into the race. So there are tons of ads for that one on the air.

I don’t think the election would be a problem, except for the fact that there’s a Green Party candidate in the race who appears to be siphoning off enough votes to throw the election to the teabagger. Kind of a bummer, but whattya gonna do? After all, look how much better off we are since Ralph Nader ran in 2000.

Oh well, back to work.

I’m sure everybody has heard about “Fearless” Felix Baumgartner jumping from about 24 miles up and reaching a speed of almost 834 MPH (faster than the speed of sound) before parachuting safely to the ground below. The pictures are pretty awesome, and I was struck by Felix’s quote after he got back to the ground: “Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are.” Amen to that. Who hasn’t gotten really high and wondered if our universe is just one atom in a giant being, whose universe is just one atom on another giant being, whose…. Woah. Started to blow my mind a little bit there, and it’s too early for that.

Of course, the big news this week is Round Two: tomorrow night’s presidential debate. Team Obama is promising a much better performance this time around, and Obama has been going hard at it with Romney stand-in John Kerry. Anybody think maybe that’s kind of the problem to begin with? I mean, Obama was practicing against a mannequin, so it’s no wonder he was somewhat taken aback when Pinocchio came to life (a shame Mitt’s nose doesn’t grow when he lies, though). I guess we’ll just have to see how he does (not that I’ll be wasting any time watching it this time around, though; he already made me stay up late once for no good reason, and we have a saying here in Syracuse – probably have it in other places, too – that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again).

I always wondered what happened to Ralph Kramden, and now I think we know. He apparently left the Gotham Bus Company, and moved to Cleveland, where he finally really did go “POW! To the moon!”. The victim in this case wasn’t Alice, but a 25-yr old female passenger.

A Cleveland, Ohio, bus driver dealt quite the blow to a woman who apparently had been taunting him during a ride, delivering an uppercut punch directly to her jaw.

There’s video (of course), and I must say, it was quite a shot. I don’t think this guy’s gonna be driving a bus again anytime soon. While I of course abhor violence, it appears that the woman in question wasn’t totally blameless.

New information has been released, identifying the bus driver as Artis Hughes and the female passenger as Shidea N. Lane. According to the police report, obtained by Cleveland.com, Lane allegedly got on the bus driven by Hughes without paying, claiming she forgot her backpack. She proceeded to ask “Are you putting me off the bus?” and “Is this how you treat people in Cleveland?” Lane eventually paid and called Hughes a “bitch.” The two got into a verbal argument, according to the police report, and Lane reportedly proceeded to grab Hughes’ throat, spit in his face and strike him with her fist.

If you’re gonna spit in somebody’s face and then punch them, well, you probably shouldn’t be terribly surprised when they deck you. Just sayin’.

Oh well, time to get on with the day. Happy Monday.