I am really glad we don't have tails...

Yesterday was National "Bring Your Dog To Work" day.  As a result, many of my co-workers brought their dogs to work.  Having dogs in the office is not conducive to productivity but it is a lot of fun.

One of the things I noticed though, is that it really must suck to have a tail.  It kinda looks like they (the dogs) do not have any real control over their tails.  The tail is sort of like this useless body part that has a mind of its own.  It goes into seemingly uncontrollable spastic movements whenever the dog is stimulated (which is always).  These crazy tails were smashing into file cabinets, desk legs and chairs all over the place.  Don't they feel pain in them?  I know I would.

Do four legged animals really need tails?  I am sure I could google it and find all kinds of reasons why they should have them.  I don't buy it.  Tree dwelling animals sure, but ground animals?  No.  I am NOT saying people should go cutting these tails off (I freaking hate that).

I suppose that ancestors of humans at some point had tails (we were monkey like once, right?).  But I sure am glad we do not have them now...

Church Bulletin Bloopers

Whether these are real or not (they claim to be), they are too funny not to share...

• The Fasting and Prayer Conference includes meals.
• The sermon this morning: 'Jesus Walks on the Water.' The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.'
• Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
• Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say 'Hell' to someone who doesn't care much about you.
• Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
• Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
• For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
• Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
• Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
• A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall.. Music will follow.
• At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice.
• Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
• Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
• Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
• The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
• Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
• The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
• This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church.. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
• Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done.
• The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
• Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
• The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
• Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church.. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
• The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.'

Quoted in the Globe

Some shameless self promotion:

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2010/05/16/as_end_nears_lost_fans_still_swoon/?page=1

Preparing for the End....

"Lost" Opportunity

If you, like me, are a mega-fan of the TV show "Lost", then you, like me, are today asking the next big question to the producers and writers of the show:

"What the hell were you thinking last night?!"

Last night's episode featured the long awaited backstory of the two pivotal characters around which the entire mystery revolves - Jacob and the Smoke Monster (aka "Man in Black").  Not since the backstories of Benjamin Linus and Richard Alpert was there so much potential to unlock the many unanswered questions that we only have 3.5 hours remaining to answer.  This episode could have been the Rosetta Stone of the entire "Lost" series!

But instead?  Snooze-fest.  And not just any snooze-fest, not at all. A super snoozer which not only did not really answer anything, it actually only makes us ask more questions (and scratch our heads going "WTF?!")!  In fact, at one point, Allison Janney (normally I love her, btw) actually says to "Claudia"(Jacob and MiB's mother) that "answers only bring more questions" (or something like that) - I muttered "oh no" when she said it.  She makes this ominous, not remotely hidden by the writers display of foreshadow right after the dialog reverts to English from the ancient Latin it started in (thankfully for me, because I never really took Latin in school.  I mean, it seemed unnecessary given it was a dead language and all and I was not expecting to watch a show where characters would speak it).

I should have realized then and there that "Lost" and I were not going to get along last night.  The outing was an utter disappointment. Examples of what we learned:

• Jacob and Smokey are brothers born of a woman (possibly from ancient Rome given the Latin) named "Claudia" (a friend pointed out that the mother of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were also born of a woman named Claudia - obviously this matters - but we will never know how).
• Jacob and Smokey were raised by a woman other than Claudia (Allison Janney) who killed Claudia to properly raise the boys away from their fellow Romans and live away from them for like 14 years before they accidentally bump into them while running around unsupervised as boys often do.
• The island hides an enormous halogen light that a river runs through - probably to keep it cool and prevent it from starting a fire that could burn the house down, as these lights do sometimes.  This light must be protected or all mankind will cease to be (I really dread where this is going).
• Somehow when you drink wine on the island you understand everything about it (you are better off not asking - and I am better off not thinking any more of this).
• Even if magic is preventing you from killing someone you can still do it provided that the dead person turns into a smoke monster and re-appears as human in dead person form (their own dead self included).
• When faced with a giant underground light source, build a giant pinwheel to make it help you get off the island - because as we all know and we learned in Physics, "pinwheel + light source = means of travel" (ok, we already knew the pinwheel could get you off the island and send it jumping through time - but now we know WHY.  See? The source of my pain).

It basically just left me wondering why I have been bothering.  I find this funny because during the first season of non-sense (when the non-sense was still intriguing) I told myself that I would stop watching if the show ever went down the road of "absurd" (and I believe I used time travel and alternate realities as examples - imagine that).

I am beginning to worry about how this show will end.  There is just so much left to answer and I have invested some serious time in this show.  This final season has just been a mess - it feels like they have no idea what they are doing (the writers I mean).  And this is unfortunate because last season was so good.

The show is all about redemption.  And I hope it redeems itself in its final hours.  It started to feel like it was starting to in recent episodes.  But now it has lots of work to do.

I hope "Lost" finds itself before the end.

Conspiracy Theory

Recently while practicing the sacred ritual of working my ass off on the elliptical machine at the gym, I realized I was a captive audience.

There were three televisions in front of me, the one to my right showed some hockey game.  The one to the left showed some talk show on CNN.  The one directly in front of me?  An infomercial for a baking oven of some kind that featured all kinds of wonderfully delectable pastries.  I was listening to my iPod, so was not really doing anything other than drinking in the images.  And it suddenly occurred to me that I could not change the channel, nor could I turn it off.  I suppose I could have left, but still had 20 minutes left on my routine.  So there I was, watching the pastries - and getting nicely hungry.  And that hunger was only going to be satisfied by the consumption of pastries.  And it is the consumption of pastries that forces me to regularly go to the gym to do this routine in front of this television.

It was while thinking of this horrible endless cycle when I realized the truth!  It is a conspiracy between the Fitness and Fatness industries!

Bad Medicine

If Edie Falco does not win an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama (or is it comedy?) for "Nurse Jackie", I will kill myself.

OK, not really.  But this new half hour dark comedy from Showtime is one of the best new shows in ages.  And Edie Falco is great in it.  Even better than when she was my one time favorite television matriarch, Carmela Soprano.  What Falco does as Jackie is make us feel sympathy for a character who steals drugs, does them on the job, cheats on her husband (to facilitate the stealing of the aforementioned drugs), and lives a double life.  I have even read that her character is a very accurate portrayal of what a functional drug addict who is trying to hide her dark side might actually be like.  Kind of scary.

But another great thing about this show is the excellence of the supporting ensemble cast.  I do not think there is any character on this show that I do not enjoy watching (except maybe Kevin and Eddie - because I hate them).

I know where I will be on Monday nights - All Saints Hospital.

My Current Favorite Spam Message

Received at work today - classic. I never knew an email address could inspire such emotion (and she clearly does not know me very well - lol).

Hello,

How are you? i hope all is well with you, i hope you may not know me,

and i don't know who you are, My Name is Miss Aminata, i am just

broswing now and i see your email address and it seems like some thing

touches me all over my body, i started having some feelings in me which

i have never experience in me before, so i became interested in you, l

will also like to know you the more,and l want you to send me a email

so that l can give you my picture for you to know whom l am.I believe we

can move from here and see where nature will take us! I am waiting for

your mail (Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love and

good caring matters alot in life).

Miss Aminata.

Hugs and Kisses

It's been a while since I posted any update on the Bird, this blog's official mascot. Honestly, there has not been a lot to report. However, a recent development is somewhat amusing (to me).

Rick loves to get his head kissed, touched and tickled. He makes kissy noises when he wants a kiss, or starts screeching (or he just calls me by name). Whenever he gets into one of these kissy moods, if you go up to him, he extends his cheek out to get a nice big smacker right on his cheek. Sometimes I will mutter "what a bird" to him while I do this.

So how much does he love this? Well, recently, we heard him mumbling "what a bird" to himself in the mirror and then making a kiss sound. We peeked around the corner to watch. Every time he said "what a bird" he would extend his cheek into the air and make the kiss sound. He was PLAY KISSING - exactly the way he would get kissed if I was doing it myself.

What a Bird.

Some Things I Hate....

A quick venting before going off to bed:

• Facebook Groups that pray for the death of Barack Obama (I mean, come on!).
• Drivers who do not use directionals.
• Pedestrians who push the button requesting a walk signal but then do not wait for it.
• The obsession with puzzle pieces by the producers of "Survivor".
• Bicyclists who demand to ride in the streets of Boston but do not abide by traffic laws.
• People who walk and text/talk on their phones oblivious to what is going on around them.
• The Apple Store (see previous post for why).

Thanks for letting me vent. Good night!

Fruit Flavored

I have been experiencing an annoying problem lately with my iPhone (my most important appliance), so I decided to take it to the Genius Bar.

The Apple Store is a scary place. Since the start of my PC to Mac conversion (which you can read more about here), I cannot escape its clutches without spending money there. It is almost like I have to pay to leave. I walk in and am immediately surrounded by pleasant sights and sounds, friendly smiles and that ever present Mac lover attitude that there is nothing better on this Earth than something produced by Apple (which might not be wrong).

But I am determined not to spend money! I purchased AppleCare for this device and intend to get it fixed without cost and not buy any unnecessary accessories (or yet another MacBook). So I proceed directly to the Genius Bar and do not look around (despite the fact that the MacBook Pros immediately started to call to me and the new 24" iMac kept taunting me all the way from the second floor).

The problem I was experiencing was a major problem for me. When listening to music for more than 30 minutes or so, the Voice Command would start popping up, looking for input. Every time it did, it would force me to hit "Cancel" to get my music back - and NOTHING gets between me and my music!

Some quick online research indicated that there might be a problem with my headphones (and particularly the microphone for for the phone part). I knew this was probably the cause, as I have sent my headphones through the laundry at least five times. Of course, I did not tell the Genius who attended to me about this fact, as I was fairly sure this info might void my AppleCare coverage and plan for getting a free replacement. The Genius did give me a new headset, but also spent some time explaining (in detail), how I could completely restore my iPhone to eliminate any software glitches. I smiled and nodded a lot, as I had already done this and only wanted my free headphones.

I escaped as soon as I had the headset, but naturally stopped at the accessories wall and bought my second case (I need color options...).

It Makes No Census

About six weeks ago (or so), on a Friday, I received an envelope from the US Census Bureau. Knowing that 2010 was a census year, and it had been advertised all over the place for some time, I assumed it was the census form.

It was not. It was a mass mailing (to I assume all American households) that let us know we could soon expect the census form, with a nice reminder that when we do receive it, we should fill it out and return it as soon as possible. For easy reference, we shall refer to this mailing as the "pre-census form form". This mass mailing reminder was filed appropriately.

The next Monday (2 mail days later), the full form was received in the mail. That was, indeed, "soon". So soon that I feared that some Americans, if they had gone away for that weekend, might confuse the pre-census form form envelope with the actual census form envelope and "file appropriately" the wrong one. "No!" I screamed at no one in particular. "What will happen?!" I questioned my front hallway. I decided that I would go fill out the actual census form and return it immediately to take my mind off the situation.

About two weeks later, I received a post card from the US Census Bureau, politely reminding me to fill out my form and return it. We will refer to this post card reminder as the "post-census form form". I was annoyed now. I actually did mail mine in and was certain they had received it by now.

So I started really thinking about how much this whole effort is costing us (taxpayers). I am sorry but with all the on the ground manpower - media and print advertising and online presence that this year's census has got going for it, did BOTH the pre-mailer and post-mailer really need to get sent (and paid for by us)?

It does not make census to me.

First Contact

I recently made the jump to contact lenses, freeing myself from the chains otherwise known as my glasses.

Wisely, I decided to make this transition during the first half of April, a time in New England where the air is filled with some magic powder called "pollen" that I am apparently very allergic to. This magic powder apparently fuels the life cycle of the various plant beings. It also irritates my eyes terribly - I must keep this substance from my enemies.

This year, there are record pollen counts. These record pollen counts are not due to the weather conditions we experienced this winter, as the mystic meteorologists claim. These high counts are being experienced to make my contact lens transition as difficult as possible.

Despite this obstacle, I have taken to contacts better than I thought I would. I have never liked even the thought of putting something in my eyes. And any time that I tried to put drops in them, I just got the drops all over my face. So instead of soothing my eyes with them, the result was looking as if I had balled my eyes off.

Apparently this is not uncommon, so the Optometrist's office provides training for new users. When the "trial contacts" were ready for me, I dutifully appeared for orientation. The Optometrist's assistant first showed me how she removed and applied hers. She was sporting colored lenses, a yellow gold to go for that appealing "Cullen Vampire Family" look we all aspire to.

She made it look so easy - in and out in seconds. Me? Different story. I fumbled for about 15 minutes before I got one in. But when I finally got both in, blinked a few times and looked at my iPhone, a new world appeared! I could see! Without my glasses! I was so excited that even though it looked like I had been crying for 30 minutes that I could not wait to get back to work to tell everyone! But, NOT SO FAST!

Now, I had to get them out. Ugh! I had to demonstrate to the vampire-eyed assistant that I can put them in and get them out. Oh well, eventually I got it done.

The first few days were terrible - I struggled getting them in and out and my eyes constantly felt like there was a small brush fire in them. I did make a great discovery though. Once you can get the drops to land in your eye, they feel really good.

However, two weeks into the mission now I can plug em in, pull em out with ease, and no longer need the drops every day. I sometimes forget they are in there.

They are high maintenance though, and I am not. So wondering how long this future will last. It better last at least a year - I bought that many!

It's About Time, Part 2

So right after I publish the last post, I go back to watching tonight's episode of "24" (no, I was not really watching that Discovery Channel show) and it occurs to me that if there is any evidence of time travel already in existence, it is all over "24".

"24" has always taken creative license with the concept of portraying events in "real time". But this season it is just ridiculous. I mean one minute the President is in her office, the next (minute, literally) she is in her car being whisked through Manhattan and on the phone with CTU and the very next minute (yes, minute) she is arriving at CTU (which appears to be across one of the NYC rivers). No one, not even the President, can manage that. And don't get me started about last week's sexual congress between Jack Bauer and Renee Walker. Because that encounter when from "Status=Clothed" to "Status=Finished and Cuddling" during one commercial break. Having us believe that about Jack Bauer's "skills" is, well, cruel.

Unless....., they (CTU and/or the Secret Service) have time travel capabilities. That could explain a lot on that show.

It's About Time, Part 1

Tonight, the Discovery Channel's show "Sci-Trek" is going to explore how time travel could actually happen.

This is good, as I have personal need for time travel and look forward to its availability. But even if I did not have that need, I would support any effort to explore the feasibility of time travel. Because the concept itself is just so damned cool.

However, I can see how the introduction of time travel into the mix could cause some problems. I have watched enough "Star Trek" to know we can't all just go around changing events in the past, right? Other than me, that is. It is the whole "step on a mosquito one million years ago" problem after all.

I know what you are thinking - "it's time travel", you'll say, "if we screw something up we can go back again and fix it". "Hmmm", I would respond then ignore you. Although this worked well for Doc Brown and Marty McFly, I do not see it working in real life time travel applications. In order to manage the process and avoid the accidental elimination from very existence some Earth based life forms (such as us), we must create an international agency to manage it.

Naturally, Jean-Claude Van Damme will head this agency. Until this organization is created and in place, be wary of any day-to-day changes around you. They could be caused by rogue time travelers.

That is, unless you run out of time .....

Get Lost

If you, like me, are a fan of the ABC show "Lost" (currently playing out its final season), then you, like me, are asking yourself the big question...

What the f..k??!!

Really, when this show started six years ago, were the writers actually thinking to themselves (at that time), "seriously, it will all end with two alternate realities working themselves to some common ending that will resolve a space time disruption caused by a nuclear explosion that will result from a miscalculated detonation inspired by the Hero"? I sort of don't think so. In fact, I am pretty sure that when they started, they had no clue how this was going to move forward.

Despite this, we all still watch the mess. Possibly because nothing else since "Melrose Place" (the original) has made us wonder what writers were smoking. The fact they brought back Desmond and Penny has made up for the horrible start to the season. Let's just hope the last episodes can make five years of loyalty worthwhile!

I suppose in this case, I can even look forward to being disappointed.

Back from hiatus (ok, not really)

OK, so not really a hiatus so much as I blew it off for two years. However, I am going to try to start this up again. I find writing therapeutic, and I am starting to do it again at work, so I need the practice.

I might slowly backfill some highlights of the past two years, but for now let's just say they were good and bad (what years aren't?). All you need to know:

• The Bird is still around, and will continue to inspire
• The Partner is too, but so is the cancer (six years now) - he will also inspire (he always has)

Love,

Jack

I'm Off to Hollywood

Hotel California

Flying High

I flew today from Boston to Los Angeles via American Airlines (which despite all its problems I still like, usually).

When I booked this trip, I did not consider the timing very well - it is school vacation week and apparently lots of people now take their kids to Disneyland in CA rather than Disneyworld in FL (damn them all!). When I get to the gate (after my usual battle with airport security), they are announcing the flight is overbooked and they are looking for volunteers to move to another, later flight. AA teases us with a free flight voucher, but I say NO. I want CA.

I board the plane and cannot help but notice the plane right next door (above) - Look at all the patch work holding that tail fin on! I hate traveling by air, but not because of fear of flying, just because I hate the whole process. But looking at this patchwork makes me suddenly worry about the act of flying itself.

Despite this, I have an very uneventful flight to LA - and a very nice week to escape the Boston winter.