Open memo to today's Okies

Firstly, how does one lose a SHOE in the street or on the highway? I see this all the time: just, like, one Air Jordan laying in the middle of a highly trafficked road. Do people not notice that when they are flicking their Vantage butt out on the roadway that they are, indeed, also letting a shoe fly out? Or what?

But THAT is just a teaser for my real point: if you are moving and have all your crap strung to the top of the Buick, TIE IT DOWN. This time of year, in particular, I see a clump in the middle distance of a thoroughfare and feel my heart sink to the basement, guessing as I get closer that I will soon be staring directly into a little feline face that was struck inanimate by a car tire. As I get there, however, I see it's just a shirt or some shitty denim jacket with Yosemite Sam stitched on it. For god's sake - pack shit up tighter. So much of one's energy is wasted on these false alarms.

Another day in Southwest Ohio

Man at scene of fire said he was cooking meth, then said it was beans - DDN

This is amazing, natch. Did he actually go "It was meth...er - beans! I meant to say beans!"?

Even better would be an English-style stiff retort, as in "that's a crock of/you're full of":

Officer: "We know you were cooking meth up in here!"

Suspect: (defiantly): "BEANS!"

What rough beast...

The snow is blowing in east to west at the moment!

Plus, as if further proof were required that the last times are at hand, my copy of Coming Up I just decided to listen to has all sorts of modem blips and blurts all over it. And is useless. USELESS!

Message from 2006:

Netflix is awesome.

Too far

Most popular baby names 2010

Girls

1. Isabella

2. Emma

3. Olivia

4. Ava

5. Sophia

Boys

1. Ethan

2. Jacob

3. Noah

4. Manktin

5. Logan

????

That is to say, "The rest of them."

News item:

Half of Ohio's adults may be obese by 2018

Nearly FIFTY years ago

I love the Beatles. Who doesn't (actually, people who dislike the Beatles are unfailingly assholes, in my experience. "Tom Waits, maaaan..."...that sort)? In fact, I am probably downloading a Beatles album right now.

BUT - and this is hard - in 2014 it will FIFTY years since the adorb Moptops arrived on these sordid shores. Fifty. That's half a century. BTW.

Maybe it's time to give the Beatles a rest.

Maybe this blog can act as an indemnifying (that's not the word I want, I want something like "bolstering" but it's 6:29 am est and I have a headache) influence and start a societal tsunami to have some other body of work be canonized for a while. Maybe Bowie records? Yes, Bowie records from Hunky Dory to Scary Monsters.

Help start this profound societal shift TO-DAY!

A thought on that balloon kid thing

My first thought when the balloon kid was going on, a la a baby down a well, was "That goddamn Pixar makes those Up! movies and this sort of thing will happen! There will be more of this!"



Then I thought of ABC's awful 1989 record Up, which blew utterly except for "Where is the Heaven?" I had looked forward to it, but its stale-on-arrival house pianos and puny drum machines very much disappointed. But Thao Nguyen's new record is great, and it arrived at the same point of the year this year that the ABC mess did twenty years ago. SO, 2009 actually, in toto of records I've really liked, actually BEATS 1989, the heretofore standard-bearer!

This is actually what I thought, while the Breaking News red-bar was still up on CNN.com!

From the mouths of (doomed) babes

"It's weird having a rare disease," - an eight year old we know, home from school with the H1N1.

Oh, it's weird for now, wee one. But wait until the streets are full of the bodies of the unrighteous and the star Wormwood burns bright over Washington DC!

This snuck up on me...

No, goddammit, I was just looking to see if you were paying attention. "Snuck" is not a word! I don't care what the dictionary says, nor do I give a rip about "acceptable slang." Jesus. Where are the standards?

This rant brought to you by Apple, with their new iPod banner ads declaring the latest version to be the (get ready) "funnest iPod ever."

So, when dipshit tweens say "funnest" they can go, "Nuh uh, it's a real word, that Wozniak dude sezz!"

2012!? I'm barely done eating the stored Y2K grain!

Was in the heart of the little 'burg where my day-job is quartered and in a street window...wait, let me back up. On one side of this sorta-junk shop store front, with an old-fashioned street-facing window, as in a small town - on one side there were three GIANT lizards, sitting in a faux-tree and sunning themselves in under a heat lamp seemingly appropriated from a defunct Arby's. Then, on the other side of the door, there was another recessed window showcase-dealie with some, well, junk in it - old dressers for sale, a dusty mirror - but on the glass in front of that was a huge green sign saying something about

READY FOR 2012?

and a web address, probably where one could buy weapons and Bactine. Good grief! See, ca. 1998 I got all up in the Y2K worrying for about a month - "Those Russian missiles are hard-wired, dude, and when those clocks flip to zero, they may launch themselves!" You can see I have an expert grip on techno-jargon, yes. And, even failing a nuke-throwdown, surely all power would go off, the ever-grey skies would be constantly whipping flags to shreds and a cold, metallic whine would be emanating from somewhere, and, if you dared to venture out, when you stopped to look over the burning skyline from a high vantage point in town and your hand came to rest on a fencepost in front of you, you would feel something sticky and looking down it was someone's fucking eyes - anyway, you may have noticed nothing happened.

So, I refuse to buy any damn thing extra, except maybe some more hot sauce. Mayan hot sauce, though, to fend off the evil pyramid spirits! Or something.

Also, a friend says he intends to reset his website so it's nothing but a countdown clock to 2112, then pay it in advance for a hundred and three years.

Thank you all!

The Bride is in our nation's capital for some sort of windbaggy work jamboree or other - words such as "modality" are being tossed around as if they meant anything.

She vexted me a bit ago (yes, a fresh coinage!) to say "Someone just said "the new normal."

Now, certainly, "new normal" had its roots elsewhere, but it has definitely blossomed on this here blog!

I had no idea one could make such an impact, etc. I will try to remain humble and stay focussed on the tasks at hand.

I do expect an exasperated message later: "Grr - someone just mentioned 'vexting' already! Arrgh!"

Such is the power of the internet - indeed, the NEW NORMAL.

Deforestation nearly leads to defenstration

OMG, WTF?

So yesterday, on my snow day from the job (I'm non-essential - would you have guessed?), I'm glancing out the window to see just how bad it really is and my favorite tree was gone!

Not so much the tree as the fact that there was some sort of card on a string that fluttered in the upper branches - I actually assume it was the "mail me back to:" card from a primary school balloon launch. If they still have those, which I doubt, since the balloon nipples* can choke Canadian cranes or something. This little card would flit in the wind, flipping from red to shiny white and made it even through the Big Wind of 2008. And now the whole tree is just gone! It must have been at least 100 years old because it was tall as frig. Even the stump is about 11 feet tall!

They certainly didn't check with me as to whether this was okay.

Maybe this will clear a view to a single star or some poetic horseshit, but grrr, regardless.

* also my nickname in elementary school

But what if...?

Suppose that all the talk of dearth of sunspot activity pans out and global warming retreats (as it is doing) and things go all Hoth. I mean, it's -13 as I type, coldest morning since 1994, locally.

Too soon to tell, of course. Still, the morning I wake to a news story about how much moolah Al Gore is making off climate change, I will know I can safely buy another sweater, not fearing for its possible lack of utility.

Sorry, Miss Golightly!

“’Snow flurries expected this weekend in New Orleans?’ Isn’t that just the weirdest?I bet they haven’t had snow in New Orleans for a million years!” Sorry, Holly! In grieving Fred and such, you forgot all about the NEW NORMAL! http://www.wdsu.com/news/18252159/detail.html and a message to Lulamae: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSMdGCWRLhQ