Friday, June 19, 2009

Nirvana & lithium ()

DISCLAIMER: this blog is mine & mine alone. Thou shalt not blame family nor friends nor employer for what you may read here.

Part I
For the record I'm not in a state of the former, nor am I under the influence of the latter. Just happens to be the artist & song on the rock music-on-demand station I just flipped on. Music-on-demand via cable TV is kinda cool. No commercials, and it takes less effort than putting together an MP3 playlist or finding a CD I can listen to from start to finish. And I can output the music through my Bose speakers & get it loud enough to be highly satisfying.

weather
It is fucking cold in Florida. Well, today was better, but we're still 10-15 degrees below normal. I know, I know, I know, I'm whining. Weather is all relative. On work days I get up to let the dogs out & have coffee on the porch, and fire up my cell phone to check email (yes, I check email before 7am, so sue me), and the second thing I do is open the weather widget. I have a few different cities set: Largo, St. Louis, Columbus, Lynchburg, VA and Grinnell, IA so I can check weather in the cities where my family & friends are. Every other location in my weather widget had sub-freezing temps this morning, and I think Grinnell took the prize at 12. So yeah, the 40's each morning this week wasn't bad when compared to the homes of most people I know. But god-damn did it feel cold to me! I was even wearing warm-up pants, a fleece pull-over (zipped all the way up), and socks, so it's not like I wasn't kinda sorta dressed for the weather. The bad thing is that I don't know where else I can move (as in farther south) where I can ever totally escape sub-60 degree temps. Antigua maybe? Hmmmm, that's an idea! I guess there's a part of me that enjoys feeling a bit of chill in the air, but I enjoy it for all of ten minutes, and then I'm well over it. The only good thing about the chill is that I can wear jeans & some bitchin' long-sleeve shirts I have that I usually don't.

The general state Of affairs
This week the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) dropped below 8000 for the first time in forever. Can things get any worse? I'm afraid they can, and they will. How much worse? Nobody really knows. Pondering the thought of how much worse the economy can get is kinda like wandering into the deep corners of your psyche where your darkest fears reside: you just don't wanna go there. But it's fugly to say the least. Unemployment up, consumer spending down. National debt: up. Consumer confidence: down. Wall Street had to be put on life support, now the Big Three automakers need a crash cart, STAT. WTF has happened to this county, the state of business, and all of us? 16 months ago the market was booming, things seemed very rosy. Since then we've been on a steady course of crash & burn. I don't have any answers, all I know is that we all need to pull together to get our collective shit together & right the ship. Part of me wonders why the gov't doesn't enlist the help of some of the more exceptional financial minds like Warren Buffet, maybe Mark Mobius. Doing things the same way over & over, yet expecting different results, is just damn foolish. We need revolution, not evolution.

Sports
I hate to say it, but my zeal for professional sports seems to be waning. The NFL has lost some of its zip, some of its appeal to me. The Tennessee Titans are 10-0, BFD. The 'Jersey Giants are steamrolling almost everyone in their path. The Detroit Lions suck ass, as usual. There are a few interesting stories like the turmoil in Dallas, the emergence of Matt Ryan (the rookie QB in ATL), but nothing terribly interesting. I used to watch almost any game that was on TV, just cuz it was professional football. But not this year. I can barely sit through an entire Bucs game. Part of it is that the Bucs offense is well, offensive. Putrid, pathetic, weak, unimaginative, and totally unthreatening. Maybe I'm going through the onset of adult ADD, I dunno. But the league is different this year. There's not hated villain to root against (the New England Patriots), no sorry lot to root against (i.e. to go winless, like last year's Miami Dolphins. WAIT, we still have the winless Lions...) no incredibly good teams tearing it (each other, and everyone else) up.

I lost my interest in & love for the NBA once Michael Jordan left the Bulls after the second three-peat. The pro hoops game just hasn't been the same since. LeBron James is an amazing talent, but I fear that he doesn't have the same drive to win that MJ did, and I think eventually LBJ will be driven by money & individualistic glory & fame the way so many budding stars in the post-MJ era are/have been. Chris Paul & the New Orleans Hornets piqued my curiosity last year, and they might again this year come post-season, but no single player nor teams rivets my attention the way the Bulls did. No team drives me to watch regular season games from opening jump to the final horn, and I doubt any will again.

I think the only two sports that really take me away are baseball & Formula One racing. I think it's the relative purity of baseball, the strategy, the way the game has remained relatively the same over the past years, and the absolute emphasis on the team play concept that captures me. I don't know what it is about F1...well, I kinda do. I'm a bit of a speed freak. I drive an absolutely regular, un-outstanding car, but I love to go fast whenever I can. I love to drive the twisty-turnies. I live to find the apex of a corner & see myself taking it in text-book fasion: brake early, hit the apex, accelerate out. Even if traffic disallows the practice, I love the theory of it. I have an inner Speed Racer.

Misc.
The great ass-kicking project I've been working on at work is finally... the end is in sight; we will achieve the desired, expected result, end-game. By this time next month I should be 99% d-u-n, stick a fork in it, at the finish. Granted there will be some post-implementation dust-settling to do, but the hardest part will be over. And I cannot say how good that will feel! It's been nearly a year - on second thought, more than a year? - since I kinda sorta took over, and it's high time we get this thing put to bed. It's been a ton of work, a lot of hours, some 15+ hour days, working weekends, nights, etc. but to see it all come to fruition will be incredibly satisfying. Especially since I took on so many new responsibilities in this project & did things I've never ever done before, to see it all come together feels good. I'm sure it matters not to you, but it was most definitely a team effort, and I wouldn't be looking forward to The End if it wasn't for people from Cali to FL to India to make it happen. But it goes w/out saying that once this thing is done, come sometime early '09, I'm due for a week of vacation - downtime spent sleeping in, vegging in the house w/the dogs, working out, chillaxing at the beach, and generally doing nothing.

Well, I think that's it for now. Stay warm, be cool, enjoy Thanksgiving, and all the best throughout the holiday season. Cheers!
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Guy Fawkes Day approacheth (Sunday, November 02, 2008)

DISCLAIMER: this blog is mine & mine alone. Thou shalt not blame family nor friends nor employer for what you may read here.


"Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot."

V for Vendetta is one of those movies I can watch over & over, and never tire of. I highly recommend it. At this moment it's the only recording I rue deleting from my DVR. Makes me long to hear Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

For more on Guy Fawkes, read away...
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Things that make ya go "hmmm" (political) (Tuesday, October 28, 2008)

DISCLAIMER: this blog is mine & mine alone. Thou shalt not blame family nor friends nor employer for what you may read here.

Sent to me via email, the article is here.

Republican elected officials endorsing Obama

Other national Republican figures endorsing Obama

Support for Obama from writers affiliated with conservatism

The Economist on "The Rise of the Obamacons" and their influence:

The biggest brigade in the Obamacon army consists of libertarians, furious with Mr Bush's big-government conservatism, worried about his commitment to an open-ended "war on terror", and disgusted by his cavalier way with civil rights.

For many conservatives, Mr. Obama embodies qualities that their party has abandoned: pragmatism, competence and respect for the head rather than the heart. Mr. Obama's calm and collected response to the turmoil on Wall Street contrasted sharply with Mr McCain's grandstanding.

How much do these Obamacons matter? More than Mr McCain would like to think. The Obamacons are manifestations of a deeper turmoil in the Republican rank-and-file, as the old coalition of small-government activists, social conservatives and business Republicans falls apart. They also influence opinion.

The more tantalising question is whether the rise of the Obamacons signals a lasting political realignment.

If the Republican Party continues to think that the problem lies with the rats, rather than the seaworthiness of the ship, then the Obamacons are here to stay.

So I just gotta ask, if all these people are endorsing Obama, many of whom are conservative ideologues, and some like Powell & McClellan actual former members of the Bush regime, why aren't you? BTW, rhetorical question here...
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