Another day older...

I know it seems self serving to write about your own birthday on your birthday. But you know, why have a blog if you can't be self indulgent.

I have always had mixed feelings about my birthday. Being born the day after St. Patrick's Day has often left me with this "day late and a dollar short" feeling. But once I found out my father was adopted and having done quite a bit of research on my family tree, I really don't have any Irish roots to cling too, so not being born on St. Patrick's day is no longer an issue.

My birthday is the day before my brother's birthday. He is four years older than me. I am sure that me being born the day before his birthday did nothing to improve his feelings toward his baby brother when I was brought home from the hospital (which would explain why he would use any excuse to hit me while we were growing up). My mother used to more or less combine our birthday celebrations. On occasion she would recycle my cake for his celebration the next day.

I was raised Christian Scientist. And my mother's interpretation of the church doctrine was that we were neither born nor would we die. So she tried to downplay birthday celebrations as much as possible. I only recall one actual birthday party growing up that had anyone but my immediate family. I believe it was my 5th birthday. I had a Humpty Dumpty cake. One of my gifts was a Casper the Friendly Ghost doll. It had a string that you pulled and Casper would make friendly ghost pronouncements. Eventually the voice box wore out and it would only spout ghostly gibberish in a disturbingly raspy voice. I don't know what happened to the doll. It probably ended up on a farm with many of the dogs we had growing up that mysteriously disappeared. If I had it today, I imagine it would vetch a fair amount on eBay (as would my Munster Family lunch box that also vanished into the fourth dimension).

As I entered my early teens, my birthdays got even less special. When I turned 15, my mother wrapped up a package of underwear and gave it to me for my birthday. I know she had good intentions. Underwear is a necessary evil and I realize I probably needed some. But birthdays are for getting something you want, not something you need and would have gotten anyway. To this day, I do my best to avoid giving practical gifts.

It is funny how you look forward to birthdays when you were younger. I remember wanting to get older. Turning 18 meant I could vote. Turning 19 meant I could drink legally (in Idaho at the time). Turning 21 meant I was considered an adult and could gamble, drink and more or less partake in any vice that was taxable, legally. I guess the point I started putting on the brakes for wanting to get older was 25. Turning a quarter of a century old hit me at the time as auspicious. Next thing I knew I was 30. I blinked and I was 40 being serenaded at a downtown Red Robin by a pretty bad Elvis impersonator and then later that evening. standing on a table top in a Hooters down by Lake Union with several Hooters waitresses doing a very bored version of a happy birthday song.  Another decade screeched by me and I turned 50 (which put my anxiety about turning 25 seem silly).

Now I am 52. It is one of those in between birthdays that doesn't carry any direct baggage like 30, 40 or 50. Its only significance is that it puts me a step closer to 60 and that kind of freaks me out. It also signals to me that I have more of my life behind me than in front of me. I'm not looking forward to approaching the finish line and seeing the grim reaper with his checked flag waiting to wave me in.

So I take solace in the concept I've been toying with lately that time is not a straight line, but an circle or oval. Actually it is more like a ball of yarn that keeps winding around itself getting bigger and bigger, occasionally overlapping, but not necessarily repeating. If that is true, then my mother had it right all along. Life neither begins nor does it end. It just is.

Silence of the shamrocks

The Web is all abuzz about a shamrock shortage in Ireland threatening St. Patrick's Day celebrations on the Emerald Isle. Harsh winter weather coupled with new farming practices (treating the beloved Irish plant as a weed since it essentially is)  has severely diminished the availability of shamrocks.

Personally, I could think of worse disasters on St. Patrick's Day. It is not as if they have been hit with a shortage of green beer or corn beef and cabbage. Give me a break.

Shoot I have several shamrock plants myself. Which leads me to wonder how they could have a shortage in Ireland. I can't seem to kill mine. My cats eat the shamrocks down to the nubs every couple of weeks and the things snap right back.

And since there doesn't seem to be a shortage of shamrocks in the states, (you can find them in any grocery store around this time of year) perhaps we should organize a Shamrock Aid movement here to ship some to our friends in Ireland. I'm sure all of the various iterations of the Lord of the Dance productions could go on television and stage a telethon to raise money for the effort. And U2 and Bono are big on causes. I am sure they could bring a tear to the eye of the American public over the shamrock blight in Ireland.

And what kind of Irish name is Bono anyway? Isn't that the name of the guy who was married to Cher? Oh, after a brief Google search I discover that it is a nickname. It is short for the latin Bonovox which means "good voice." I could debate that because I'm not a big U2 fan.

But I digress.

I wonder if the Illuminati have something to do with this whole shamrock shortage thing. After all the shamrock is supposedly the symbol St. Patrick used to teach the heathens that used to inhabit Ireland about the Holy Trinity and the Catholic Church. Maybe we need Tom Hanks to investigate. Hold the word "shamrocks" up to a mirror and it reads "skcormahs," by the way. That must mean something. Maybe it is Klingon.

Oh well, Happy St. Patrick's Day anyway!

The blog/time continuum

It occurred to me, that since most people stumble on my blog doing random Google searches, most of what I write may seem like nonsense. But to quote Gary Zukav, "Nonsense is nonsense only when we have not yet found that point of view from which it makes sense."

Taken out of context most of what I write is nonsense.  But since the only person who has followed my blog from the very beginning and stayed with it up until now is me. So everyone else lacks the continuity of understanding where I came from and how I arrived at where I am.

It is that fourth dimension of the space/time continuum that physicists banter about. We are all three dimensional creatures so we are unable to perceive a fourth dimension. We can only intuit that it is there. This is true in blogs and this is true in life.

Think about it. It is rare that you have someone in your life (other than yourself) who knows everything that happens to you from the beginning to the end, day in and day out. People pop in and out of your life at various points. And they only know you as who you are at that point in your life. Oh, you can recite your story from the beginning and watch their eyes glaze over right around the point where you describe how you were potty trained at a very late age. And sometimes they retain some of what you have explained about your past. But more often than not you are to other people that person they perceived from the time they met you.

Even people who know the present you aren't with you 24/7.  Your spouse isn't around you during that 8 to 12 hours that you are at work and your co-workers aren't around you that other 8 to 12 hours you are at home. Most people's families are only around them on holidays and funerals. So you end up knowing people in chunks of time and filling in the gaps with your own projections of who a person is.

So is it any wonder people feel misunderstood most of the time?

Reading an unfamiliar blogger's most recent post for the first time is like arriving at an archeology dig after all the dirt has been cleared from a tomb. It is difficult to conceptualize how much dirt had to be carted away and sifted to get to this point. Okay, most blogs have archives. But who in their right mind is going to go back six years and read 800 or so posts just to see how the blogger arrived at where they are today?

And with search engines, most people don't even arrive at the latest post.  It's like someone finding your high school graduation photo, thinking it is a current photo of you and then discovering that you are really a middle aged man who no longer wears a tuxedo with a ruffled shirt (which is literally happens on many online dating sites that include "recent" photos).

I think I understand why people don't follow your blog or your life on a regular basis.  It is hard enough following your own life without taking on another one who isn't part of your immediate family.

But I also think I understand why I blog. It is a record of my fourth dimension. It's those parts of my life that don't go on a resume or into a biography. It is the odd little bits of minutia of my existence that explain on a broader level who I am.

I blog, therefore I am.

But I still don't like green eggs and ham (I couldn't resist saying that).

Saving daylight in a jar and other useless pastimes

I am not a big fan of daylight savings time. Moving the clock an hour forward screws me out of an hour's sleep. I lose enough of it already without the government mucking about with the clock. As it is, I end up wasting a beautiful commute by train along the Puget Sound staring at my own reflection in the dark glass. I'd rather see the sun or at least the brighter shades of gray that the sun eeks out for Seattle than my own less than sunny reflection.

I find it arrogant anyway that anyone would have the gall to regulate time to begin with. Why do we have to parcel it out in neat little portions? Isn't good enough to say it is day when the sun is out and night when it isn't?

I think when the government has to get in the business of telling everyone what time it is, then they have too much time on their hands. And if they have too much time on their hands than why do we need to save it anyway.

I should write a letter to whatever government commission there is that dreams up and regulates time and ask them to free up some of the time that have on their hands and stop messing around with springing forward and falling back. Just changing all of the clocks and watches in my house wastes alot of my time. And I can never figure out how to change the time on my cheap digital watch that I bought to wear when I travel so that people in third world countries wouldn't think that I had any money even though they know that you are American and have much more money then they do and can afford to travel to third world countries in the first place. Ever time I try to change the time on that watch I end up switching it to military time and starting a stop watch that I can't stop. And I really hate military time because I have too much to think about already without subtracting 12 from whatever time the watch says in order to figure out what time it really is. But since I can't figure out how to change the time and end up switching it to military time I end up having to subtract 12 hours and then add an hour to make up for daylight savings time. Or I suppose I could just subtract 11 hours and have done with it.

But I digress.

I really don't like daylight savings time.

Aunty-social media

I'm getting sick of hearing the phrase "social media marketing" bantered about like it is the new savour of businesses looking to lure in the face of a "sagging economy" (another phrase I'm sick of). Social media has become the new spam. I can't even tell you the last time I got an e-mail from Nigeria offering me millions of dollars in exchange for my bank account information. I kind of miss the spam wars.
But I digress.

Being ever the forward thinking person, I have been trying to think of what the next trendy thing will hit the digital world once people realize that the emperor that is social media isn't wearing any clothes. So I am looking into developing an anti-social media site. Maybe I'll call it Defacebook or Hater. Instead of friends or followers, you could have enemies or stalkers.  The point of the site would be to alienate people as opposed to networking. Lord knows I've been doing that my entire life.

Of course, I Googled Defacebook and someone has already thought of it. They will now go on my list of enemies. There is also a Hater.com created by a major league loser. He's on my list.

Let's see, what other things could I call the site. Facebutt.com has been used. So has Inyourfacebook.com. Erasebook.com is out there. I was thinking maybe started Facedbook as a site where you could post drunk comments. But that is used as well. Shoot, Debasebook.com is gone as well. Somebody snagged outtamyfacebook.com, too. Wait! Getoutofmyfacebook.com is available! But I'm not paying $10.95 a year to register it. Sigh.

There isn't much wiggle room on creating an anti-Twitter site. I imagine Shitter.com has been used, but I'm not going to Google it at work. Mindlessprattle.com is available, however. But it would be too close to encouraging the same content as Twitter. Antitwitter.com has been taken, but Auntytwitter.com is available. I'm not sure most people would get the pun, though.

This confirms my theory that there are no new ideas or products left in the universe. There are just new ways to package them. So maybe I'll just go work on my Facebook page.

I could have been somebody...

"You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am..."
--Marlon Brandon in On the Waterfront

At what point in your life do you start having those "I coulda been somebody" moments? I know I started having them in my early 20s as I switched majors five or six times and settled on Journalism. Then I had them as I meandered through a career that didn't really have much to do with Journalism. At the same time I had them about my attempts at getting published. I continue to have those moments every now and then as I crest the hill of middle age.

Youth has this nasty habit of slipping away in a cowardly fashion. There is only so long you can kid yourself that aging is only happening to everyone else around you. It is that damned mirror that shatters the delusion.

But, I console myself with the Zen-like response that rather than dwell on who or what I could of been, I should accept who I am and strive for who I want to be.

It sounds good anyway.

Sometimes, when I rail on about never having carved a niche of fame for myself that would mean I left my mark on the world, I remind myself that even the famous are only famous for a moment. Especially in this digital age where ADD is the norm, things don't even remain in the public eye the standard 15 minutes prescribed by Andy Warhol.

Time makes even somebodies into nobodies. I imagine that someday even (forgive me for saying this) Elvis will be forgotten. Monuments crumble, pages of words turn to dust, and names of the faces in photographs are forgotten long before the photographs themselves fade away. So it is ironic that we are obsessed with being remembered.

At this point in my life I am content that the most important thing that I have accomplished and will leave behind me is my children.

So I guess I am a somebody after all.

Is this blog on?

Although I am a seasoned (but not necessarily tasteful) blogger, I still find myself tentative when I explore the other social media outlets such as my new Twitter toy. It reminds very much of when I got my first tape recorder as a kid. I was so excited about it, but the first time a microphone was turned on in front of me I froze. Then maybe I'd dip my toe into the waters and murmer a soft, "testing, one, two, three."

The problem is and always has been thinking about what I want to say. I am a much better writer when I just write. And I am much cleverer when I am not trying to be clever.

Such is life.

I follow Rainn Wilson on Twitter. He plays Dwight on the Office. I follow him not because I particularly care about what he has to say, but because his was one of the first names I recognized when I signed up for Twitter and was given a list of people to potentially follow. I am one of about 1.8 million people who follow him. I can't even imagine a fraction of that many people reading what I wrote on the spur of the moment. But so far Rainn seems unfazed by the whole thing and tweets away random posts all the time.

I bet he doesn't even think about it. I would be sweating bullets over each word and then regretting it when I hit the button to post. That is the difference between writing and tweeting. A writer traditionally crafted his or her words carefully over time, edited them, reread them, submitted them for publishing, had them rejected several times and then if the publishing gods were feeling in a particularly favorable mood, published. Bloggers and tweeters just crap out the stuff and flush it into the digital ether.

Not that there isn't some art to writing and publishing almost in the same breath. That old adage about a thousand monkeys hammering away at typewriters eventually producing the complete works of Shakespeare holds true with the blog and twitter worlds as well. True greatness can be achieved by any monkey if you place the banana bits on the right keys.

Dark train ride of my soul

I have to admit that, after all of my derisive comments about Twitter, I am kind of getting a kick out of blurping out random tweets. It is kind of liking having digital Tourette Syndrome.

The "dark train ride of my soul" tweet just came to me as I sat on the train this morning staring at the dark, churning waters of the Puget Sound. It was just such a contrast to the weekend. Saturday was actually balmy with blue skies as far as the eye could see. But I blinked and we return to the dismal charcoal drawn landscape that is the Pacific Northwest.

Cool as I think "dark train ride of my soul" is, I stole a bit of it from one of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams. In addition to writing the brilliant Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, he wrote a series of books featuring Dirk Gently and his holistic detective agency. One of the best was called, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul. It has been so long since I read it that I couldn't even tell you much about the plot, but it was funny as hell.

But partially plagerized or not, "dark train ride of my soul" still has a nice ring to it. It adds a little contrived intrigue to what is a pretty mundane commute. If anyone actually reads my random tweets (or this blog) they might imagine I am thinking deep thoughts while I ride the train rather than wondering what my wife packed me for lunch.

There is a certain irony to visualize public transit as a conveyor of souls and that the road to enlightenment would have a route number. Charon, after all, collected fares. The only difference now would be he'd have to accept an ORCA smart card and deal with the bloody beeping it makes when you tap it on the reader before getting on the train.

I would suggest that the best conveyor of souls would be the train and not the bus. A soul train (pardon the pun) has much more dignity than a soul bus (not to mention being a heck of a lot more comfortable). Some could argue that an airplane would be the more appropriate conveyor of souls. But after my recent business trip to Fort Lauderdale and the hours of airports and flying coach, I think flying is closer to hell than to heaven.

Anyway, save your soul and gas. Take the train to work.

I tweet therefore I spam...

Hypocritical as it seems, I couldn't resist opening up a Twitter account after ranting about social media sites and smart phones yesterday. I actually had a Twitter account that I rarely used before. But it suddenly dawned on me that it could be an interesting experiment to tie one to my blog. And I have to admit I'm kind of beginning to get the hang of it (if not the purpose).

Near as I can figure, Twitter is for people who don't have the attention span that Facebook requires. This is not to say that Facebook truly requires any attention. It is basically a way to stay in touch with people without actually ever interacting with them. There is a ironic kind of beauty in that.

Twitter doesn't bother with niceties like sharing photos, lists, interests or terribly deep thoughts. It's more the place to share brain farts. And since brain farts like real farts shouldn't linger, you only have 140 characters at a time to spout whatever random thought you are trying to convey.

Just as Facebookers collect "friends," Twitterers compete to collect followers. Because the more followers you collect, the more connected you are apparently supposed to feel. God knows you want as many people as possible to smell those oh so fragrant brain farts I was referring to.

And similar to blogging where you link to other people's blogs with the expectation that they will link to yours and create this parasitic relationship, I get the impression that when someone "follows" your tweets, they expect you to follow theirs. This is not unlike two people farting in bed and holding the covers over their heads.

I'm really beating this brain fart analogy to death.

So far, I've confined my tweets to word play with the words "tweet" and "twitter." I'm not sure how long I can keep that up. Eventually I will likely have to resort to mind numbing tweets about having popcorn stuck in between my teeth and trying to dig it out with a ball point pen cap. Or I could resort to mobile tweeting and get into the TMI category while voiding myself in the restroom. I think I'll pass on that option.

Pass on that option...get it? I crack myself up.

Tweeting actually comes easy to me. I have always been a pretty decent headline writer. It stems from my days working on the college newspaper before the digital age made it possible to make even the longest headline fit in the smallest space. In the days of typesetting, you had to write the headline to fit. I also like puns, so hopefully I'll never have to truly resort to mundane or TMI tweets.

I'll save those pearls for my blog.

Guess where I'm blogging from...

I have never hid my distain for cell phones. Before them, I hated land lines. Nothing good has ever transpired over the phone. But we live in a nation possessed by the need to stay connected constantly. This was very apparent on my recent trip to Florida.

I know it is not unusual to see people talking on cell phones in airports. And I have even got used to the fact that people will talk on their phones while locked in the semi-privacy of a restroom stall (but I still think it is disgusting). But I was appalled when I got off my plane in Houston, went into the restroom to use the urinal and there next to me was a guy talking on his cell phone while he was using the urinal.

Okay, what is so important that you can't wait until after you take a whiz to talk about. If it was a businss call, how professional could you possibly come across if you are holding your junk in one hand and talking on the phone with the other. He wasn't even using a Bluetooth headset for christ's sake.

I know I must appear to be a dinosaur when it comes to mobile technology, but I really think there are times in our lives when we need to unplug. I say this despite my addiction to my Blackberry and e-mail. Sometimes you have to just step away from Bluetooth and stop talking or texting. The bathroom is one of those places.

I say this even though the conference I attended had umpteen sessions on Social Media. The digital fungus of social media sites are spreading around the world. Our worldview is being condensed into 140 characters or less. Pretty soon we'll be saying, "Johnny can't read...but he cn txt!"

Other than my Blackberry, I have resisted wading into the smart phone world. I suppose eventually I'll give in. Then I too will relentlessly look for "apps" that will make the thing indispensible. God knows I need my phone to tell me I've walked 100 paces and burned three calories in the past ten minutes.

Oh well, I have to stop and go tweet everyone that I've blogged and make sure my RSS feed gets it on Facebook as well.

Mad as a hatter

First, I want to state that I like Johnny Depp. I don't personally know him, but I have always admired his acting if not always his choice of movies. I thought he was brilliant in Dead Man, the quirky Jim Jarmusch western. You can't diss on Edward Scissorhands and he played an uncanny Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing. And he has become synonymous with pirate for his role as Captain Jack Sparrow.

But he has made a few films of questionable quality such as Don Juan De Marco in which he co-starred with a Jabba the Hut looking Marlon Brando. And his interpretation of Willy Wonka in the remake was just downright creepy.

I write all of this because of the way Depp looks in his latest Tim Burton film, Alice in Wonderland. I haven't seen the movie yet (since it hasn't be released) but from the trailers, I have to say it looks as though he has taken his Willy Wonka character and ratcheted up the creepy factor threefold. Look at his photo and tell me he doesn't look like a drag queen version of Madonna (or maybe just Madonna).

I will likely still see Alice in Wonderland (when it makes it's way to cable). But I am betting I will be disappointed. It's not because it won't be true to the book. I always found the Lewis Carroll original incomprehensible and a bit creepy too. My daughter was given a pop-up version that gives me nightmares.

Now having said all this, I have to get something else off my chest about Johnny Depp. He was recently voted the sexiest man alive. Okay, I will admit that Depp, in his prime, was a pretty handsome guy. But he is only five years younger than me and from some of the photos I've seen of him on the red carpet, he looks like he should be holding up a cardboard sign and asking people for spare change. How is long, stringy hair and an untrimmed beard sexy? And speaking of untrimmed facial hair, somebody has got to tell Brad Pitt to lose the stupid beard.

I know this must sound like sour grapes on my part. I long ago gave up on the goal of becoming the sexiest man alive. But at least I try to comb my hair and shave once in awhile. If I'd known looking like I lived in my car was sexy, I would have given up bathing years ago.

BTW, did you know that the term mad as a hatter is thought to stem back to the days when people who crafted beaver top hats went a bit daft from inhaling the chemicals used to cure the beaver pelts.

I digress, but Johnny Depp still needs a makeover.

Fear or flight

Although I love to travel, I pretty much can't stand flying. Like everything, 9-11 and the recession have taken most of the fun out of it. I say this after having just returned from a business trip to Florida and having spent about 12 hours travelling yesterday (if you factor getting to the airport, checking in, waiting in security lines, cooling your heals at the gate waiting to board, standing in line on the plane while morons block the aisles trying to get a steamer trunk into the overhead bins, getting out of your seat four times to let the customer of size sitting in the center seat get up to go to the bathroom, cruising to the gate and waiting for your luggage).

Flying used to mean adventure (the good kind). There was a time when everything was included in the cost of your ticket. Even in coach you could get something that resembled a meal. The flight attendants used to treat you nicely and not like cattle. Now you have to pay to check luggage (which is why the morons try to bring luggage the size of Texas on board as a carry on and squeal like a stuck pig when they can't get it down the aisle). You have to pay for a snack. You have to pay for a drink other than soda or juice. Pretty soon I imagine they will make you pay to go to the bathroom (though that might deter that customer of size seated next to me from getting up four times in one flight).

I was fortunate on this trip to be able to upgrade to First Class on my way to Florida. But the perks of First Class have been reduced to being able to board first (after the wheel chairs, babies and old people with walkers), sitting in comfortable seats that aren't making you intimate with the person seated next you, free drinks and your own bathroom. Oh you do get that warm towelette before your premium snack.

I suppose they don't really treat you first class in First Class anymore because no one actually pays to be in First Class. Most people use frequent flyer miles to upgrade. Because the airlines are putting more and more restrictions on using the miles that prevent you from actually getting a free ticket anywhere. So First Class is basically filled with a coach class of people taking their shoes off and letting their dogs breath on the bulkhead.

Regardless, I used all of my First Class karma on the trip to Florida and had to suffer the indignity of coach on the way back. There isn't even a a pretense of treating people decently in coach anymore. At one point after forcing my way to my seat strategically located at the back of the airplane I wanted to scream, "I'm a man, not an animal" or "Soylent Green is people." But I am sure no one would have got either reference or cared. They were all just focused on getting their fair share of the coveted overhead bins.

I know I rant about airplane travel every year or so, but it just kills me that the airlines -- who I am sure are struggling financially like everyone else -- continue to pretend to give a rip about customer service. They could stop making the stupid announcements about "We know you have many choices in what airline you use and we sincerely appreciate you flying ______." For one none of us have any choice. We are at the mercy of who flys to where we want to go for the cheapest price. Two if you truly appreciated us flying your airline you wouldn't treat us like mindless cattle (though I admit most people in coach are mindless cattle).

Don't waste our time with the safety talk before each flight. If someone doesn't know how to buckle a seatbelt in this day and age, they shouldn't be let out unescorted. And if there really was an emergency you can bet it would be everyman for themselves the way it is trying to get your crap into the overhead bin.

I also don't care to hear from the flight crew. I don't give a rip about what altitude we'll be cruising at or the airspeed. And if I want to see the Grand Canyon, I'll visit the damned thing, so don't tell me it is visible out the left side of the plane because I've got a fricking customer of size blocking any view I'll ever have of the window.

And stop telling us to turn off and stow any electronic devices for take off and landing. My iPod and Kindle won't make the airplane drop like a stone if they are turned on. Nor will my tray or seat being in the full upright position really affect anything either. You are just yanking our chains for having to wait on people in the sky without getting tipped.

This is all my impassioned plee for high speed rail.

Your post here

I used to think it would be funny to order things like t-shirts and coffee mugs with "Your Name Here on them instead of your actual name. It was one of the many impulses I have curbed over the years in order to cruise under the radar while navigating life and avoid drawing too much attention to my quirky side. Having a quirky side isn't something that plays well in a job interview.

Although it is likely pretty obvious to people around me that I am quirky, I am by nature a shy soul and do not like draw attention to the fact. For that matter, I don't like drawing attention to me in general. At the same time I am closet rebellious soul and look at ways to voluntarily cull myself from the herd. I have a tattoo, but it is on my upper arm and is only seen when I am at the beach or working out at the gym. My ears are also pierced (a reaction to having to wear a suit everyday in the early 80s) but it has been quite some time since I have worn an earring. It just seems pathetic to me for a man over 50 to sport earrings....or ponytails or dyed hair or anything that reeks of resisting the ravages of time.

I have always resented being told what to do. But growing up fearing authority and recognizing that conforming brings home the bacon I usually do what I'm told and mutter under my breath about it. And yes, I realize that I am passive aggressive.

Speaking of resenting being told what to do, I hate signs. Nothing makes me want to do the opposite more than an obnoxious sign demanding I do or not do something obvious. We recently rented a vacation home for a couple of days at a beach resort. The first thing that greeted you when you got to the door was a cardboard sign that shouted: NO SHOES IN THE HOUSE. There were several more signs inside the house repeating the commandment. I was paying several hundred dollars to stay there plus a hefty cleaning fee. So I think I had paid for the right to wear shoes in the house if I wanted to.

All of this is a roundabout way to point out that a blog is a perfect medium for a shy, conforming non-conformist, passive aggressive personality looking for a creative outlet that doesn't require direct human interaction. I can expose my quirky nature in a safe environment without having to dye my hair blue or pierce exposed body parts. And since no one reads it, pays for it or directs it, I can experience the freedom of writing about whatever I want whenever I want.

And I do.

But god help me if anyone ever subscribes to my blog for Kindle. Flattering as that would be, it would put this burden of quality control on my whole quirky nature. Then I'd start resenting the yoke of oppression writing for a paying audience (although .99 a month for the pearls I toss out here is a pittance in the grand scheme of things) would place upon me.

I am such a tortured soul.

When holidays collide

Sunday was Valentines Day. It was also Chinese New Year. And then Monday was President's Day (though technically it was just Washington's Birthday). That is a lot of holiday's coming together. But at least Valentines Day and the Chinese New Year share red as the appropriate color.

Combining Washington and Lincoln's birthday into a signal holiday seems kind of sleezy to me. I think we should get every president's birthday off. I'm not sure who I would suggest this to however. But there has to be an office of official federal holidays. Or perhaps it needs to be a Congressional action to create a federal holiday. God knows it would be a meaty topic I'm sure they could sink their political teeth into.

The Chinese New Year isn't determined by Congress. It is determined by the lunarsolar Chinese calendar which I assume has something to do with the moon and sun, but after looking it up on Wikipedia, I pretty much glazed over and accepted that someone somewhere understands it. Regardless the Chinese New Year fell on Valentines Day this year and that probably won't happen again in my lifetime.

Not that I should care about Chinese New Year and Valentines Day coinciding this year. The only reason I got them off was that they fell on a Sunday. And a holiday that doesn't give me a free day off isn't really a holiday in my book. Odd that there is virtually no ritual associated with President's Day yet we get it off. I am suprised Hallmark hasn't figured out a way to sell cards for President's Day. We could give each other gifts of dead president's (slang term for paper money, not actual relics of presidential corpses). With my luck some searchbot for the FBI or CIA or NSA or whatever other federal police agency protecting my rights will find this and put me on a list as a threat to national security. I assure you I am only suggesting people give me gifts of money.

In addition to the traditional way of celebrating Valentines Day by giving cards, candy and romantic gifts this year, I got to spend part of my weekend at a Vet emergency hospital paying $170 to make a dog throw up Valentines Day chocolates.

Ironically it wasn't even my own dog. We were pet sitting for a friend of my wife's. We'd just picked up the dog and left it in the car while we did some grocery shopping. Clever person that I am, I told my wife that I was going to pick up a couple of gifts for the kids while she wheeled them around the store grabbing things off the lower shelves without our knowlege until we hit the check out line. I dashed over to the Valentine candy and bought her a heart shaped box of chocolates as a cute little gesture to go along with a card and present I'd already picked out. I then dashed out to the car and chose to hide the box of chocolates under the driver's seat.

It never occurred to me that the dog we were pet sitting for had a sweet tooth and would root out the box of chocolates like a truffle pig. When we returned to the car there was red cellophane all over the front seat and an open box of chocolates with half of the chocolates gone. My wife then informed me that one of the instructions the dog's owner had left was to make sure the dog didn't get into any chocolates because it had already had two trips to the emergency vet in its short dog life.

Although I'd had dogs as pets throughout my childhood, I had never been privy to the fact that chocolate is toxic to dogs (and cats for that matter). Our dogs had seemed to eat anything and everything without a problem. Anyway, when we got home, my wife called the vet number her friend had left her and someone from the vet's office got back to us and informed us that since it was a very small dog (some designer poodle mix) we should take it to an emergency vet so that the dog could be examined and forced to void the chocolates.

If I'd known it was going to cost $170 I would have stuck my finger down the dog's throat. It cost $99 just to walk in the place. I'd had the foresight to bring in the half empty box of chocolates which the vet's assistant weighed and determined that the dog probably hadn't ingested enough actual chocolate to have been harmed. But they decided to make the poor thing puke anyway to be on the safe side. Apparently the going rate for making a dog puke is $71.

After an hour at the vet's listening to a skinny, trailer park looking woman whine to another vet's assistant about her Rottweiler swallowing some large chew toy whole and her unsuccessful efforts to get the dog to pop the toy out of either end, I paid the bill and took temporary dog and the half a box of chocolates home. My kids were happy to see the dog (who seemed none the worse for wear for having scarfed and barfed half a box of chocolates). My wife tossed the remaining chocolates reasoning that the dog had probably licked them. So now I was out the vet bill and the price of the box of chocolates as well.

Now I am not sure, but I think all of this has something to do with Chinese New Year, Valentines Day and President's Day converging. But that is just my theory.

The stock yards

I am not what you would call a stock savvy person. And by stock, I am referring to the stock market, not livestock. Though I am not really livestock savvy either despite growing up in Idaho. Anyway, since the stock market took a dive a year or so ago and ate away at my meager retirement funds, I paid more attention to whether it was gaining or losing on a daily basis by checking the numbers on msn.com. They display the stock numbers in red if the market is down and green if it is up.

Okay, watching the market and what makes it go up and down (according to the mindnumbing commentary that msn.com offers up along with the stock reports) reminds me of herding sheep. Even though I don't know that much about livestock, I did hang out at my friends farm when I was a kid and we used to delight at spooking the sheep for entertainment. It didn't take much more than throwing sheep pellets (translated dried sheep shit) at them  to spook them into running from side to side in their pen.

That is Wall Street in a nutshell. One day the market is up because some report says consumer confidence is returning. The next day the market is down because another report says consumers are pessimistic about the economy. Unemployment isn't as high as expected sends the sheep running to the green side of the pen. The feds messing with rates sends the sheep running to the red side of the pen.

Baaaaaaaaah.....

I am not an economist. But I have lived through enough recessions to perceive that they are as much about people's perceptions as they are about the economic realities. You tell people that the economy is going down the toilet and of course they are going to curb their spending make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell them that there are green shoots and more likely than not they will be tuning into the Home Shopping Network like good consumers and giving the economy some well needed fertilizer to help those shoots (real or not) grow.

Simplistic I know, but I believe this is so.

If I said that I can't stand the Olympics, does that make me a bad person?

I realize that many people think the Olympics is a sacred ritual symbolizing a place where different cultures and countries can come together in the spirit of friendly competition and whoop on each other without causing the same long term impacts as going to war, but I have to say I'm sick of the hype and it bores the heck out of me. I especially think the Winter Olympics is right up there with watching water boil when it comes to entertainment.

It isn't that I don't enjoy watching sports. I will watch football willingly because I understand it better and believe it has a base quality not sullied by the pretense that it is anything but a sport for hire. Football players compete for the money and the fame. They are open about this. Olympic athletes imply that they are competing for their country's honor. But let's cut through the bull and admit it's about the endorsements and boasting rights that they won a gold medal.

I am sure that if anyone actually read my blog, they would be deeply offended by me dissing on the Olympics. But it is just one more sacred cow that needs to be put into the proper perspective. I believe people think they like the Olympics because it has been hyped into them every four years that they are supposed to like the Olympics. We are led to believe that it is downright unAmerican in a global kind of way not to like the Olympics.

Face it, the Olympics is a money machine. Cities compete with each other for the honor of hosting the Olympics know it can be a major boost to the local economy. When we first learned the Olympics were coming to Vancouver several years ago, I was dragged into several meetings in Seattle to learn how our local economy could figure out how to exploit Olympic bound people passing through to Vancouver. I even had to listen intently to a local business man who had been the official portable toilet contractor for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Apparently people who go to the Olympics generate a great deal of human waste.

And that is my point exactly.

I am particularly tired of the commercials featuring Olympic hopefuls I have never heard of competing interpretive bob sledding. McDonalds is even boasting that they provide the official chicken nugget dipping sauce of the Winter Olympics.

I bet you the original Olympics in Ancient Greece didn't have snowboarders competing. Come to think of it there wasn't an winter Olympics in Ancient Greece. They didn't have snow. They just had the summer Olympics with a bunch of naked guys wrestling and seeing who could throw a javelin the furthest.

I suppose I shouldn't be so critical of the whole thing. After all, I spent most evenings flipping through my FIOS cable looking for something decent to watch and inevitably end up watching Man Vs. Food.

Now if they add competitive eating of disgusting amounts of food to the Olympics I might change my mind.

Don't tell a soul

I just finished reading a novel on my Kindle about a company that was able to track your soul as it progressed from one life to the next. The book was called Soul Identity by Dennis Batchelder. In the book, the Soul Identity company made big bucks by offering people the opportunity to pass their resources on to their soul's next incarnation. The kicker was that the company had to be able to find you in your next life in order to give you your many lives savings. To make matters worse, you couldn't remember anything about your past lives from one life to the next.

That sucks. What is the point in having your soul reborn if you can't remember anything? Doesn't that create a Groundhog's Day effect of repeating your same mistakes over and over? It would explain why humans continue to engage in futile activities like war and political parties.

Oh I am sure there are loop holes in this arrangement. Maybe you take stock of each life in between passing on to the next life. Maybe you map out things to do and learn in your next life. If this is the case, I have a few bones to pick with my soul.

I would like to believe that I have a soul. The thought of having something continue after we die is comforting. But I wonder if that is why humans want to believe in souls. The alternative is "just living and then dying and that is it." And that seems particularly pointless.

I am not a religious man so I don't equate having a soul with a belief in god. I believe in the patterns inherent in nature and that nothing is totally random. This is not to say that I believe in fate or a master plan that is outside of me. Maybe it goes back to my believe that we create our own reality.

One thing I have always had trouble with in any theory of soul progression or reincarnation is giving up the sense of self. Even thinking of death I hate the idea of ceasing to exist as me. For I equate my personality with my soul. It is MY soul, not a community soul. And that, according to many religions and metaphysical theories I've read is what I need to give up. I need to become one with the universe in order to become enlightened.

But is it really necessary to give up my sense of self to discover (or uncover) my soul? Do I have to be assimilated in order to exist? What is the point of having a soul if it is not truly yours? Shouldn't it be like a comfortable old sweatshirt that fits perfectly and only gets better each time you wear it? Why should we have to keep the same soul but wipe it clean each time we use it in another life?

Funny how each of my questions just leads to more questions. And the only answer anyone could possibly give me is that I have to have faith.

Oh well, enough tail chasing for now. I have a soul to catch.

Who are you?

I watched the first half of the Super Bowl while I was at the gym yesterday. Since the Seattle Seahawks weren't in it, I didn't really have a vested interest in the game. I was kind of rooting for the Colts because I like Peyton Manning. Or at least I like his television commercials because he seems to have a good sense of humor. Though it is more likely the advertising copywriter who has the sense of humor. Regardless of whether Manning really has a sense of humor, he seems like a pretty great quarterback.

I want to apologize to the Colts for rooting for them. Because any team I root for usually loses despite how much they are ahead in the game at half time. The Seahawks should pay me not to be a fan because it would seem everytime I watch one of their games (including the Superbowl several years ago) they lose big time.

Suffice it to say, although I only rooted for the Colts for the first half, they lost in the half I wasn't watching. So maybe my curse really only comes into play if I am not watching the team I am rooting for. Or maybe I am giving myself too much credit and didn't have anything to do with the Colts or any other football team losing. I forget sometimes that I am not THE supreme being, just A supreme being.

But this post isn't really about the Colts losing or the Saints winning. Although I do like New Orleans the city. It is a great city.

This post is really about the Who performing at half time. I can't review the performance. I was actually in the locker room by that time changing out of my sweaty clothes. For some reason I sweat profusely when I work out. I realize you are supposed to sweat when you work out, but I really sweat. My shirts look like I have been wearing them in a shower.

But I digress. Maybe instead of calling my blog "Dizgraceland" I should call it "Digressland."

But back to the Who. I didn't see them perform. I wince at the thought of seeing them perform. I know that they are legends, but let's face it, legends only stay legends if you don't peek behind the curtain and see them applying wrinkle cream.

I'm not an age-ist. I am in my early 50s myself and have little room to talk when it comes to the ravages of time. But then again I was never famous and few people have a clue as to what I looked like when I was the age the Who were when Pete Townsend was smashing perfectly good guitars into amps on stage. So if they asked me to perform at half time at the Super Bowl no one would likely say, "Whoa he should have thought about making a comeback a couple of decades ago." They would more likely say, "Who the hell is he?" which would be justified since I have very few talents that would warrant me being asked to perform at half time of the Super Bowl. Well, technically, I can play the guitar, but I am probably not in the same league with Pete Townsend which is probably why they asked the Who to perform instead of me.  That and the fact that no one has ever heard of me.

Again, I can't critique the performance, just the hype and concept of raising aged rock stars from the dead to perform. The Super Bowl people love to do this. I did see the Rolling Stones peform at half time a few years ago. That was disturbing. Though I have never liked the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger has always reminded me of a twisted Don Knotts. And the older he gets the more he looks like him.

I imagine the Super Bowl people would have the Beatles perform if they could figure out a way to reanimate John and George. I suppose technically they did have A Beatle perform when Paul McCartney did a half time show.

Oh, I suppose having geriatric rockers perform is better than the crap you have to endure during regular season football games. The highlight of most Seahawk game half times I've seen has been dogs playing frisbee.

But they were young dogs.

Pretty good frisbee players too.

It's Groundhog's Day (again)

In Punxsutaney, Pennsylvania, Punxsutaney Phil came out of his den in Gobbler's Knob, saw his shadow and therefore inflicts upon us six more weeks of winter. And once again this furry mammal who is not far removed from a obese rat illustrates the old axiom that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Take the photo above, for example. I used it back in 2007 in a post call Punxsutaney Tim. And since no one is around any more who read that post, I can use the photo again and feel pretty darned confident that it will appear new and refreshing (and a bit disturbing) to anyone who now stumbles upon it.

Such is life. Things only seem new and innovative because you haven't seen them before. Trust me, there is nothing new on the planet. If you don't believe me, think of something creative and then Google it. You'll find umpteen versions of your idea are already out there and chances are someone has slapped a patent on it.

There are many people out there who make a great deal of money coming up with a "new" look for an old product in hopes that mindless consumers will buy it because it looks different than it did before. I just read an article about the 75th edition of the board game Monopoly being released. To give it a fresh look, they turned the square playing board into a circle. They also eliminated the fake money (now each player gets a credit card) and they replaced the cool playing pieces shaped like race cars, shoes and other odd implements with platic tabs.

Be still my heart.

Kind of pisses me off because half the fun of playing Monopoly was tucking the stacks of fake money under your edge of the board and fighting over who gets the race car or the top hat. But trust me, 75 years from now someone will want to modernize the round Monopoly board by making it square and go all retro by bringing back the race car and the funny money.

And speaking of nothing new, one of the downsides of blogging (and living) as long as I have is that I catch myself starting to write a clever new post (it could happen) and then realize I wrote an identical post a couple of years ago. Though in keeping with my theory that everything is new if you haven't seen it, I could in theory simple begin copying old posts and pass them off as new material and no one would be the wiser.

Wait, that would put me in the same category as your average sitcom writer and I have higher standards than that.

Most of the time.

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Raging about aging

It seems like at least once a week, I get junk mail from the American Association of Retired People (AARP) insisting I join their ranks. I am sure that it is a great organization and they do offer lots of discounts for members, but so does the American Automobile Association (AAA) and they will also change my tire. They also don't wave my age in my face.

AARP offers me a free travel bag if I will join. I hate to break it to them, but nothing seems more pitiful to me than to walk around with a tote bag that screams AARP on it. I might as well walk around in a pale yellow jumpsuit with an ascot ala Don Knotts.

I have news for you AARP. I may be over 50, but I am nowhere near retirement. I have two toddler aged children to put through college and I will likely only retire when they discover me expired at my desk with my Blackberry (or whatever the gadget dejour is in 30 years is) clutched in my cold, dead hand. Until then, please stop suggesting I join the blue-headed legions of the AARP.

As a marketing person, I would suggest that the AARP could seriously think about rebranding their association. Nothing conjures up an image of an old folks home and Over the Hill parties than AARP. They could call themselves the Dorian Gray Association and pitch ways to stave off aging. Or they could call themselves something edgy similar to the militant seniors who formed the Gray Panthers. Maybe something like the Silver Mauraders. Or go cutesy and call themselves the Wrinkle Wranglers Association.

I know I am protesting too much. But aging sucks enough without people trying to pitch you on joining a group that focuses on it. If I want to rub my nose in my age, all I have to do is look in a mirror or go to the list of people on Facebook who graduated from my high school at the same time as me.

I was getting shot for the H1N1 virus at a Safeway the other day and the pharmicist told me it would cost $15 unless I had Medicare. People see gray hair and they immediately expect to see you hauling around your groceries in an AARP tote bag. I'm sure when they see me carting around my children they assume I am a doting grandfather.

Oh well, I suppose I should just accept the inevitable. Looking at the bright side, I am only about three years away from getting the 55 and older discounts at Denny's.

Sigh...

When you reach Palodes, take care to proclaim that the great god J. D. Salinger is dead

Reclusive author J.D. Salinger died this week at age 91.

I think I read Salinger's Catcher in the Rye when I was in junior high school. So my memory about the plot is dim at best. I know it involved a character named Holden Caulfield who was kicked out of prep school and then spends a few days wandering around New York City drinking and cavorting with hookers. I remember being impressed that our teachers were letting us read a book that had swear words and prostitutes in it. But that is about all.

Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, about 7 years before I was born. So I don't really remember relating to its reported themes of teenaged rebellion and alienation that has kept it a hot seller even now. And since I grew up in Boise, I also couldn't relate to the narrator's experience in New York City. The Big Apple and the Famous Potato have very little in common.

In one sense, I have always put Catcher in the Rye in the same category as Moby Dick. You read them because they are assigned by an English teacher rather than because you have a burning desire to immerse yourself in teenaged angst or religious allegory.

Though some people obviously are obsessed with Catcher in the Rye. Mark David Chapman (may he rot in hell) said the book contained the message that led him to murder John Lennon. John Hinckley, Jr. used it as one justification (in addition to trying to impress Jodi Foster) for shooting Ronald Reagan. And George Bush senior said the book was a major inspiration to him.

None of these testimonials really sell the book to me.

I think what fascinates me about J.D. Salinger is that he became an author boasting that he was going to write the great American novel and become famous. When he actually did, instead of basking in the limelight, he went "Oh, shit, what have I done." Then he bought a 90-acre estate, built a tall fence and spent the rest of his life peeking out from behind drawn shades.

I didn't even know J.D. Salinger was a recluse until I read the book, Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella. The book was made into the film, Field of Dreams starring Kevin Costner. In both the book and the film, the main character hears voices telling him to build a baseball field in the corn field's of his Iowa farm. When he does, the ghosts of baseball greats including Shoeless Joe Jackson come to play every night. The voice then tells him to kidnap a reclusive writer in New York City and bring him to watch the games played in the ghostly ball field. The author kidnapped in the book version was J.D. Salinger. The movie version copped out and changed him to a fictional reclusive author played by the voice of Darth Vader, James Earl Jones. I assumed J.D. Salinger threatened a law suit if they portrayed him in the movie version.

I find it ironic that Salinger's obsessive desire to avoid media attention actually kept him elevated as someone the media wanted to focus on. If he had just been open to media attention, they probably would have forgotten him.

I too, used to boast that I was going to write the great American novel. Then life happened and here I am blogging with 10 million other invisible writer's trying to be heard. And from my perspective, achieving a little bit of Salinger's fame wouldn't have been such a bad thing. At least he could afford a 90-acre estate and sit back and survive on book royalties.

At this point, I don't think I could pull off a novel that captured the teenaged angst market. And you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some plot that exploits middle-aged men lamenting some life path they wandered off from. So if I'm ever going to achieve any level of fame I'm going to have to hurry up and find a niche writing market that isn't oversaturated. And again, judging by the interest in my blog post about how happy clams really are, maybe I should crank out a novel about the Secret Life of Clams.

But I digress.

Anyway, regardless of his odd reclusive nature, J.D. Salinger sparked the imagination of millions of readers over the years. I hope that in the afterlife he finds himself in that field of rye playing life guard to keep children from falling over a cliff (you'd have to read Catcher in the Rye to get this reference). Rest in peace Mr. Salinger.

Bow and arrow

I was sitting at our dining room table last weekend staring out the sliding glass door at our backyard when a very large crow flew down and began picking at god knows what. I was a bit annoyed because I'd noticed that the crows had been leaving droppings on the lawn. My one-year old son had tried picking one up the other day. For a instant, I toyed with opening the door and tossing a rock at the crow, but then I got a flashback to a moment out of my childhood that I was never proud of.

I grew up in Boise in a time and culture vastly different from the one my children are growing up in. My brother's and I were given pretty much free rein when we played. We climbed trees, threw rocks, had mock sword fights with ominously sharp wooden swords, plinked away with BB guns and even practiced archery with fairly blunt but deadline practise arrows.

I cannot even imagine a time that my wife would entertain the thought of turning either of our children lose with anything resembling a weapon let alone freely providing them with something as potentially lethal as a bow and arrows. Regardless I wiled away many a summer's day launching arrows at cardboard targets or stupidly pointing the bow skyward and marveling at how the arrows shrieked to the sky only to be seized by gravity and shriek equally as fast to the ground dangerously near my feet.

On one lazy summer day, I spied a flock of sparrow's dining innocently but noisily in our backyard on the seeds of crabgrass. And, as is the custom of young country boys and humans in general, I thought it would be funny to frighten the small creatures. I picked up my bow and arrow and sneaked up from the side of the house, notching an arrow onto the bow string. It never occurred to me that I would ever hit anything as small as a sparrow. After all, I rarely could hit a car tire sized cardboard target. My aim was to only plant the arrow into the ground near the sparrows and send them screeching off into the lilacs surrounding our yard.

I took aim and released the arrow. I flew true to the flock of sparrows and landed in their midst. As expected, they flew terrified from the spot. All, that is, except for the one I'd hit with my arrow.

I watched stunned as the bird lay at my foot gasping it's last breath as it stared at me with terror that glazed quickly over into death. The gravity of what I had done punched me in the stomach as I knelt to pick up the battered little body. I had taken a life.

Despite my fascination with BB guns and bows, I was not a hunter. I loved animals and birds. And even though I grew up in farm country, I had never developed the mindset that farmers and their children do about dispatching life stock in a matter of fact manner. Other than dispatching a few trash fish we caught while fishing in Lucky Peak Reservoir, I had never killed an animal or bird. And even killing the fish left me feeling hollow and guilty.

Being raised fairly religious, I tried praying over the dead bird, hoping that god would see fit to reverse my sin. The bird remained lifeless and glassy eyed in my cupped hands. It then dawned on me that I was the only one who knew about my assassination of the bird. I looked furtively over my should and then ran to my father's woodworking shed and hid the tiny corpse in a utility closet until I could figure out a way to cover up my crime.

I stood in the backyard biting my lip, my conscience doing flip flops in my brain. Then I notice the trash burner. Back then, much of our trash was disposed in a decidedly unenvironmentally sound way by burning it in a large metal barrel. One of my daily chores was emptying wastepaper baskets into the barrel and setting it on fire once the barrel was full. I dashed into the house and began hauling wastepaper out to the barrel. I grabbed an empty paper bag,slinked into the shed and dropped the dead bird into it. Then I carefully buried the bag under the rest of the paper in the barrel and lit it with a single match.

Within minutes, the sparrow was cremated. I remained and stirred the ashes with a stick to make sure there wasn't any remaining evidence of my crime. Then I went and put away my bow and arrow.

No one ever knew about the bird I'd killed that day. My 10-year old self thought by eliminating all traces of my mistake I could erase it. But in reality, my mind just kept repeating the moment over and over and permanently etched it on my brain. I never forgot the feelings of guilt and shame.

I'm not sure what the point of this story is. Maybe it is that the poor sparrow gave up its life to teach me a lesson about the importance of all life. To this day, I don't hunt and I can't stand to see any creature injured or abused.

I am older than bubble wrap and Pope John Paul II used belt to whip himself

That post title ought to get me a choice place in Google searches and bump my "Are clams really happy?" post out of the top searches that brings people to my blog. But other than a cheap attempt to boost blog traffic, I gleaned both of these tidbits from breaking news on msnbc.com.

Well, technically they were two different stories. One was a fascinating story about bubble wrap celebrating its 50th birthday this month. And another was a story about a book that was written trying to promote the Sainthood of Pope John Paul II by revealing that he liked to beat himself with a belt and sleep on the floor. Apparently these are prerequisites for becoming a saint. And if this is true, there are S&M clubs around that are cranking out saints left and right.

The book, Why He's a Saint was written by Monsignor Slawomir Oder to support his campaign to get Pope John Paul II canonized. The book proclaims, "'In his armoire, amid all the vestments and hanging on a hanger, was a belt which he used as a whip and which he always brought to Castel Gandolfo,' the papal retreat where John Paul vacationed each summer. "

Okay, I'm not trying to be judgmental or anything, but the Pope whacking himself with a belt and taking it on vacation may make him a bit kinky, but doesn't elevate him to sainthood status in my eyes.

But back to bubble wrap. The only reason the story jumped out at me was that it was making a big deal about the popular packing material reaching the half century mark. It hit me that I am 51 and am therefore a year older than bubble wrap. So instead of people saying that I am older than dirt, they can say I am older than bubble wrap and cushion the blow to my feelings.

That was a long way to go for that pun and I apologize. It just popped into my head.

Somebody should hit me with a belt. No wait, that would make me saint material. Which makes me wonder if any of the New Orleans Saints hit themselves with belts to make it into the Super Bowl.

The natural response to that question would be, "Is the Pope Catholic?"

And yes, I am going to hell.

The usual channels

I know it is fashionable to have as many channels as possible on your television, but I've finally reached the point where I have too many. My Verizon FIOS package provides me with hundreds of channels, including umpteen HD options and premium movie channels. To top it off, they also offer hundreds of on demand options that have my head spinning. Its a virtual (or digital) television all you can view buffet.

But the problem with buffets is that you want to sample everything for fear that you won't get your money's worth. Then you end up throwing up.

Okay, maybe not the prettiest analogy, but bottom line is that I have so many channels I don't end up watching anything. It's a paradox of sorts. Add to this that I like to surf the Web on my laptop while watching television during the one or two free hours I have after putting my children to sleep and you can guarantee that I'm not getting any quality viewing time in.

It was much simplier when I was a kid. We only had two channels growing up. Eventually they added a Public Broadcast Station, but as far as I was concerned, it was as entertaining as watching a test pattern on the tube. For anyone born after 1968, a test pattern was something television stations would run just before and just after the time they went on the air. And yes, believe it or not, there used to be a time when television didn't broad cast after midnight. They used to play the Star Spangled Banner and then switch to the test pattern.

I know I am sounding like a broken record, but it is sad to me that most of my popular culture references don't make sense to anyone under the age of 40. BTW, a record is what music used to be recorded on.

But I digress.

But back to my channel overload dilemma. I think it is pitiful that, despite having 500 or so viewing choses at any given moment, I can never find anything interesting to watch. And other than on demand programs, I can never seem to tune into any program that hasn't already started. I have this OCD thing about having to watch movies and television programs from the beginning. Back in the days when I used to go to movie theaters (before I had children), I hyperventilated at the thought of walking into a movie after it had begun. It ruined the whole willing suspension of disbelief thing I treasured about going to a movie in the first place. It's hard to lose yourself in a movie if you are begin watching it ten minutes into the thing and are lost as to what is going on.

Premium channels never seem to run movies on the hour. I swear they have some kind of built in mechanism that guarantees no matter when you tune into them the movie has already been playing for half an hour. Oh, DVRs help, but then you have to figure out the online channel guides and scroll through all the options to record the things and not accidently reset your entire system. Plus, once they are recorded, you've added yet another option to an already unmanageable selection of choices.

I have to say, the one thing I like about all of the new technologies surrounding television is the ability to pause live television. It is like something out of the Twilight Zone (see my above reference about popular cultural references specific to my age group). The ability to pause live programming has definitely altered my bathroom habits. I know longer have to choose between missing a crucial part of a program and bursting my bladder.

TMI, I know.

On Demand and DVRs have taken away some of the ritual excitement of watching your favorite programs any more. When I was a kid, I loved measuring life in what was on television on any given evening. The highlight of a Sunday was watching Disney's Wonderful World of Color following by Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins. Saturday night television was ruined by the Lawrence Welk Show, but redeemed by Gun Smoke.

I am indeed a child of television.

Oh well, this concludes today's blogcast.

Once upon a time

I used to think there was an art to writing children's books. I figured you had to a be trained in child psychology or education and have a crystal ball into the psyche of children before you could craft a book that would engage a kid. After reading god only knows how many bedtime stories to my daughter over the past three years, I am beginning to think that a majority of toddler books are authored by Washoe the Chimp.

My wife, a teacher with a master's degree in education, rolls her eyes when I complain about the books I have to read to my three-year old daughter.

"There's no plot development," I protest. "The characters are weak and unbelieveable."

"A three-year old doesn't understand plot," she explains. "The books just need to spark their imagination and hold there attention."

"What about my attention, " I ask.

"It isn't about you," she reminds me.

I grumble and read, wishing they'd come out with children's books that could entertain an adult as well as a child. Oh, I can tolerate Dr. Suess. At least they have some clever rhymes. And they have been around since I was a kid, so there is a bit of nostalgia in play when I read about Sam I am and Green Eggs and Ham.

But more often than not, my daughter doesn't want me to read Dr. Suess. She wants me to read one of the Disney Princess books which are basically Cliff Note versions of the Disney versions of classic fairy tales. And the marketing professional in me knows, just knows that these books are cranked out as part of a merchandizing effort to tap that multi-million dollar obsession toddler girls seem to have for the Disney Princesses.

I know all of the Disney Princesses by heart: Snow White, the 40s classic princess; Aurora, the 50s version of Sleeping Beauty who goes into the Fairy Godmother Witness protection program under the name of Briar Rose to protect her from the evil dark fairy Maleficent; Belle of Beauty and the Beast; Ariel, the Little Mermaid princess (and Disney's only cross-species Princess); Arabic Princess Jasmine from Aladdin; Pocahontas, the Native American princess; Mulan, the Chinese princess and now Princess Tiana, Disney's first Black princess. My daughter has princess outfits, princess books, princess, princess pajamas and princess sheets. I sometimes don't know whether I'm putting my daughter to bed or Snow White, Belle, Jasmine or Ariel.

As mind numbing as most of the Disney Princess books are, at least they are fairly short. If I have to read a book over and over a hundred or so times, I prefer it doesn't have more than one line per page. I dread it when my daughter asks me to read a Curious George book. Those suckers drone on forever. And talk about mundane plots, Curious George adventures basically consist of spilling things, knocking things down and unwrapping things. And does it make me a bad person to wish that Curious George would be turned over to the zoo for biting the man with the yellow hat and kick the bucket in an unfortunate accident in the boa constrictor exhibit? And why does the man in the yellow hat always wear that stupid yellow hat? Hasn't anyone told him how stupid he looks? He lives in New York City for Christ's sake. You would think he would be hip to fashion.

But I digress.

Sometimes I try and amuse myself by turning storytime into a dramatic reading exercise and alter the voices. Unfortunately my daughter is much to young to appreciate that I do a pretty darned good impression of Richard Burton and Winston Churchell. She also doesn't have a high level of tolerance for change. If I get too carried away with my one-man stage productions of Socks for Supper or Mr. Dobb's Diner, she'll put her hand over my mouth and say, "Daddy, that's not the way it sounds."

Did I mention I have grown to despise Beatrix Potter's book Peter Rabbit? It violates my more than one line per page rule and has real stupid plot. A rabbit gets into a garden and eats vegetables. News at 11. Big woop. I'm tempted to change the ending so Mr. MacGregger catches the rodent and cooks up some nice Hassenfeffer.

I'm going to hell aren't I?

My next of Kindle

I used to be a voracious reader of books. Shoot, my first job (other than delivering newspapers and mowing lawns) was working in a public library shelving books. I am pretty sure I became a writer because I loved to read. I pretty much blame technology for depriving me of the pleasure of reading. Once I got my first Blackberry I had difficulty picking up a book and focusing on the printed page. I was too obsessed with checking e-mail, playing Brickbreaker and eventually surfing the Web.

So I find it ironic that technology has brought me full circle back to reading books. Well, technically electronic books. For I now have a Kindle.

Actually the Kindle was my Christmas gift for my wife. She is still a voracious reader and is a member of a book club with several of her friends. I thought it would be a cool way for her to step into the 21st Century and still indulge in her passion for reading. Apparently she was of the same mind. Because when she opened the package she got this funny look on her face. I immediately sensed I hadn't made the best choice.

She liked it, she said, but it was the gift she had debated getting me for Christmas. She told me she'd been researching them for months and decided at the last minute not to get one for me. "But you love to read," I protested.

"I love to read 'books'," she explained. "I like to turn real pages and hold a real book in my hands. You on the other hand love technology." She went on to remind me that I had been talking for years about how books would eventually disappear to be replaced by their electronic and much more efficient counterparts.

She was right. I agreed to "share" the gift. Which translates that I essentially am the only one who will use it. Putting aside my guilt, it has turned out to be pretty darned cool. I have abandoned my Blackberry on my commute and now have actually begun reading again. I am able to get my high-tech fix and reunite with my literary roots. I have even discovered that you can download lots of free books so so far I'm indulging my reading without any additional costs.

I had forgotten how cool it is to escape into a good book. And for those purists out there who think you need printed page in front of you to actually be "reading" I'll remind you that it is the content that makes a book great, not the cover (though I have a nice leather cover for the Kindle .

I predict that printed books will go the way of vinyl records. Think of all the trees that will be saved. Think of all of the untapped talent of writers who can be published for pennies instead of depending upon the bottom line of a traditional publisher who won't front the printing cost on an unproven commodity.

Libraries can become become virtual clearing houses for electronic books that can instantly be transmitted to multiple book readers versus doled out in archaic hard copies that can be mutilated, lost or stolen. Text books can now be distributed to all children and instantly updated so that knowledge isn't reserved for only those who can afford it.

My Kindle has obviously ignited a visionary flame in me. Now they only have to come out with a color version and then one that plays a musical soundtrack as you read. Then maybe "scents"-er-round so you smell what the characters are smelling.

Okay maybe not the smell thing. But color would be nice.

Anyway, thank you to my lovely and selfless wife for being gracious and turning my gift to her into a return to reading for me.

Lack of resolutions

I have never been big on New Year's resolutions. Life is too full of guilt already without adding a list of new things to feel guilty about for not achieving them. As far as I'm concerned, every day is full of New Year resolutions and I try to keep the bar pretty low so I can achieve at least 50 percent of them. Getting out of bed each morning is on the list. It is challenging, but achievable most of the time.

The problem with resolutions is that they inevitably lead to excuses. And excuses seem to me simply rationalizations for failure. If you make a resolution and don't achieve it, it boils down to you not really wanting to achieve it in the first place. I tend to cater to the Yoda-like philosophy of not "trying" to do something. Either do it or don't do it. And don't make excuses.

Let's face it, you are in debt because you are spending more money than you make. You are fat because you eat too much and don't exercise enough. And you are rude and nasty to people in general because it takes a lot less energy than being polite and smiling alot. So rather than resolving to get out of debt, lose weight and be a nicer person, you need to ask yourself if you really want to stop buying things, eating fried foods and flipping people off when you drive.

If you want to change something about yourself (remember you can't change something about someone else), the first step is to really want to change it. Duh.

I thought about making a resolution here to write in my blog every day. My track record in 2009 was pretty spotty. But then I apply my own philosophy to it and realize I'll write more when I want to, not because I create an artificial resolution that I have to.

For now I'll just stick to getting out of bed each day. I've got toddlers that can help me achieve that one for sure.

Coming out of my shell

"Stay clam."
Ivar Haglund, (owner of Ivar's Acres of Clams restaurant,
Seattle)

As I monitor my blog stats, the limited number of people I note wandering in through various search engines seem to be fixated on the topic of whether clams are really happy (Dizgraceland, August 2006). This confirms my theory that most people would prefer to dive into a river looking for deep thoughts than search the ocean.

Not that I profess to be a purveyor of deep thoughts. I ,after all, wrote the post questioning whether clams were really happy. It stemmed more from my own curiosity as to where the saying came from than a intellectual thirst to know how clams really felt

I am baffled, however, why of the close to 800 posts I've written, that one gets the most hits. As mildly amusing as it is, it isn't even one of my favorites. I thought my post about whale puke was more meaty. But trying to explain human behavior on the Web is nearly impossible. Actually trying to explain human behavior is nearly impossible anywhere.

It's not like I'm slamming out much new stuff these days anyway. So I should be grateful a few tortured souls are finding solace in diatribes about mollusks emotions. It is better than them being glued to the set watching Dancing with the Stars to see which washed up celebrity will twist an ankle.

Lately, I just haven't felt like sharing my profound thoughts. I'm just keeping my profundity to myself and chuckling to myself an my own inner enlightenment.

The problem is when I do write these days I catch myself regurgitating old material (not unlike ambergris) and not even realizing it. Or I try to recapture the glory and write the same stuff but mix it up a little to fool myself into thinking it is new (like perhaps a post called, "Are mussels really strong" or "Are crabs really grumpy?"

BTW, speaking of grumpy, my daughter thinks the seven dwarves are called the "Hi-Hos" because that is the song I sing when I get to that part of the Snow White and Seven Dwarves story. When my son is being cranky she says, "Stop being a hi-ho, Ronin." His name is Roan, but she can't pronounce it, so she calls him Ronin, or Prince Dude.

But I digress on my digression. That is a new low for me. A double digression. And technically this is a digression on my digression about a digression. So it is a whopping triple digression!

Oh well. See why I keep my profoundness to myself these days?

Just a bit shy of sideways

I don't know why I go through these cranky phases in my posts where I rant out an open window like Peter Finch in the 1976 movie, Network, screaming "I am as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

I don't suppose that reference means much to anyone under 50.

The problem with taking an extreme stand about anything is that people just punch in the mental mute button and shut you out. No one (including me) wants to listen or read ranting tirades. But I have to admit they are a bit therapeutic even if they are self-indulgent.

Ironic thing is that it doesn't really matter who is right or who is wrong about many things. Having "I told you I was right" engraved on my gravestone wouldn't make me feel any better. So I wish I could just let things go.

Believe it or not, I am better than I used to be at biting my tongue (or using the delete button in the case of electronic communications). My mouth has gotten me in more trouble than I care to elaborate on in the past. Aging has helped. You tend to want to conserve energy as you get older and not get sucked into meaningless debates. Learning to accept the inevitable has been a survival tactic in the workplace. I've learned to shortcircuit heated e-mail exchanges simply by not responding.

But I have to say, in my own blog, I shouldn't really have to care about offending people or engaging in debates. This isn't an open forum. I believe people have the right to disagree with me, but I don't feel any obligation to provide them with the platform to do so. Thus my moderated comments section.

And thus the lack of comments on my blog. Being a benevolent dictator gets lonely at times.

A matter of fact

I have come to the conclusion, and this is just my own opinion, that everything is just opinion. My own radical opinion is that there is no such thing as "fact." And all of the crap bouncing about on the Internet is just one big hairball that people keep coughing up on your living room floor.

I'll wait while you savor that visual image.

There used to be a time when I could read a newspaper (when there still were newspapers) or watch television news (when it was actually news) and trust that it was factual or at least factual in nature. But as the former president once said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and you have fooled me again." He was such an idiot.

Point is, that digital report, social media, blogs, Facebook and Twitter have rendered fact a fossil of the dying world of print journalism. I feel stuck in a bizarro dimension of editorial writers spouting their opinions about everything. And the mindless masses pick up this drivel, place it on a pedestal and begin bowing to it.

I am sick of opinions about the economy. I am sick of the stock market. I am sick of the debate over socialized medicine. And I am sick of the war on terrorism. I am sick of lies in general. I don't want to hear the latest cause for cancer or seven ways I can drop 10-pounds in 10 minutes. I don't care if your mop picks up more dust per minute than the old mop. I don't want a leopard print snuggie or snuggle or whatever you call the moronic blanket with a hood they are hawking on television and at finer stores like WalMart. It looks like a freakin' monks habit.

I don't trust your tips on safeguarding my retirement or looking for mold spores under my refrigerator. I don't want to turn an empty toilet paper tube into a convenient way to store computer cables. I don't want any more of your useless information.

Ironic isn't it?