"Current Trends"

As is my style, I've got in to the latest trend, Twitter. If you think of a trend as a wave I would be ankle deep heading out to sea as the surfboards plowed toward me, such is my timing. That's okay though, the world needs us old, out of touch guys to make cool trends uncool so the hip people can move on to the next big thing. Oh well, at least I'm not calling it "the twitter".

I'm following a few celebrities (I guess you would call Brent Spiner a celebrity). They are amusing for the most part. I'm following both Penn and Teller. Jim Gaffigan has some pretty funny one liners and unlike a lot of the stand up comedians keeps the promotional stuff to a minimum. Going back to Brent Spiner, Star Trek: The Next Generation's Data, he strikes me as this generations Adam West or even William Shatner. A guy trapped by a role who's struggling to leave it behind but at the same time needing the notoriety it brings. At first glance his twits (tweets?) are funny but after reading several he seems a little weird and I think he may be making up questions people ask him so he can respond with pithy comments. That is shear speculation on my part however. He did get into a minor "verbal" volley with some weird anti-celebrity conspiracy nut (not me) for a day that was fairly amusing in a sad pathetic Joe Rogan kind of way.

Right now I'm enjoying Twitter but I've got a lot on the old plate so we'll see how long I can follow such a disposable medium.

Too Funny

Sorry for the clipped view. Just right click with the mouse and select "Show All" to see it in all it's widescreen glory.

He Always Got It Too

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson

He Always Got It

"...for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle" - Winston Churchill

Jesus Christ, Someone Get Me A Phone

I was listening to "The Jesus Christ Show" on the radio yesterday morning. It's a show that has a guy pretending to be Jesus Christ taking callers questions on spiritual matters. My first reaction was to laugh and think to myself this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, it also seemed kind of blasphemous. I'm obviously not religious so I personally wasn't offended but I wondered what the old school Christians would think about this. Which got me to thinking that if they had "The Muhammad Show" we would get riots that make Iran's election results look like a weenie roast. Probably not in the US, we seem to be pretty good about that tolerance thing here (opposing critics' comments aside).

My second reaction was, what kind of crazy person would call in and act like they're talking to Jesus? Is it all taken tongue in cheek? Do people assume they are talking to the holy spirit through the vessel of a mortal? It's all a little creepy to me, so of course I was overcome by a morbid curiosity. The first caller was a young girl whose mother was in federal prison for fraud. She was taking care of her grandparents and was terribly upset that they would pass away before they could see the mother again. The poor girl was so sad it hurt. "Jesus" gave her some Dr Laura, Dr Phil type advice and all I can say is I hope it helped. The whole thing made me sad and took away all the fun I imagined for myself mocking it. I still don't know how I feel about getting important advice from someone pretending to be a deity but if it's the only place that poor girl and people like her can turn to for a little comfort I guess that's okay. It's still really fucking weird though.

Oh For Fuck Sake

Have Republicans become so desperate for attention that this is all they've got? I like the positive spin Fox puts on it for Palin, she could look like a hero to her fans (all four of them not counting Rush Limbaugh). Please, this would have been a dead issue three days ago, for everyone's sake let it go.

New York Lawmaker Calls on CBS to Fire Letterman for Palin Comments - Celebrity Gossip | Entertainment News | Arts And Entertainment - FOXNews.com

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WHO On The Verge Of Trying To Be Relevant

Anyone remember the swine flu or the politically correct H1N1 virus? Well here's an article that will send chills down your spine. It comes out of the clear blue sky, God forbid we should forget about this.

This is a little excerpt:

The disease, which has infected over 26,500 people in 73 countries, with 140 deaths, has been most severe in Mexico, which has reported the highest number of fatalities, more than 100. These include infections in otherwise healthy young people.

So excluding Mexico less than 40 people have died.

For All My Horny Nerd Friends

Geek corsets: imagining darth vader as a sexy (female) beast

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Third Post On Commuting

Okay, if you are going to pull into someone's lane without signaling or even looking, when I use my impotent rage and blow the horn at you, don't wave like that makes everything okay.  It wasn't some social faux pas, it was a near death experience.  It doesn't make up for the fact that you almost ran another human being into the concrete and an early grave.  It doesn't lessen my desire to drag you from your car and cave your teeth in.  It's starting to seem that every time I take the bike out some asshole tries to run me off the road.  I know I wrote just a few days ago about how I enjoy that challenge but that's when it only used to happen occasionally, not every time I've started the engine.  

To My Fellow Colorado Springs Commuters

Particularly the blond woman in the silver Honda Civic that cut off the blue Yamaha on Friday morning, please watch where the hell you're going.

Also a side note to the white Dodge Ram dualie, the Explorer in front of you was correct in stopping in the merge lane when traffic was bumper to bumper.  He correctly interpreted the yield sign to mean stop and wait, not force other cars out of the lane, or force other cars to slam on their breaks or as I saw one of your compadres in bad driving do, drive down the shoulder for 1/4 of a mile before someone took pity on his dumb ass and let him in.  Also thought you would like to know that you looked like a complete and utter tool flailing your arms around.

The Daily Commute

Now that stricter CAFE standards have been introduced my motorcycle is more important to me than ever. I've long bragged about the muscle car performance with two-thirds the price tag I get with my two bikes. Mine aren't even two of the hottest performers although the Vmax had his day in the sun. Now with the hope of buying myself a 2009 Dodge Challenger quickly fading in the rearview mirror I'm really learning to love my bikes.

Since I got the tire repaired last month, I've ridden to work every day but two, which had nothing to do with weather (I'm a rain or shine kinda guy). My only regret is that the commute isn't a little longer, I'm just starting to get my groove by the time I'm pulling in to the parking lot. My fellow commuters can present quite a challenge sometimes. I know people say this to the point of cliché but I think people really are becoming worse drivers. I don't notice a lot of people on the cell phone these days, maybe that message is finally sinking in. But despite that one blessing, I see more and more drivers running red lights making left hand turns across traffic, tailgating, not yielding and just more road raging in general. I may have mentioned it before but I've always enjoyed that element of motorcycle riding to a certain sick degree. I liken it to a video game. I enjoy looking in the minivan two cars ahead of me to read what the diver is going to do. I watch the rearview to keep an eye on the twenty something girl weaving from one lane and back to speed past everyone else. I always try to remember where she is and calculate where she'll be.

I really believe as I get lazier and lazier in my other pursuits, this is the one thing that keeps my mind active. It's also the thing that clears my mind for the coming day on the way to work, and brings me down from a stressful day on the way home. Really if I were to think about it (which obviously I am) I would say that riding is the most important thing I do for my mental health and the reason I have 120/80 blood pressure. I used to have a t-shirt that said "You never see a motorcycle parked outside a psychiatrist's office". Truer worlds were never silk-screened.

06.01.2009

Lee has been sick for the last few days so we didn't do much today.  On the way back from the doctor we stopped and got a few movies.  Lisa has been wanting to see Doubt and I got to pick Transporter 3.  While I'm not some lunkhead who doesn't like "brainy" films I think Transporter 3 was a much better movie, and this despite the fact that it was the weakest of the series.  Doubt was slow, quiet and boring.  It was unsatisfying and never connected.  Transporter 3 on the other hand at least made me laugh a few times and had a few good fight scenes.

I've been out of touch (watching movies all day obviously) and missed the Air France thing until just now.  What a tragedy.