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2004

Yours, Mine, and Ours

Yours, Mine, and Ours was on TCM this morning. The host made the same mistake so many others make: that the movie was the inspiration for The Brady Bunch. It’s completely untrue; the Brady pilot was written a couple of years prior to the release of the movie (which was a true story). It was the success of the movie, however, which finally paved the way for the actual PRODUCTION of the Bradys in 1969…

I’m sorry. I just expect those generally well-informed hosts on TCM to know little tidbits like this…

Randomly Saturday

For the Goth in all of you: Frankenstein and Dracula in spiffy new box sets…

Things I really like today:

  • Carol Burnett marathons on TV Land…
  • None of the usual Saturday backup on the Bay Bridge…
  • Leftover Indian food…
  • An internet radio station which actually plays “We Dance” by November Group when I request it…
  • Having my doctor say “you know most people don’t quit smoking and then lose 40 pounds”…

Things I don’t much care for today:

  • Suspecting that 40 pound weight loss may suggest that my thyroid is acting up again…
  • Trying to decipher what part of it is due to my own effort rather than my hormone issues…
  • Sbarro, so why do I always eat there on those rare occasions where I find myself in a mall?
  • No more Burger Road, although I did just hear “nowhere Girl”, even though I wasn’t in the corner sex bar ‘cuz it’s closed now too…

If that last sentence made no sense at all, well, you shoulda follwed the damned link…

Crass Commercialism? Please…

I’m not a fan of baseball, professional or otherwise. For me, it’s right up there on the excitement scale with watching paint dry. But I’m rather amused at the current case of baseball purists being all up in arms about the idea of introducing advertising into the game. Something about “crass commercialism” or such…

Say what?

Apparently, some baseball fans have this fantasy that the professional version of the game has nothing to do with money, and is all about a bunch of really dedicated volunteers playing around in a field near somebody’s barn. Apparently, they remain blissfully unaware of the strikes, the unimaginable salaries of their favorite players, the marketing schemes and broadcast rights, and of the extortionary tactics team owners use against the municipalities which house their stadiums…

Here’s a clue: professional baseball, like all professional sports, is ENTIRELY about money and commercialism. It’s a business, and its primary purpose is to create profit. Hence the term “professional”. And you know what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. The only problem is the sentimental fans who constantly whine about how “crass” and “commercial” the sport has become…

Unfortunately, these same fans are the ones who fall hook, line. and sinker for team owners’ pleas for new taxpayer-financed stadiums every five years. Their misguided notion of the game somehow blinds them to the fact that the team is a business which should be self-supporting, not some altruistic endeavor which must be publicly supported…

I Don’t Get It

Only in San Francisco: Homeless “advocate” Allison Lum on today’s implementation of “Care Not Cash”:

“This gives homeless people less money to live on and nowhere near enough housing to take them,” she said. “It’s stealing from them, really. It’s an outrage, and the court just made it worse.”

Stealing? STEALING???

Truncated

If I needed a photographer, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose this guy, just for having the coolest sign in the world…

Had a bit of a diner celebration last night to mark six months of a smoke-free me. I’m also reminded, though, of the fact that in three more months, I will hit age 40. I’m not 100% certain I’m ready to deal with that just yet…

By the way, be very glad that I chopped off the rest of this journal entry and that you were spared it. If you have any doubts, know that the word “refective” was used just a few times too many…

420 (or “Stupid Potheads”)

There are a lot of things that annoy me about people who smoke pot. The one which bugs me most, though, is the way they have this tendency to think that everyone else on the planet shares their particular vice, approves of it, and gets all the little jokes, etc…

I grew out of marijuana at age 17. However, I recognize that other people have the right to (and will) do pretty much as they please as long as it has no effect on me, no matter how juvenile I believe their behavior to be…

For those who don’t quite understand, here’s what “no effect on me” means:

  1. Keep it away from me at work, and don’t have “Happy 420” signs on your desk where clients can see them.
  2. Don’t presume that I won’t tell someone in authority when I see you dealing drugs at work. I probably won’t, but you don’t know that. At least make an EFFORT toward decorum and propriety.
  3. Do not make the assumption that I care or want to hear your babbling anecdotes while you’re stoned. In fact, don’t even make the assumption that I want to be around you at all.
  4. Do NOT smoke that nasty-smelling stuff around me. Offer me the same level of courtesy that I offered you when I used to smoke cigarettes.

Vinyl

I may not have mentioned this before, but one of the really cool things about my marriage to Mark is that he came with a turntable as part of his dowry. It’s nice being a vinyl family again, and it’s really making me crave all the stuff I have back east in the closet of my old bedroom at Mom and Dad’s…

But right now I’m just enjoying this past weekend’s cheap haul, including Kate Bush and Joan Armatrading and even more Joan Armatrading, not to mention Red Rider and Peter Garbriel in German. Most interesting find, though, was a 1987 album I didn’t know existed by a Chapel Hill band called Other Bright Colors. Loved the band in those days. Love the lead singer even more…

Am I suspended in Gaffa?

Training

Things I’ve learned so far at this week’s training class down by the airport:

  • It takes me about 25% less time to drive the twelve miles to the airport than it does to ride the bus less than two miles downtown.
  • “Breakfast will be served” does not necessarily mean you shouldn’t eat before leaving home. Nor does “lunch will be served” necessarily mean that you shouldn’t bring something along.
  • Your bladder will NEVER be in synch with the break schedule.
  • No matter how many times you are assured that the “permit required” signs in the parking lot are strictly for show, you will continue to wonder whether you will have a car to go to at the end of the day.
  • Why no, it really WASN’T necessary to do all the pre-work before the class, silly…