Yesterday was a big day – my Kindle was delivered. In less than a day of playing, I haven’t uncovered all there is to know about it just yet, but my first impression is that this thing is really, really (really) great. I read myself to sleep last night for the first time in longer than I can remember. It really is like looking at a printed book, with the exception that you don’t need to hold it in two hands (in fact, you can set the font size as large as you need to, so you can just set it in your lap and read), and you just press a button to turn pages.

I’ve already got the thing loaded up with more than its purchase price of free books (not even counting the Oxford English Dictionary and the New Oxford American Dictionary both come with it, which is pretty nifty, ‘cuz you can move the cursor to a word and it’ll display the definition at the bottom of the “page” with an option to view more, see synonyms, search, etc. Not that I need to look up words, of course, but some people might).

It has a web browser as well, which is actually not too shabby, though it’s limited (both by the fact that this is grayscale only and also by the nature of e-Ink, which doesn’t allow for video), but is perfectly acceptable for checking web-based e-mail (which is nice if you’re not near a WiFi hotspot and want to check your e-mail via the free 3G).

Mostly, though, it’s for reading books (and magazines and newspapers, which you can subscribe to – for a price), and unlike a back-lit LCD screen, it’s much easier on the eyes (and, since the only time energy is required is to change the page, not to display it, it uses a lot less electricity; with the WiFi/3G off, the battery is supposed to last for a month between charges).

Oh well, enough of that.

It’s finally Friday – and another 90+ degree day at that. The good news is that I get to leave work a little early today. The bad news is that it’s so I can go to the dentist. Strangely, I’m looking forward to it. As part of my impending midlife crisis (though, truthfully, I’m way past the midpoint and have been on the down slope for quite a while now), I’m pledging to get myself in reasonably decent shape. But I guess I mentioned that before, huh?

Well, that’s what happens when you get old; you repeat all your stories ad nauseum, to the point where people who aren’t related to you just sort of politely smile and nod and think to themselves, “oh Christ, not this story again), and your relatives (especially the youngsters) squirm, fidget, and finally scream out loud in exasperated frustration (at least until you’re finally old enough for them to stick you in a nursing home somewhere and pay somebody else to listen to all your old goddamn stories).

Oh, by the way, did I mention my Kindle came yesterday?

If you’re in the vicinity of the Eastern Seaboard, I hope you avoid the wrath of Earl as he passes by. Up here, we’re just gonna get some blessed relief from the heat (which isn’t even Earl-related, I don’t think), so I may actually get some much needed work done.

Batten down the hatches, and have a good one.

It’s supposed to be up into the 90’s again today, making it an official heat wave. And we all know how I feel about that. But it’s supposed to cool off for the weekend, so that’s good. As for the weekend, I’ll be kicking it off right by having a tooth yanked tomorrow afternoon. Apparently it was too infected to pull yesterday, so I need a couple days of antibiotics to keep me from getting blood poisoning. I’m looking forward to having the damn thing gone, and am promising myself to be a good boy from now on, and get regular dental care again. My goal is to have myself in relatively decent shape (tooth, blood pressure, and weight-wise) in time for my 50th birthday. I’ll start drinking beer again when I retire.

My new Kindle is supposed to finally be delivered today (I have my doubts, though; it didn’t leave Memphis ’til 3:00 this morning). I signed off on all the contingencies, have my mortgage rate locked in (3.875% without points; I remember when 8% was considered ‘fantastic’), so this will probably be the last non-house related purchase I’ll be making for a while, now that I’m about to saddle myself with untold debt and endless repairs on my little fixer-upper out in the country. If anybody has a used plow truck for sale (cheap), let me know.

Oh well, time to go.

Far be it for me to tout the wonders of Upstate NY, but here’s a story that I just don’t think you’d find in your highfalutin big city-type areas. Last night, the cops (sheriffs, actually) caught some guy trying to break in to a vending machine (not exactly bank robbery or anything). When the cops tried to apprehend the perp, he (and his “moll”) stole a dump truck and led the cops on a “high speed” chase (no doubt this was a “souped up” dump truck, capable of speeds exceeding 40 mph on the highway) across railroad tracks and through neighborhoods, trailed by twenty or thirty sheriffs cars and “Air One” – the sheriff’s helicopter. Eventually the cops boxed the dump truck in, and which point the accused vending machine burglar rammed one of the sheriffs’ cars. I guess this is when things stopped being fun for the cops, so they shot the idiot (apparently Andy let Barney put the bullet in his gun).

As for the perps, Clyde went to the hospital with a flesh wound, but Bonnie appears to have made it through the episode unscathed, and I’m sure the sheriffs managed to put together a bevy of evidence, including plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one detailing the crime, plus pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner, the vending machine, and the aerial photography from the helicopter.

In other exciting news, it’s a big day at the State Fair today, where untold throngs are expected to attend, as Justin Bieber (who is some little kid that’s apparently a big deal with all the teenybopper girls out there; I guess he gives them “Bieber Fever”) comes to the Grandstand, and country singer “Lady Antebellum” appears as tonight’s free entertainment. Lady Antebellum? Do these people actually understand what that means? Antebellum, as in “before the war,” or, more specifically in American history, the good old days of slavery and Southern Gentility prior to that mean old Mr. Lincoln and the Civil War (aka, the second American War for Independence). Yee-ha!

But wait, there’s more. Syracuse will be the feature on tonight’s episode of “Man vs Food” at 9:00 on the Travel Channel. I have no idea what this show is, but it’s apparently a rather popular program about a guy who goes around the country eating food. Not sure I get the appeal, here, but since the Travel Channel is in HD, I’m recording it. I may also pitch a show of my own to them: “Man vs. Beer.” I think it’ll be a big hit.

In personal news, I had my $610 home inspection yesterday, and I really liked the guy that did it. He seemed to know what he was doing, and it turned out that my sister knew him from the olden days (she was friends with his sister, and had even stayed at their house), and my brother-in-law knew his sister from his olden days, too. The house, well, it needs a lot of work. I knew that already, of course, and he found a few more things I hadn’t seen (including some roof structure issues that I’ll need to address before the snow flies (and piles up). But I reckon we’ll forge ahead anyway, and I’ll make an effort to kind of put everything out of mind and just go with the flow.

Fortunately, one of the skills I’ve developed over the years is to not think about shit ahead of time, lest I obsess over it and get my gut all twisted up into knots for days on end. Mostly, I just say “OK” a lot, and it’s gotten me through a lot of things. For instance, I’m counting on it getting me through my dental appointment this morning. I’m rather cowardly when it comes to the dentist (it all stems from bad experiences I had with my childhood dentist, whose dental techniques bore a strong resemblance to those of Dr. Christian Szell – aka ‘Der weisse Engel’ – played by Laurence Olivier in “Marathon Man”), and am actually somewhat terrified at the prospect of going.

I had a lot of work done years back, and promised myself I’d never let things get bad again. But then the dentist I had started whining that the insurance wasn’t paying him enough to make it worth his while to work on me and I got tired of him. Then I went back to school and had no insurance for a couple of years, and then, well, I kinda didn’t think about it when a filling or two fell out (admittedly a drawback in my “ignore it” survival strategy). But now I guess I’ve gotta bite the bullet (so to speak) and go.

I’m just gonna try not to think about it.

I’m off today, but not to have any fun. No, instead I’ll be accompanying the home inspector to see if the house I’m about to buy is getting ready to fall down or not. It’s my last chance to get out. Otherwise, it’s full speed ahead, with a trip to the mortgage dude to sign off on all that shit before racing back to try and make my appointment to have needles shoved into me (and take a half-hour nap while they work their magic). I’m not used all this activity. In the past, a big day for me was stopping at the grocery store to buy beer on the way home from work. Tomorrow doesn’t get much much better. It’s work in the morning, with a break to go to the dentist to see if he can end the agony where my filling dropped out. I haven’t had a dentist in a while now, so this probably won’t be pretty. Unfortunately, pain has overcome fear, so I guess I gotta go. The counter-clockwise decay of my body continues. It started with my right foot, moved to my right shoulder, and is now in the left side of my mouth (I guess I’m lucky it skipped my brain on the way around; coulda had a nice little brain aneurysm or something before the toothache. Well, maybe on the second trip around).

Watch out everybody, Earl’s coming. As things stand right now, the worst we’ll get where I live is a few clouds. You folks on the East Coast might not be so lucky. Could be a wet Labor Day for you. Not that it matters, of course. It’s only a matter of time before the bed bugs take over dominion of the planet from the humans. Another bunch of bloodsuckers – same as the old boss.

Major combat operations in Iraq have ended (again), and President Obama will be making an address tonight that will NOT include the phrase ‘Mission Accomplished.’ Hopefully they’ve focus-tested a different slogan and come up with something better.

I braved the waters of Time Warner ‘support’ chat again this morning, this time to try and find out the price of cable AFTER the promotional period is over. It isn’t on their website (they have a FAQ asking what the cost will be, and the answer is “it will revert to the regular price”), and the chatbot apparently can’t tell me either. I guess it’s a secret.

Everybody keeps asking me if I’m ‘excited’ about buying a different house. I guess I’ve just got too much Jack Benny in me to get excited at the prospect of spending that much money. Plus, I can’t for the life of me figure out how in the hell everything’s gonna get done and moved out of where I live now (let alone all the work that needs to get done where I’m going). Just the thought of it all gives me a headache. Thank goodness I’ve got a toothache to keep my mind off of it.

Oh well, I guess I’d better get ready to go deal with the day.

So, as part of my preparation for moving, I’m looking into whether I should stick with DirecTV or go with Time Warner cable (after all, you gotta worry about the important shit first). I’d like to consider FiOS TV, but while that’s an option where I live now, it isn’t available where I’m going (instead of fiber, out there they just use string and tin cans). One concern I have is that TW doesn’t appear to have Comedy Central in HD, whic is pretty close to being a deal breaker, since I’ve gotten quite used to the Daily Show and (especially) Colbert in HD. Anyhow, while perusing the TW site, I noticed a link for ‘live chat’ so I figured why not ask them what the deal is. I also had a few other questions, like how big is the hard drive in their DVR, does it support an external drive, such as eSATA, and what percentage (give or take) of their on-demand content is available in HD. So, after having to sign in with my first and last names and zip code, I was hooked up with ‘Alex’ so he could answer all my questions. It went something like this…

Alex: Thank you for choosing Time Warner support live chat. My name is Alex. May I first have your full name?

Never mind the goddamn thing just made me sign in with first and last names required. Maybe this was a trick to see if I was lying or something. So, whatever. I gave him my name (or a reasonable facsimile.

Alex: Thank you providing me with your full name. Now may I have you zip code?

Jeezus H. Christ, dude. Zip code was required, too. But, OK, whatever.

Alex: Thank you. How may I help you.

At last, we finally seemed to be getting somewhere.

Me: Just a few questions. First, I’d like to know if Comedy Central is available in HD.

Alex: I understand you would like to know if Comedy Central is available in HD. Is this correct?

Me: :nod: Yep.

Alex: I would be happy to assist you with that. One moment please.

Me:

Me: :jerk:

Me: :yawn:

Me:

Alex: I am pleased to tell you that Comedy Central is available on the Classic and Standard tier.

Me: 🙄 That’s nice. But is it available in HD?

Alex: One moment please.

Me: …………

Alex: An HD receiver/HD DVR box is required to receive programming in high definition.

Me: 😡 Uh, that’s nice, but if I had an HD receiver/HD DVR, would I be able to see Comedy Central in HD?

Alex: Correct!

Me: :growl: Correct, what?

Alex: You would be able to receive programming in high definition if you had an HD receiver/HD DVR.

Me: :fustrate:

At this point, Alex and I were, sadly, disconnected. It’s too bad, because I was really looking forward to Alex enlightening me as to the Time Warner DVR hard disk size, and the availability of HD on-demand content.

I’ve had more cogent conversations with A.L.I.C.E. (not to mention fake Kirk).

I then e-mailed their customer support, but it appears I’ve stumped them as well, because, other than the auto-response I got about 46 hours ago assuring me that a tech support person would respond within 24 hours, I’ve heard nothing.

Something tells me I’ll be sticking with DirecTV.

I must confess that not only did I not watch last night’s Emmys, I didn’t even know they were on. Since I haven’t actually seen many of the shows that won, I can’t really comment on the winners, except to say that I like Nurse Jackie, so I’m glad Edie Falco won, I like the kid from Big Bang Theory (which I also think is a good show), and I also like The Closer, because the character of Brenda Lee Johnson is just so gosh darn cute.

Speaking of cute, the normally rather adorable Anna Paquin’s dress made her look pretty stupid. It appears she was wearing some kind of ancient Egyptian football shoulder pads. Oh, Sookie. You have to wonder who talks them in to this stuff.

In other exciting news, after being down since the beginning of the month, Sedition Radio is back on the air. I kind of debated on whether or not to even bother with it, but then I found a Shoutcast host willing to give me a free 25-user server. I still need to run it locally, but it gets relayed to them. Not that anyone cares, but Morning Sedition lives on – at least for a little while longer. It’ll need to be down for at least a while when I move, and since it’s been almost five years now, well, that might be a good time to just say goodbye and thanks for all the fish. But, we’ll see.

Oh well, I guess I’d better get to work. Got a house (and a tractor, and a plow, and a pellet stove insert, and a shitload of fencing and…) to pay for.

It’s a Katrina kind of day today on Press the Meet as we ‘celebrate’ the fifth anniversary of the hurricane that should’ve changed everything, but didn’t. I guess Gilligan Gregory couldn’t handle things, so they’re bringing in Brian Williams to chat with the Landrieus – DINO Mary Landrieu and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Then it’s an interview with the vampire Brad Pitt, founder of the Make It Right Foundation – aimed at building 150 green, affordable, high-quality design homes in the Lower 9th Ward, and a discussion with Wendell Pierce (New Orleans native, star of “Treme” and “The Wire”, and President of the Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corporation), New Orleans journalist Garland Robinette, and Historian, former Tulan professor, and author Douglas Brinkley.

Over at Faze the Nation, Bob Schieffer has Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller, FL Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, Mississippi’s cracker governor Haley Barbour, and Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

At Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has a tribute to the successor of Martin Luther King’s legacy, the man, the myth, the legend – the greatest deductive mind since Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the one, the only, fresh off his triumphant Beckapalooza, it’s an exclusive interview with Glenn Beck (how did they ever score a coup like that). If you want to see the future of American, you’d better tune in.

Over at the Gobbles network it’s, oh I don’t know. Tony Blair or something. Who can concentrate in the glow of yesterday’, oh what would you call it? Beckiosity? Glennism? Bleckness?

On CNN, Fareed Zakaria is all about ideas – the next big ideas that are shaping our world now and will continue to do so, long into the future. Which I think means Glenn Beck.

Are China and the U.S. on a collision course? Is a confrontation inevitable? China is busy beefing up its navy, buying new ships and weapons. What does it all mean for the home team (you know, us)? Geo-strategist (nice work if you can get it) Robert Kaplan tells us, and and explains why the South China Sea will soon be the most important place on earth (except for wherever Glenn Beck happens to be).

Then, What in the World? Do you know the significance of the number 311? It’s not just a phone number any more. It might be a key number for reducing America’s nuclear arsenal. But then again, the only number that really matters is 2012.

Is the Internet really dead as Wired Magazine claims? Is it really making us dumber? Personally, I just think it’s Wired magazine that’s making us dumber; that, and mindless devotion to brand names). But Farred will get the real scoop from Internet guru Clay Shirky (question: if you’ve never heard of somebody, can they really be a ‘guru’?) on the state of technology in our culture today…and what the future will bring.

Then, is there a bright side to the recession? Author and economist Richard Florida on the change that always comes with economic crisis…and the good things that he thinks will come out of this one. Like, I dunno, cheap labor and Mexicans fleeing back to Mexico to find jobs. And finally, the Last Look: the next big idea in military fashion. Apparently with the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in sight, camo is out.

Just a couple more True Bloods left. Then I guess I can dump HBO for a while (at least until ‘Boardwalk Empire’ starts).

Have a good one.

Oops, been up so long I forgot to put a thread out there. Even got the grass cut and weed whacked. Amazing what you can accomplish when you’re not hung over every morning. I still think I prefer the beer drinking, though. But, it’s all about saving the money at this point. And if my blood pressure goes down so I don’t have a stroke, that would be an added bennie. Yep, Vernon, we’ll sell the current home, though it needs work to get it into sellable condition. If there’s anybody out there with ties to CNY and/or the Finger Lakes region who’d like a quaint little handyman’s special as a summer cottage, let me know. Or, actually, let Granny know. It’s her house. No reasonable offer refused. My big hope for the weekend is to go at least 48 hours without having to talk to a Realtor, Home Inspector, Lawyer (on a professional basis; be happy to chat with one of you people about anything other than real estate), or mortgage lender. You may find this hard to believe, but I really don’t like talking to people or (especially) calling them on the phone, and this has all been on me. Sans alcohol. Oy. I wish I could pay somebody to handle off of this, and just wake me up when everything’s moved in. Being a grownup sucks.

Let’s hear it for Jimmy Carter, who secured the release of Aijalon Gomes from North Korea. Republican Presidents piss the world off, and Democratic ex-Presidents smooth things over. I guess. Though I suppose the North Koreans aren’t quite as endeared to Harry Truman as we all are.

In other exciting news, my new Kindle has yet to ship, but is expected to ship today and be delivered Monday. I’m rather looking forward to getting it. There are a boatload of free books available for it, and there are ways, to, um convert other books that are out there to a Kindle-readable format. I’d been resistant to the whole e-reader thing, but it looks like the Kindle 3 is a winner, and I’m looking forward to getting back to reading something other than reference books again.

But I guess the most exciting news (from my perspective, anyway) is that, pending the results of the inspection, which is now my only ‘out,’ it looks like we bought a house. Thank goodness for the shitty housing market and low interest rates, ‘cuz I’d never be able to afford this (let alone be willing to actually shell out the bucks) otherwise. On the dark side, though, I’ll really miss my brand new appliances, and I won’t be able to quit my job anytime soon (not for at least 15 years, anyway). Good thing I don’t work for USA Today.

Oh well, time to get my act together and close out this week.

Shocking news this morning. Are you sitting down? Good. ‘Cuz it turns out Dubya’s 2004 campaign manager and former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman is gay. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview.

All that sex with dudes shoula been your first clue, buddy.

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life…. The process has been something that’s made me…happier and better”

And gayer, too, apparently.

This has got to be quite a blow (so to speak) to Republicans. Not the gay part, of course, but the hypocrisy, which is so unusual for them. 🙄

Hopefully Lindsay Graham, Karl Rove, Wide Stance Craig, and Mitch McConnell will now come out with statements condemning Kenny Boy for his clandestine behavior, but praising his courage for coming out. Larry Craig might even offer to make room for Ken under his big tent.

Former Japanese Democratic Party Leader Ichiro Ozawa called Americans ‘simple-minded’ yesterday. All I have to say to that is, “well, duh.”

“I like Americans, but they are somewhat monocellular,” the former Democratic Party leader said. “When I talk with Americans, I often wonder why they are so simple-minded.”

Me too, Ichiro-san. But it’s part of our charm.

We’re like that affable but really stupid dog that wags his tail and drools all over everything, then craps on the floor. You try and get pissed at us, but then you look in our big goofy eyes and you just can’t stay mad. At least until we elect a George Bush and contract the equivalent of rabies and get all aggressive and invasiony and shit.

Then you realize we’re too goddamn big to have put down, and you start getting nervous.

Today is a big day here in these parts. It’s the opening day of the New York State Fair, which signals the beginning of the unofficial end of summer (the end of course coming on the final day of the Fair, which is Labor Day). As always (now that I’m old), the start of the Fair has taken me by surprise. Where has the summer gone?

Features include the world famous butter sculpture, which this year has the “green technology” theme of “Dairyville 2020” (which is funny since the display case is a big refrigerated room that’s got to be at least as old as I am, and probably uses about eleventy-million KWh a day.

On one side is a dairy farm with 14 cows, a barn and an anarerobic digester. On the other side of the sculpture is Dairyville, which is powered by electrical lines carrying power made from the cow manure.The exhibit shows how the manure from these cows can be used to generate electricity using the digester, how composted manure can be used as natural fertilizer and, of course, how these cows produce nearly 50 gallons of milk a day.

Wow, butter and manure. It doesn’t get any better than that!

After the fair, students from the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse will convert the butter into biofuel to fuel the college’s buses.

Well good for them. Beats making 2.3 million pieces of toast.

Also, it’s also a big night for geezers (and geezers at heart), as tonight’s act at the grandstand is Aerosmith.

I won’t be attending this year’s Fair, because out of the blue a few months ago, the State Fair Director decided to fire all the union trades people (electricians, plumbers, steamfitters, etc) that traditionally work the Fair and get the grounds ready each year, and then hired a bunch of scabs for a lot less money.

To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have gone anyway. I haven’t actually gone since 1998, I think, when I manned the voter registrstion booth for my union, and got my picture taken shaking hands with former NYS Comptroller H. Carl McCall (had he won the election for Governor, NY would be in much better shape right now) at a luncheon for union activist types. He made me look very, very short.

The rides on the midway are too expensive (as are the beers), I’ve already seen plenty of horses and cows, and, all due respect to Melina, chickens don’t really do much for me. Oh, there’s a lot of other stuff, but it mostly amounts to people trying to sell you shit (I could use a free cleaning of my glasses with the miracle anti-fog juice, I guess), and shit I’ve seen before.

Oh well, looks like I’m running late here. Have a good Thursday.

So, it’s hump day. It appears that my internal clock has decided that 4:30 is plenty late to sleep in. Actually it would have had me get up even earlier, but I’m stubborn. I’m finding life to be quite tedious these days, and I think that’s got a lot to do with not drinking beer. I may be saving money, but there’s a empty void in my life. I’m also wrestling with this whole putting in an offer on a new house thing. I haven’t gone through this hoo-hah in about 20 years, at which point I bought a two-family home with a friend of mine so we could live in one flat and rent out the other. Sadly, we were both rather stupid and naive, and, while it wasn’t a horrible experience, we paid more than we should have, had lots to do to fix the place up, had the neighborhood go from not-too-bad to kinda crappy, and eventually had to pay money to walk out. Needless to say, I’m rather reluctant to repeat that experience.

As it stands right now, the sellers say they’re willing to move “some” on their price (but “not a whole lot”), while I need them to move “a lot” in order to justify the years of work it’s gonna take to get the place into shape. Hell, there’s still a shitload of work to do on the current place. Oh well.

So, I didn’t pay much attention to yesterday’s primary, but I see that St. John McCain trounced the teabagger nut he was running against. And the Meek may not have inherited the Earth, but he appears to have inherited the Democratic nomination for US Senate in Florida. Let’s hope he can manage to be the first black Senator from FL come November (I think with the Republicans at least theoretically split between Crist and Rubio, he’s at least got to have a chance).

The NY MTA is considering a fare increase to $130 for a monthly MetroCard (it’s $89 a month now). It’s not actually ‘monthly’ though, as they sell them as 30-day unlimited use. That’s $4.33 a day, and if you only use them to commute five days a week (at an average of 21.67 working days a month – 52*5/12), that would be more like $5.97 a day. Of course, it’ll hurt those who can least afford to pay more for the privilege of going to work the most, but then that’s how the world works, I guess.

Oh well, I think it’s time to go and do what it takes to get out the door.