There are a couple of big votes coming up today here in NY State, neither of which have anything to do with me. First off, there’s a special election to fill the seat left vacant when the NYS Senate expelled Hiram Monserrate in conjunction with his conviction for slashing his girlfriend’s face. Of course, Hi’s running for his old seat, so it’ll be interesting to see if voters in the NY’s 13th district return him to office or not. He’s running against NYS Assemblyman Jose Peralta, who has been endorsed by pretty much all the Democrats and lefties in NY (mostly, I think, because he’s yet to be convicted of anything). He’s also a supporter of marriage equality, which is appropriate, since he’d be representing Queens.

Also today, the village of Seneca Falls votes on whether or not to dissolve and be absorbed into the town that surrounds it (which is also named Seneca Falls). The village is probably best known as the birthplace of the women’s rights movement, having held the first documented women’s rights convention in 1848. It’s also the home of the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Women’s Rights National Historic Park.

Seneca Falls was also an abolitionist hotspot, and the home of Amelia Bloomer, who popularized the women’s garments know today as – you guessed it – “bloomers” (though they were actually invented by Elizabeth Smith Miller of Peterboro, NY – another big abolitionist hotspot – and Fabrizia Flynn, who women can also thank for the galvanized rubber girdle).

Plus, it (Seneca Falls, not the girdle) was the inspiration for Frank Capra’s Bedford Falls (you know, from “It’s a Wonderful Life”).

Oh, there’s more, but I’m afraid it’ll just have to wait for another day, ‘cuz it’s getting late and is time for me to hit the road.

It’s funny, but yesterday felt more like we fell back an hour to me. The day seemed to last a long time – which is pretty unusual for a Sunday (especially one where I actually got some things accomplished). Today is making up for it, though, as I feel like somebody set the clock ahead by about five hours. I feel all kinds of crappy and tired, and am wondering just how the hell I’m gonna make it through the day. I also managed to gouge a nice chunk of flesh out of the inside of my elbow (is there an actual term for that part of one’s anatomy) in one of those “oh, I guess that wasn’t the last step on the ladder” things. It’s kind of annoying, since the skin seems to magically heal itself when my arm is bent, only to be torn apart again when I straighten it.

There doesn’t seem to be much going on in the news this morning. We’re mad at Israel, but not to worry. I’m sure it’s just a lover’s spat, and soon we’ll kiss and make up. They say we’re gonna get a health care reform law this week. Yeah, OK. I’ll believe it when I see it. Though I will say that the relentless onslaught of anti-reform ads seems to have ended. Haven’t seen one this morning (yet). That may be a sign that this is finally over. That, and l’il Lindsey Graham being in a petulant frenzy over the Democrats deigning to pass legislation in a “sleazy” manner. I think Lindsey needs a tickle hug.

Of course, we’ve all heard by now that Peter Graves passed away. To many (especially old people), he’s best known as the host of “Biography.” To people my age, he is, of course, both Jim Phelps and the pilot – Captain Clarence Oveur – from the “Airplane” movies (released, ironically, the same year that SU was last a #1 seed in the NCAA hoops tourney; note that I can tie pretty much anything to Syracuse with very little effort). I don’t think Victor ever did tell him what their vector was.

My favorite scene from Airplane is when Lloyd Bridges brings his kid to work and lets him clear planes for takeoff. Or do I have that mixed up with another movie?

Peter Graves was also the kid brother of James Arness (best known, of course, as “The Thing” in Howard Hawks’ “The Thing from Another Planet” – not to be mistaken for Thing T. Thing from the Addams Family [whose home design may or may not have been inspired by this building on the SU campus, which Charles Addams would have seen as a Colgate student when attending SU/Colgate football games, which was a big rivalry back in the day; see? told ya], played by Ted Cassidy, which is why you never saw Lurch and Thing together, and also starring Jackie Coogan, whose father was born in Syracuse [see how easy it is?] as Uncle Fester – later remade by John Carpenter, and starring, among others, Wilford Brimley, who later went on to be famous for gettin’ the diabeetus).

In perhaps his finest work, Peter Graves starred as Dr. Douglas Martin in “Killers from Space,” which – along with several other of his movies – can be seen on The Film Crew and MST3K). For me, I’ll always remember Graves as that dirty, no-good Nazi spy in Stalag 17 (directed by Billy Wilder, brother of W. Lee Wilder, who directed Graves in Killers from Space, and also starring William Holden, who escaped from the Nazis and then went on to blow up the bridge on the river Kwai).

Oh, I spoke too soon. There goes another anti-HCR ad. A good reason to go to work, I guess.

Yesterday blew. Literally. We didn’t get the heavy rain they had elsewhere in the Northeast, but we damn sure got the wind. Lots of folks without power around here, though we, fortunately, were spared. Good thing we didn’t get the rain, since, with the warm weather last week, all our snow is pretty much gone and things are pretty mooshy around here as it is. We have lots of tree bits down in the back yard, and I’m pretty sure I saw somebody fly by on a bicycle with a little dog in the front basket. Speaking of dogs, the receding snow at the park has left the chewed, rotting corpses of tennis balls strewn about, along with melting piles of dog crap. This is the ugly time of year up here. The trees have no leaves, and the nice, pretty snow is gone, exposing all the leftover road dirt.

Yesterday really rocked, too, if you live in Indonesia, where either a 7.0 or 6.4 earthquake (depending on who you listen to) hit, or if you live in Japan, which got hit by a 6.6. Indonesia, Japan, Chile, Haiti…. If one didn’t know better, one might think the Earth is starting to pull itself apart. And it’s not even 2012 yet.

Jim Bunning might be a crazy, demented old man to you, but he’s a hero back home in Kentucky. A regular injun killin’ Dan’l Boone. They gave him a hero’s reception (at $60 – $100 a head), where every Kentucky cracker cam out to sing his praises (except for Ferret Face MacConnell, of course, who is at once both intimidated and aroused by Bunning’s throbbing manliness).

“Jim Bunning has been right more than he’s been wrong,” said Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican who thinks of Bunning as his mentor. “And history will show that he, more than anyone else, predicted some of the economic problems we’re having now and worked to try to prevent them.”

Really? Jim Bunning more than anyone else saw all this coming? The guy’s a sage! Just stay the hell off his lawn.

The Catholics and pro-lifers are at it again, and this time it’s health care reform their after. You’d think that people who profess to be “pro life” would want everybody to have health care, but in this case, um, well, I’ll be damned. Seems Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good have come out in support of reform. And so has the Catholic Health Association.

I like the fact that it’ll stay light an hour later now, but why do they have to fuck with Sunday? Why not spring the clocks ahead an hour on, I dunno, maybe three o’clock on Friday afternoon? And when it comes time to fall back, how about we do it on a Monday morning at about five? I realize that might screw a few people over, but it would work out pretty well for me, and that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Hard to believe it’s been a year already, but it’s Pi Day once again. I think I’ll spend the day drawing circles and then dividing their circumferences by their diameters.

Mmmm. Federal aid for college students. Mmmm. Health care reform. HEY! You got your student aid all over my health care reform! You got your health care reform all over my student aid! Hey, wait a minute…. This is good! That’s right. Can’t pass HCR? Can’t expand federal aid for college students? Well, let’s put ’em together and see what happens. At the very least, it ought to make ferret face McConnell’s head explode. You know what? Let’s throw in legislation making it illegal to drown kittens, eat babies, and not call your mother on Mother’s Day, too. Make the fuckers vote against that. No “public option,” though. That might piss the insurance companies off.

As much as I think the HCR bill sucks, I really, really, really want it to pass. Why? Because they’ve been running these goddamn “tell your congresscritter to vote NO!” ads almost constantly on the local teevee. Seems the two Representatives from the districts around here (the two that didn’t just admit to being serial gropers) are apparently considered “swing votes”.

These ads have been running constantly during the morning news – sometimes two and three times in a row; ad buys must be pretty cheap around here – telling us “the people” told Pelosi and Obama to “slow down” but now they’re gonna use “special rules” to ram this down our throats (they of course fail to mention that this legislation already passed both houses – including 60 votes for it in the Senate – and that budget reconciliation is no more “special” than the dumb fucking rule that says Democrats need 60 votes to pass any laws and 40 votes are a majority, if they’re Republican votes).

I hate these goddamn commercials. So, they’ve managed to convince me that I’m a strong supporter of whatever the hell they come up with.

I do feel sorry for Bart Simpson Stupak, though. It appears his fifteen minutes of fame are pretty much over.

After playing a central role in the bid to ensure that federal funding for abortion is removed from the Democrats’ health care bill, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said in an interview on Friday that he is suddenly feeling left out.

“They’re ignoring me,” he told National Review Online….

Aw, poor Bart. Hopefully he’ll be able to retire to Connecticut soon, where he and that little weasel Joe Lieberman can sit around and tickle each other for hours on end, talking about how important they used to be.

Speaking of health-related issues, seems there’s an awful lot of herpes out there in the wild (which reminds me of that old joke about the guy who had sex with his canary and caught twerpes; worst part was, it was untweetable). More than 16% of Americans between 14 and 49 (I guess when you’re over 49 nobody gives a shit what you have) have HSV-2. And you ladies are twice as likely to have as the men folk are. 11.5% of men are apparently infecting 20.9% of the women out there. Especially black women, almost half of whom are infected. Thank goodness I’ll be told old to worry about it pretty soon (not that I’ve exactly had a lot of women – of any flavor – throwing themselves at me lately).

It’s not St. Patrick’s Day yet, but we’re having our annual parade today anyway. Personally, I think not actually having it on the actual St Patrick’s Day is an insult to the Irish. I mean, if they can shut down half of NYC and march up 5th Avenue on a Wednesday, I think they can do it here, too. But, what the hell. No harm in getting started early, I guess. Pionta Guinness, le do thoil.

Some days, when walking from the car into the grocery store, I worry about whether or not one of the idiots who seem to feel compelled to drive 40 mph through the parking lot will run me over. Other days, I all but dare them to hit me. “Go ahead, ya bastid. Hit me. But you better kill me, or I’ll pull your ass out of your car and tickle you ’til you can’t breathe.” Yesterday was one of the latter days, as I found myself in a bit of a foul mood – in spite of the rather exquisite weather we’ve been having. Alas, nobody took me up on my dare.

Is anybody else tired of the whole health care reform bullshit? Oh, we’re gonna pass it. Oh, there’s one last chance for a public option. Oh, if Obama supports it, it could pass. Oh, Paul Krugman says reform will reduce the deficit and isn’t a government takeover (no offense, Paul, but anybody with half a brain that’s been paying attention already knows that, and the Republicans and teabaggers really don’t care what liberal elitist smartypantses like you say). Whatever. Just shut up and do it, if you’re gonna do it. Or shut up and don’t do it. Either way, just shut up.

Speaking of HCR, Harry Reid has written Mitch McConnell a stern letter about reform and the reconciliation process. Nice letter. I think ol’ ferret face will be almost as moved as I was by it, immediately see the error of his ways, and offer to engage in a good old fashioned tickle fight with Democrats (all in good fun, of course). Hopefully somebody will tickle Joe Lieberman with a brick. Look, Harry, again. Just STFU and do it, if you’re gonna do it.

Oh well, time to get ready for you-know-what. Hopefully today will be a better day than yesterday, as we head in to a 47 hour weekend. This, of course, is the weekend where we all realize just how many goddamn clocks we have. My car alone has two in it (three, if I have the GPS in it – but that one changes itself). It typically takes me about 11 months to figure out how to change the clock on the car stereo (I just can’t bring myself to RTFM). At least I’ll have a lot of free time this weekend, now that I won’t be needing to watch any college basketball.

Have fun.

A series of godless tornadoes attacked Arkansas yesterday, sending razorbacks flying, and knocking out the electricity in three counties. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Arkansas has electricity?” But, yes, it appears they do. I believe it was originally installed by godless socialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936, as part of his commie Rural Electrification Administration. A typical liberal socialist redistribution of wealth, if you ask me.

Speaking of pigs, a new study (in Australia; thank goodness this isn’t one we had to pay for) finds that there’s a sixth taste. Or at least that some people can discern the taste of “fat.” Apparently it isn’t a good taste, though, ‘cuz people who are sensitive to it tend to eat less of it. I bet they don’t get out to Burger King much.

Bill Gates is no longer the world’s wealthiest dude. That distinction now belongs to Mexican native Carlos Slim Helu. Great, now we’re even outsourcing out billionaire jobs to Mexico.

There’s been a little too much man-on-man grabass in the news lately (and, for the record, I disapprove of this willy-nilly groping – not to mention willy groping – of other people’s parts, without at least a tacit agreement between the parties involved; it also seems to show that, even though, during his Naval service – which brings a rather disturbing image to mind – nobody may have asked Eric Massa, I think they could kinda tell). So, I thought I’d try and balance it out with a story from – not surprisingly – Florida.

Now, as I understand it, a woman who only a day earlier had been convicted of DUI and driving on a suspended license was driving her Chevy pickup truck on her way to visit her boyfriend. Understandably, she wanted to look her best for her boyfriend, so she asked her passenger – who happened to be her ex-husband, Charles – to take the wheel while she shaved her hoo-hoo. You wouldn’t think this would be a problem, but apparently she slammed into the back of a 1995 Thunderbird that had slowed down to take a left. I guess Chuck wasn’t keeping his eyes on the road.

So, anyway, to talking on your cell phone and texting, add shaving your naughty bits to the list of things you shouldn’t do while driving. I mean, would it set your schedule back that much to pull over and take care of business? ‘Cuz if you’ve got that much to take care of, you really need to set up a personal grooming schedule (though I have to confess, I really don’t get the obsession with shaving that there stuff; it’s kind of nature’s fig leaf – though I suppose fig leaves are nature’s fig leaf).

Oh well, I guess it’s about that time.

Meet the latest candidate for NYS Governor, Kristin Davis, who is prepared to throw her, um, hat into the ring.

Davis built the most successful escort service in world history. She had more than 100 girls and operated in 5 countries, with a call center in Uruguay. She could dispatch a $1,000-plus-an-hour call girl to a hotel or residence in Paris, Berlin, Gstaad, Rome, New York, L.A., Miami, Dubai, Montreal or elsewhere within minutes. She personally recruited her girls at bars, clubs, resorts and restaurants.

Presumably, that’s Rome and/or New York, not Rome, NY. I don’t think there’s much call for $1,000 an hour hookers over there these days. Except for maybe when Tiger Woods is in the area, playing at the Turning Stone casino.

I think Davis would be a fine choice. Since we typically elect whores to office here in NY, I think it’s about time we elected somebody who has experience managing them.

Speaking of those wild and crazy NY politicians, it appears that Eric Massa has gone nuts. Massa was the representative of the district next to mine, and was a strong proponent of single payer health care. Unfortunately, in an interview with Glenn Beck (where Massa actually did what I thought was impossible: he made Beck look sane by comparison) Massa admitted he was less than a perfect boss.

In a one-hour interview with Beck…Massa offered a series of bizarre, even inexplicable explanations for his abrupt departure from office. Coming just hours after news broke that the he was under investigation for groping multiple male staffers, Massa insisted that the interactions were playful in nature, though inappropriate in retrospect.

“Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe,” he said.

Now, I like to have as good a time at work as the next guy (or gal), but if my boss ever tries groping me and tickling me until I can’t breathe, it’ll be the last friggin’ thing he ever tries (I was gonna say, ‘if he tries that, he’s goin’ down,’ but I thought that might be misconstrued). I mean, c’mon, Eric, go to your office, close the door, and spend some quality time with your Tickle Me Elmo doll. Kinda creepy.

Speaking of creepy, creepy li’l Markos Moulitsas got more face time on Olbermann’s show last night, telling Larry O’Donnell that Dennis Kucinich better stop pushing for health care reform that doesn’t suck, or he’ll face a primary challenge next election.

Watch out, Dennis, or Markos will tickle you ’til you can’t breathe.

I went to the grocery store after work yesterday, which wasn’t the way I wanted to cap off a pretty sucky Monday. I’m not that crazy about going out in public these days, mostly because I think people should be taken in moderation, and definitely in groups of three or less. The store, of course, was packed with brain-dead idiots, their grubby, shrieking spawn running amok, daring me to crush them under the wheels of my cart. Fortunately, I only needed some Schinkenbrot and beer (which reminded me of a guy I used to know who for some reason would often say, “oh dear, bread and beer. If I were dead, I wouldn’t be here.” In fact, he isn’t here, ‘cuz he’s been dead for quite a while now), but it was still a challenge to get what I needed and get out again without giving in to my desire to ram somebody with my shopping cart, or run their bratty little kids over. No offense, but can’t you leave them home or lock them in the trunk or something? I mean, do I bring my dogs and let them run loose?

Rather exciting news (for us yokels, anyway) this morning. It seems that John Malkovich and his production company will shooting a movie here this summer. The film – to be titled, “Hotel Syracuse” – is a psychological thriller about a math professor who attends an international math conference in Syracuse (who wouldn’t pay to see that). While staying at the – you guessed it – Hotel Syracuse he encounters people from his past and realizes he is not hallucinating.

I hate it when I realize I’m not hallucinating.

This Mac laptop of mine (or that I’ve been using, anyway) crashed last night. Just locked up and told me I needed to restart, which isn’t all that unusual (contrary to urban legend and the Apple marketing machine). I was on my way to bed anyway, but when I started the thing up this morning, it turned out that the touchpad “click” no longer works. I don’t typically use it, except when the OS crashes, and I have to select the user to log in (once my profile loads, I don’t have to use that). Fortunately, I figure out how to get around it, but it’s still kind of a bummer. Here I thought Macs were indestructible perfect little machines that never crashed or locked up or any of that other stuff. Doesn’t seem to be that way, though. I can see why the TCO of these things is a lot higher. I like the touchpad, though. Even if it no longer clicks.

It’s still basketball season but, beleive it or not, baseball’s spring training has begun, kicking off the start of the 8-month baseball season. Baseball is one of those sports you don’t actually have to watch (hence the appeal to our soon to be ex-Governor). You can get just as much excitement out of reading the box scores in the paper as you can from watching the games. Baseball is so exciting that, when somebody swings really, really hard, but misses the ball, the crowd goes, “oooooh!” And then fifteen minutes of scratching, spitting, head shaking, and checking the runner at first ensues. If the batter actually hits the ball and gets on base, he typically calls an immediate timeout, having exhausted himself by running 90 feet. If the team starts getting a few hits (in other words, something is actually happening), the other team’s manager comes out and talks to the pitcher for a while, presumably to calm down the crowd, who has gotten all riled up from seeing action at a baseball game.

Not that I don’t respect the players’ abilities, mind you. I’m lucky if I can hit a slow pitch softball, and really wouldn’t want to get beaned with a 90 mph fastball. And I don’t think I’d be beating out many singles these days (I wasn’t exactly Speedy Gonzales when I was young; now, I think I’d need to take a break about halfway to first). Plus, I just wouldn’t want to poke myself in the ass with steroids.

Although, I could use a shot of something to get myself going this morning.

This whole Monday thing gets tougher every week.