Every now and then I feel compelled to piss and moan about how tough things are for me. Then I see the reports from Haiti, and my life doesn’t seem so bad after all. They’ve run out of room for mass burials in places, and have had to resort to burning the dead. And the dead might be the lucky ones, compared to the thousands who are injured and dehydrated in the sweltering heat without clean water. There are few (if any) doctors on the ground so far – volunteers and donations are pouring in, but getting everything to where it’s needed is a logistical nightmare. I saw an Army medical corpsman who was with just one of many of them. He’s spent hours stitching up this man’s face and pulling the maggots from his head injury, but the man’s arm was totally crushed from the shoulder down, and without a surgeon to take the arm off, he won’t last long. On the bright side, the Haitian disaster coverage ratings are in, and Fox wins! They easily beat out both CNN and MSNBC. I’m so glad somebody’s keeping track of what’s really important in all this. NBC is fighting back by sending Lester Holt down there this morning. I guess maybe they think he’ll fit in a little better with the natives. Jon Stewart chided Rachel Maddow for pointing out that bolstering USAID has been a major part of the Obama Administration’s agenda – in contrast to the Bush years.

“Not the right time!” Stewart shouted. “Congratulations MSNBC viewers, you’re on the right side… of this terrible, terrible tragedy.”

Personally, I don’t think it’s in any way wrong to point out that Bush and Cheney sat around with their thumbs up each others’ asses for eight years, responding to crises grudgingly (if at all), with their main concern being how somebody could make a profit off it. We all remember the pitiful Katrina response in New Orleans, of course, and you may recall that, after the Christmas Tsunami, Bush announced a ridiculously embarrassing $35 million in aid for the area before being shamed into doing more (to be fair, there’s weren’t a whole lotta white folks involved in either of those – and, as Bush’s mommy noted, the whole Katrina thing worked out really well for all those little picaninnies from The Big Easy). But congratulations, Jon and you Daily Show viewers, you’re above all that. Truly, you’re the ones on the “right side” of this.

Speaking of being shamed into doing the right thing, Visa, American Express, PayPal, and others have decided to waive their customary fees on donations to the relief fund at places like Save the Children. I sure as hell hope the money is actually getting to the people who need it.

Oh well, time to go and play with my Bench Cookies.

I really feel I need to point something out. They paint the lines on the road for a freakin’ reason. They’re called “lanes,” and, generally speaking you should f*cking stay in yours. A “special” type of lane is called a “left turn” lane. The purpose of this kind of lane is so you can stay out of my f*cking way while you’re waiting to turn. Just because you’re stupid enough to insist on turning left during rush hour doesn’t mean I should be punished for it. I’m just trying to get to the store to buy the beer that makes my life worth living. While we’re at it, you know what? If you’re in the wrong lane, just bite the bullet and keep going until you find a place to turn around. This is how you learn to get in the correct land ahead of time. Don’t sit there in the right turn lane with your f*cking left turn signal blinking away, holding up everybody behind you. It’s not their fault you’re an idiot, and nobody in the left lane owes you a goddamn thing. I’ll cut you some slack if you’re trying to merge into traffic at an on-ramp or from a gas station or whatever, but if it’s your screw-up then take responsibility for your actions.

Yesterday it was sunny here, with temperatures in the upper 30’s (the first time we’ve seen 30 degrees since New Years’ Day). My driveway is down to bare pavement again. I don’t think you folks who live where the weather is nice all the time can really appreciate a beautiful day the way we can. Hopefully this warm stuff won’t last too long; things get kind of ugly looking this time of year when there’s no snow.

Today’s my dad’s birthday. He’d be 90 today, except for that whole being dead for the past 15 years or so. To celebrate, we’re having a national holiday in his honor on Monday. Pretty cool, eh?

I was watching a recording of “Men of a Certain Age” the other night. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites, for several reasons. For one thing, the certain age of the men in question is pretty much the certain age I am, so we have a lot in common. Even better, the co-creator is not only from these parts, but actually went to the same high school that I did. So, naturally, the three men in question – Scott Bakula, Ray Romano, and Andre Braugher – all went to SU (interestingly enough, all three are supposed to have been childhood friends, but Romano is the only one with a Queen’s accent). Ray is frequently sporting a Syracuse t-shirt and has SU stuff on his office wall. And on one show Bakula says, “remember the time when Joe got the crap beat out of him by that kid who snuck into Hungry Charley’s?” Well, Hungry Charley’s was a bar I started going to when I was about 15, so I was probably there that night. Romano plays a recently divorced guy, Bakula is lady’s man, new age, yoga instructor type, and Braugher is a fat old married guy. I’ll leave it to you to decide which character I most relate to.

Anyhow, I don’t normally watch commercials, but I was futzing around with something else and not really paying attention when some ad for mascara or something with Brooke Shields came on. Or, that’s what I thought it was, until I heard the word “prescription.” Seems this was a commercial for “Latisse” which is “a prescription treatment for hypotrichosis.” Yes, if you suffer from the horrors of “inadequate” eyelashes, you can now get your doctor to give you a prescription to make them “longer, thicker and darker” (gee, I wonder if it’d work on my…well, never mind). Of course, you risk side effects like hair growth in “other areas,” darkening of eyelid skin, itchy, dry, red eyes, and – get this – it could even permanently turn your eyes brown. Now, I’m sure there are people out there with no eyelashes at all, and that would be a bad thing that this stuff could help. But this was clearly being marketed as a vanity product (I mean, Brooke Shields fer chrissakes). Aren’t there more important problems to worry about? Let’s just hope it’s covered by the Senate’s health care reform plan.

One place they more to worry about than eyebrows is Haiti, which has pretty much been leveled by the earthquake the other day. No electricity, no hospitals, no equipment to dig out the survivors who are screaming for help…. A poor country that had more than enough problems already really didn’t need this. Why some asshole – oh, excuse, me, I meant “Christian” – like Pat Robertson feels compelled to try and exploit the horror down there for whatever perverted pleasure he gets out of spewing his “devil” theories is beyond me. If that’s Robertson’s God causing all that suffering down there, then I want nothing to do with either one of them.

After a long stretch of pretty cold weather (yes, Midwesterners, I know it’s been much colder for you), it appears to be warming up a bit, and it supposed to get to 39° today. You’d think that would be a good thing, but, as far as my creaky old bones are concerned, I’d just as soon that once it gets cold, it stay that way until it’s planning on getting warm permanently. When the temperatures change, my stuff starts to hurt, and this morning my knees and back (and a few other things) have my limping and grunting my way around. I guess I never should have made that pact with the devil.

RIP, Teddy Pendergrass. It don’t hurt now.

I haven’t gone to see Avatar yet (though I got to watch several scenes at the Nokia Theatre in LA back n October), mostly because I never go to see a movie until it’s been reviewed by the Vatican newspaper (because, whether it’s about movies, science, or just plain how to live my life, the Vatican’s opinion is the one I really trust and respect). Well, now the review is in, and let’s just say the Vatican is not impressed. Apart from calling the story bland and sappy, the biggest problem the Vatican’s seems to have with the movie seems to be that it somehow encourages the worship of nature. Apparently this would threaten the worship of an invisible man in the sky who creates imperfect beings in His image and then drowns all but a few of them in anger when He finds them to be less than perfect. This from a Guy who tells Abraham to sacrifice his own child just to see if he’ll do it, turns Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt just for “looking” (but apparently was OK with Lot offering up his virginal daughters to be raped by an angry mob, who (the daughters, not the mob) then take turns getting their father drunk and having sex with him, eventually getting themselves knocked up; hey, nothing wrong with a little incest, eh?), kills the first born sons of Egypt (even if they’re just innocent infants or working slobs, and we won’t even get into the deaths of all those innocent lambs so their blood could be splattered all over the doors of the “true believers” to save their kids), gets pissed off at Moses and makes him and his Jews wander around aimlessly in the desert for 40 years, and engineers the torture and murder of His “son”; gee, made in His image – I wonder why we turned out so “imperfect.” Plus, from what I’ve read, there isn’t a funny hat in the shape of a Turkey’s butt anywhere in the movie. I say go rent “The Bells of St. Mary’s” instead. That’s when movies were movies! Now, I eagerly await the Vatican review of the “Bad Girls 3D” system.

Today is the day I’ve been dreading all week – the biweekly “team” meeting with our Director. I genuinely dislike these things anyway, but today I’m being forced to demo a couple of things that aren’t really done yet and – to make things worse – scuttlebutt has it the CIO will be coming to the meeting as well. I haven’t been able to figure a way out of this (calling in sick came to mind, but that’s a little bit obvious, as did paying somebody to dress like the Unabomber and pull the fire alarm at a strategic time, or maybe even taking the server down), but alas, it appears I’ll just have to buck up and get through it. On the bright side, I should be much happier (and hung over) tomorrow.

Now, a quick trip to the mail bag. Brian from Everett wrote me again to tell me that, while he’d prefer to go to the Maron thing on Thursday, he can go on Friday and Saturday, too. He can take a bus to the show, but they don’t run after hours, so he’d just need a ride back home. I can pass his phone number along to you, if you’re going (I’d be tempted to leave a message on his answering machine, but I’m nowhere near as funny and talented as he is).

Also, Kevin (not Kevin from the great state of Florida) writes to say he has a blog post and illustration of Maron, which you can check out here.

Well, time to go pluck my eyebrows, put on my makeup, and get myself ready to face the day. Have a good one.

This will shock you, I know, but the TSA has been lying to us. They said that those nifty virtual strip search scanners couldn’t do anything more than give TSA security guards (like the one who wasn’t watching the exit when the dude slipped under the exit rope and got the Newark airport locked down – two hours later) a quick peak under your knickers. Well, turns out they actually have the ability to store and transmit the images. :tinfoil: Forget the tin foil hat, frequent fliers. It’s time to start wearing the tin foil underwear, unless you want to become the object of young (and weird) lust on some security scanner porn site.

Speaking of porn, forget Avatar and its “White Messiah” complex, the real future of 3D is in dirty movies, as attendees of the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas (gee, and all I got to go to was the stupid Adobe Max conference) found out. The company, “Bad Girls In 3D” unveiled an online library of 3D porn and a “turnkey digital 3-D viewing system.”

Adult expo attendees wearing “active shutter glasses” grinned as they immersed themselves in a Bad Girls video displayed in 3-D on a giant high-definition television.

Oh, I bet they did.

The system will set you back about $4,000 and $20 a month for the subscription, which is a lot cheaper than getting married, and, unlike your significant other, comes with a warranty.

If you’re looking for a 3D companion that’s a little less virtual, then Roxxy is for you. Roxxxy – a life-size rubber doll – is being marketed as the world’s first sex robot. Hmmm. So far, so good. But the devil’s in the details. Roxxxy is designed to engage her, um, owner, in conversation, rather than lifelike movement.

…it can’t move on its own, not even to turn its head or move its lips.

Roxxxy comes with a laptop, to which she’s attached via cables. She also has sensors in various “locations” that react to being touched, and will cost around $9,000 (including the laptop).

I’m tempted to draw certain comparisons to somebody else I know that spends a lot of time attached to a laptop and not moving, but I’m afraid that would get me smacked (besides, she buys me beer; find me a robot that’ll do that, and then I’ll be impressed).

Douglas Hines, founder of Lincoln Park, N.J.-based True Companion LLC, said Roxxxy can carry on simple conversations. The real aim, he said, is to make the doll someone the owner can talk to and relate to.

“Sex only goes so far – then you want to be able to talk to the person,” Hines said.

Yeah, Doug, the pathetic guy who pays $9,000 for a life-sized rubber sex doll is really just looking for somebody to talk to. I think Mr. Hines must have seen “Lars and the Real Girl.”

I can talk to the dogs for free, so until you get Roxxxy to move her lips, so to speak (or at least install a heater), I think I’ll go for the 3D porn on the giant screen at less than half the price. More bang for the buck, you might say, and then I can play XBox on it.

Finally, I got an e-mail from Brian (in Everett), who wants to know if anybody in the Seattle area is going to see Maron at Laugh’s Comedy Spot in Kirland on Thursday, and would like to give him a ride back to Everett. So, if you plan on attending and want to hook up (so to speak), send me an e-mail, and I’ll pass Brian’s e-mail address along to you. And then you have to promise to take pictures, of course.

As I somehow pried myself out of bed this morning (a very painful process that made me want to cry), I began to wonder – what’s the world record for most time spent in bed by a non-comatose person, and would there be any money in breaking it? Sadly, it appears that Guinness doesn’t include this one in its record books, so I guess I have to keep getting up. Another alternative occurred to me, too. It’s a long shot, but I watched something on one of the science channels the other day (I’ve seen it before, actually), about what would happen when a killer comet hit the Earth. As you can probably guess from the “killer” moniker, the outlook wasn’t good (basically, get incinerated, get drowned in the tidal wave, die as the global temperatures reach 212° F, or freeze/starve to death as the ensuing dust cloud blocks out the sun – plus everything electronic gets fried by an EM pulse). But there was about a month or so when you knew it was coming and, presumably, you wouldn’t have to bother going to work anymore at that point. As long as the Internet kept working, that would be a pretty good month.

So, whattya think? Is Harry Reid a racist that ought to resign? In case you hadn’t heard, way back during the Presidential election campaign, Harry apparently said that, since Obama is light-skinned and doesn’t talk like “one of them” (unless he wanted to), being black wasn’t more of a help than a hindrance (he probably could have added that Obama is “clean,” too). So, either he’s an evil racist or he’s VP material. Now, using the word “Negro” is a little old school, I’ll admit (then again, Harry’s a bit old-school himself), but I’m not sure I’d disagree with the argument that, if Obama was black as coal and spoke like Jesse Jackson, he’d never have gotten nominated, let alone elected. In fact, didn’t somebody or other get caught “darkening” Obama’s picture to make him look more evil?

Republicans are, of course, all bent out of shape. I guess Reid just isn’t PC enough. Next thing you know, they’ll be jumping down his throat for not saying “Happy Holidays.”

Speaking of racism and political correctness, a small group of people (the perpetually offended) have their knickers in a knot over Avatar, claiming that it’s yet another example of the White Hero coming in to save the noble, um nine-foot tall blue people. OK. But he’s saving them from the White Devils, so that ought to count for something, no? Plus – and I really hate to point this out, but – it’s a freakin’ movie people. A movie about a planet full of big blue people living in a rain forest getting devastated by humans wanting to rape the planet for its natural resources. The problem isn’t that there’s a white messiah saving the natives on the fictional planet of Pandora – it’s that there aren’t any real messiahs (white or otherwise) out there capable of saving our own planet from the greedy corporations that are killing it.

Oh well, I guess I suppose I’d better get going to work. I just wish there was a way off this hamster wheel (short of global annihilation, that is).

First off, I think it bears mentioning that the NY Jets actually won a playoff game yesterday, for the first time since beating the Chargers in OT in 2005. While I’m at it, I feel compelled to mention that Buffalo hasn’t even seen the playoffs since 1999, when they lost to Miami (you have to go all the way back to 1995 to find a Bills playoff win). Anyhow, as for today’s boobleheads…

On Press the Meat today, it’s the battle of the Chairs, as DNC Chair Tim Kaine goes up against RNC Chair Bozo Steele. Plus, an eggskloosiff interview with Ahnuld Schwarzenegger. Then, can three people make a round table? We’ll find out as Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd join Gilligan Gregory.

At CBS, Diane the Dino Feinstein and Pete “Hokie” Hoekstra will try and Faze the Nation along with the NY Times’ Peter Baker, and Jan “don’t call me Joan” Crawford of CBS News.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Krazy Jon Kyl and Jack Reed, plus a reprise of the battle of the Chairs, with Tim Kaine and “I wanna be like Mike” Steele. And the Fuxheads, of course.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus asks White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer when working people will recover from the the economic “recovery,” plus there’s a “power” roundtable with George :jerk: Will, Liz “Leni Riefenstahl” Cheney, Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, Judy Woodruff and Robbie Reich.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria has the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen plus a panel on the Christmas day attempted airline bombing.

Of course, the big news (other than the Jets) is the season premiere of “Big Love” on HBO tonight. It should take away some of the pain of tomorrow being Monday. At least until 5:30 tomorrow morning rolls around.

Looks like it’s really goddamn cold all over the country this morning – at least everywhere east of the Rockies. It’s 14 degrees in New Orleans right now. There’s snow, sleet, and freezing rain in Florida. The Midwest, well, it’s double digits below zero there (as usual). It’s 10° here right now, which wouldn’t be all that bad if it wasn’t so windy. At least it isn’t snowing (though we’re supposed to get 2-5 today). All in all, a good day to stay inside and watch football.

In a football game even I didn’t give a shit about, Alabama beat Texas to win the mythical National Championship last night. The game was a rematch of the 1965 “Cracker Bowl” (black folks need not apply) between two of the most famous bigots coaches in NCAA football history – the Crimson Tide’s “Bear” (one can only imagine where that nickname came from) Bryant, and Texas’ Darrell Royal. Texas didn’t allow colored folks on the team until 1969, while ‘bama held out ’til 1971. Which I guess gives me an opportunity to mention how #1 Syracuse with eventual Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis went to Dallas on New Year’s Day 1960 and kicked the crap out of #2 Texas (and refused to attend the dinner honoring Davis as MVP and SU as Cotton Bowl winners, because it was being held in a whites only club). Why the hell they have a National Championship game on a Thursday night is beyond me. I preferred it when all the bowl games were on New Year’s Day, and then it was over (though an actual playoff would be better than this BCS BS, but, whatever).

So, the big report on the Christmas Day underwear bomber came out yesterday, followed by a news conference from President Obama. I haven’t scoured the report or anything, but it appears to amount to “we f*cked up.” Well, duh. The question is, did they f*ck up on purpose to make Obama look bad? Or are things being run by the same incompetent bunch of Bush leftovers? Or maybe they’re looking for an excuse to increase their illegal wiretapping and PATRIOT Act type stuff. Who knows? As for me, I’ll just be staying close to home (not that I was planning on going anywhere anyway).

Speaking of terrorism and perpetual fear and whatnot, you probably heard about this guy who raised a ruckus on a flight from Oregon to Hawaii the other day. He also apparently refused to stow his carry-on luggage. He was enough of a pain in the ass that they turned the flight around, and it was escorted by fighter jets back to Oregon. Now, how stupid do you have to be in this day and age to pull shit on an airplane? I mean, seriously. We all know what the deal is, and we know everybody’s a little touchy these days. And, assuming they ever let this bozo on a plane again, you think he’s not getting a full cavity search every time he walks into an airport from now on?

Of course, all travelers will be getting a virtual strip search before too long. Assuming the government can afford to buy them while still cutting taxes for rich people (pay for it by making your employer’s contribution to your health insurance plan taxable income, maybe). The images are a little creepy, but I suppose I don’t really care if they take a look at my virtual junk box (in my case, it’s actually the screeners I feel sorry for). Of course, before too long, you’re bound to start seeing celebrity screening photos on the Internet (in fact, I project a brand new fetish industry).

Elvis would have turned 75 today. Hard to believe he’s been dead for over 30 years. Darn shame he had to go nuts.

Another day, another knife in the back from the President. The House version of health care reform wants to pay for the bill, in part, by taxing individuals who make more than $500,000 and couples who make more than a million. This would raise an estimated $450 billion over ten years. Pardon me, but I have no problem with that. The Senate takes a different approach. They want to tax insurance companies on plans valued at over $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for couples, which would raise about a third of the revenue the House bill would (and of course would be passed on as premium increases to “We the People”). I’m not exactly sure how they “value” insurance plans (the cheapest “family” plan where I work costs about $24,000 a year between employer and employee contributions, if that’s how they’ll do it), but it certainly sounds as if the Senate version would screw working people who have decent insurance plans, which is why organized labor opposes it.

Yesterday, President Obama met with House Democrats to tell them he supports the Senate version. So, just to review, you’ll be forced to get insurance (or get fined), that insurance will not be allowed to include certain medical procedures for women, you won’t have the option of buying in to a public plan or Medicare, and if the insurance you’ve been forced to buy happens to be pretty good (probably because you’re represented by one of those godless unions, or you work for a company that’s big enough to negotiate a good deal), you’ll get punished for it. All so that rich people don’t have to pay back a buck or two of the tax breaks that Bush gave them over the past 8 years. Nice, eh?