Man About Murfreesboro - blog - funny - politics

June 20, 2007

I've got to get better about updating. This 8, 10, 20-day span is bad for business. Not that this is a business. Man, that would rock. If I could make a living just spouting off random crap about my life and the lives of public figures with the occasional cute pic of my children . . .

I'm sorry, where was I?

Oh yes, digital billboards. I pass one every morning on my way to work -- a giant, digital billboard that flashes new ads every few seconds. I feel almost compelled to look at it, which is the point, I suppose. I'm reminded of science fiction shows like TechWar where your car actually drove through the virtual billboard (because you weren't actually driving it).

It's not even like this is something new. There have been large outdoor screens for years, but I-24W is not Times Square.

At my job, we sometimes create billboard ads for clients. These take a lot of effort and any change to the copy or images requires a crew and a big production. The idea that you can upload a digital file and have it just appear along the interstate is fantastic.

Though I wonder why the ads remain static? Why don't any of them feature moving images? Would that be a safety issue? Am I in danger of driving off the road if I see a can of Coke pop open on a billboard?

Maybe.

Mostly, I'd like to hook my Xbox up to one and play videogames on it.

In Murfreesboro, there is a digital billboard along one of the main roads leading from the interstate to the city center. It's perched high above one of the two Starbucks within a mile of the mall. The Starbucks that i right next to the sign has a patio and an indoor/outdoor fireplace so you can enjoy your overpriced lattes alfresco. In the evening, I'm sure it would be quite pleasent if you didn't have this eerie blue glow from the giant TV screen above you.

I rented and have been really enjoying Shadowrun for Xbox 360. I'm a serious newb, but I've been holding my own in online games. It really depends on with whom you get teamed.

I don't have a lot of friends with an Xbox, so I'm at the mercy of of the random game assignment software. In a typical 8 v 8 game, the servers will split you up according to relative skill, time you've played etc. . . What they don't account for are the people who don't really care about the game, they just want to get all the achievements. In Shadowrun, there are several achievements you can only get by shooting allies.

Yesterday, I was in a game and our team was severly handicapped because two of our players were constantly shooting each other. We spawn, get the word to start and blam, they start firing at each other. That typically meant it was 8 v 6.

In another game we were playing "extraction" meaning our team has to steal the other team's artifact and run back to base with it to score. During the coarse of the game, our team was wiped out except for one. The other side only had one as well. Our guy, a human, decided to resurect the nearest teammate. Me, a dwarf.

I grabbed the artifact and, with him as a blocker, we took off for the base. The dead members of my team were yelling in my ear, warning me about traps, which way to turn and urging me on. It was fun. I was within a few steps of the base, when my partner got killed. Because he had resurected me, that meant that I started to "bleed out." So I died within inches of the goal.

Funnily enough, there is an achievement called "Zombie scores" for bringing the artifact to the base just as you bleed out. I've got the game for a couple of more days. I'm seriously considering buying it.

Young Maxwell has purchased himself a second fishing rig. He's got the fever. He bought another Zepco with a tacklebox and some soft plastic lures. He put the rig together and tied on a lure with very little help.

I told him I hope he develops a life-long passion for fishing because it's a good sport that can provide you with both entertainment and food. But I have no passion or patience for it.

Dollie and I saw "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" over Father's Day weekend. I had high hopes for this film because the first one was decent and I figured that, since they didn't have to bother with an origin story, they could show us some great storytelling.

Instead, we got goofball laughs and bad sight gags. Not only that, but they got the Silver Surfer wrong.

Dollie and I saw it at the drive in in Woodbury and as we sat in her truck listening to the film, I fidgetted at every inconsistency.

The story they were trying to tell, much like the last "X-Men" film and the Dark Phoenix saga, featured an epic event in the lives of the Fantastic Four. The first appearance of the Silver Surver as herald of Galactus was a huge story that involved world-shaking consequences. The film just didn't deliver.

Bring on "Transformers."

June 12, 2007

Back from vacation with the batteries recharged and the body well-rested. It was grand, simply grand. Max tanned up like a smoked almond, Rozzy's tendency to become a wet blanket held off until the last few days, Dollie had a great week with her BFF and our families came away without any desire to kill ourselves or each other. Mission accomplished.

I wanted to post a photo from Rozzy's pre-school graduation. This week and for the next two she'll be attending "kindercamp" at her school. I looked at the pamphlet, which described the skills she would be learning. She's already mastered them all.

She knows her alphabet, her colors, her numbers and the lyrics to Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Snake Farm."

I would dread to be the teacher that has to keep little miss smarty pants occupied for three weeks.

Yesterday, her Grandma Phyllis took her and her brother to the Nashville Zoo. They closed the place down, had some dinner and showed up back at the house just before bedtime.

Phyllis has a way of just running the kids until they collapse. It's great.

My mom called the other day to ask "When can I get the kids?" My standard reply is "When do you want them? Now? Can I drop them off now?"

She said she has a new litter of kittens and she needs to kids to come and play with them so they won't get too wild before they can find homes for all of them. For the record, my mom was not this cool when I was growing up.

Yesterday was also my 13th wedding anniversary. The "Lace" anniversary on the traditional list. Just getting back from a week of vacation, Dollie and I didn't have the cash to buy each other gifts.

"I owe you something lacy," I said.

"Too bad they don't make lacy power tools," she replied.

This coming weekend is Father's Day. By tradition, the family must bend to my will for the weekend. The kids will be staying with my mom, so they get off easy.

A conservative Virginia appeals court ruled recently that the military cannot lock up civilians forever without charges or trial.

	"Put simply, the Constitution does not allow the President to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and then detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them 'enemy combatants,'" the court said. Such detention "would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country," Judge Diana G. Motz wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by Judge Roger Gregory. Judge Henry E. Hudson, a federal judge in Richmond, dissented.

The case involves Ali al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident. Who was arrested in 2001 for suspected links to al Queda. He has been in a Navy brig in solitary confinement since 2003. He has not been allowed to see the evidence against him, challenge the witnesses or protest his confinement. There have been no charges filed. We've just locked him up for 6 years, the last four without access to another living soul.

This is not my America. If he's an al Queda agent, then put him on trial and punish him. If he's not, then let him go. Don't destroy my country in an effort to protect me.

Meanwhile, one of the presecutors at Nuremburg has come out against the GITMO concentration camp.

The Republicans blocked a no-confidence vote on AG Gonzales yesterday. Republican after Republican got up not to defend the attorney general, but to bash Democrats for "playing politics." What's funny to me is that while they accuse the Dems of politics, they agree that they have no confidence in Gonzales, but won't vote that way for fear of handing the Dems a political victory.

So who is playing politics?

The vote puts the Republicans on the record. Now they own Gonzales. He's theirs and don't think we won't remind them of it in 2008.

When I pick up a magazine, especially one I've never read before, I tend to flip to the back and look through the ads first. More often than not, I'll actually scan the magazine from back to front. No matter the subject matter of the book, the juicy stuff is always in the back and you can tell a great deal about a periodical from what they are willing to sell within the pages.

As you can imagine, I've seen plenty of wild products and, depending on the magazine, plenty of wild claims. One of the most pervasive is so-called love potions -- perfumes that make you attractive to the opposite sex. Just a few drops and women (these are nearly always targeted to men) will find you irresistable. These ads appear in all kinds of magazines, from Soldier of Fortune to Popular Mechanics.

The testimonials always read like bad Penthouse letters: "I've always had trouble talking to women, but when I tried Panther Formula X, I had women coming up to me on the street, in the supermarket and at the doctor's office. I've got more dates than I can handle!"

Of course they don't work and anyone with a 3rd grade education knows that. Humans are more sophisticated than animals. While we may feel certain ways due to odors or chemical reactions, we're able to control our baser insticts.

That's why the idea that the Pentagon would consider spending more than $7 million researching the possibility of a "gay bomb" is so laughable. The idea is goofy. The gay bomb would be a chemical weapon that you launch onto enemy troops. Once affected, the troops would be so sexually attracted to each other, that they would drop their weapons and start humping.

Hey, it's non-lethal, so at least they're thinking in the right direction.

But if you can't create to chemical to make you attractive to the opposite sex, why would you be able to create to turn you temporarily (I hope) and irresistably gay?

In their defense (and contrary to what some people are reporting) the Pentagon didn't actually try and develop such a dumb idea. This was just a request for consideration. I have to imagine that whomever requested it was thumbing through the back of Popular Mechanics.

"The Loop" is back on Fox after a slight re-tool. It's a funny show. The lead actor, Bret Harrison, has two shows on the fall schedule. "The Loop" on Fox and "Reaper" on CW. He played the neighbor kid on "Grounded for Life" and had a bit part in the last season of "That '70s Show." He's a funny, talented performer, who cracks me up.

Plus "The Loop" has Mimi Rogers, my favorite of Tom Cruise's ex wives.

I just found out an online aquaintence of mine has died. Steve Gillard ran The News Blog for several years. He was insightful, angry and . . . well . . . one of the good ones. He'll be missed.

This week is also includes the birthdays of both my brothers. My brother Dan tomorrow and Scott on Friday. It is a rare thing when I remember it ahead of time and even rarer when I bother to call. But I love them both and wish them well.

Happy Birthday Dan and Scott.

I should mention that right before we went on vacation, we attended an bon voyage party for Lori – who will spend the summer teaching in France. She has set up a blog, if you're interested. I've also discovered that my friend Diane started a blog last May. Slipping Through My Fingers is about her knitting addiction, I think. I haven't read much of it yet.

No one tells me anything.

Well, no one but Sammy. He passed his boards and is now a registered nurse. Congratulations, Sam.

June 1, 2007

Just some quick updates:

I'm heading for Gulf Shores, Ala. for a week starting tomorrow. If I can get reception, I'll be blogging from my sidekick. Check over at my HipLog for any updates.

The State Trooper that got in trouble for letting the porn actress off for possesion of illicit drugs with a speeding ticket and a hummer resigned before he was fired. The two letters crossed each other in the mail.

Today's Tennessean quotes District Attorney Tommy Thompson as saying he will be indicted. Actually, the money quote is great:

	If he wasn't such an idiot, this case would be his word against hers," Thompson said. "But he was such a genius he started sending all these photographs and everything. It blows my mind."

The Republican National Committee has fired all their phone solicitors. Since small donations are down 40 percent and the aging phone banks would cost too much to replace, they just sacked 65 people.

Let's talk a little bit about the newest RNC scandal. It's called "vote caging" and despite the lack of coverage of it, it is a big deal. During the Republican Monica's testimony, she admitted that Rove's aid Tim Griffin directed a vote cagin scheme during the 2004 elections.

Okay, as briefly as I can explain it, here is what vote caging entails:

You get a list of mailing addresses, in this case targetting minorities who tend to vote Democratic. You mail them a registered letter that has no real significance. "Dear voter, we hope you participate in the upcoming election."

But, if you don't sign for it or if it is returned for some reason, your name gets put on a list and a campaign worker will take that list to your polling place and challenge your vote. You then have the option of voting provisionally (which may not get counted), waiting around for hours until it gets sorted out, or leaving without voting.

Here's the thing. The caging lists used by the Republicans, targeted blacks, the homeless, students on vacation and soldiers in Iraq. The party that claims to be supporting the troops, challenged the votes of thousands of soldiers serving in Iraq. From Slate:

	[BBC Reporter Greg] Palast supplies evidence linking Tim Griffin, then-research director for the RNC, to this caging plot; specifically, a series of confidential e-mails to Republican Party muckety-mucks with the suggestive heading "RE: caging." The e-mails were accidentally sent to a George Bush parody site. They also contained suggestively named spreadsheets, headed "caging" as well. The names on the lists are what Palast's researchers deemed to be homeless men and soldiers deployed in Iraq. Here are the e-mails.

Tennessean Fred Thompson will get into the race next month. I welcome him as the 11th Republican candidate for president and the only man who wants the job with less foreign policy experience than our current president.

The fact is that Thompson had a reputation for being a lazy senator, spent 18 years as a lobbying in D.C. representing some clients that would make the Republican base . . . uh . . . uncomfortable to say the least.

So welcome, Fred. Try and dillute the donor pool as much as possible while you're there.

May 29, 2007

I have friends who enjoy watching beauty pageants so they can make snarky comments about the contestants. I've never joined in because, to me anyway, they all look the same: preternaturally skinny, trussed-up, made-up, duct-taped, Vasalined, sequined, bejeweled, long-haired aliens who's only resemblance to actual humans is the fact that they have the same number of digits.

Not to denegrate the institution. There are good pageants and bad ones, I suppose. I'm just not a fan. But I wish I had been with them when this happened during the recent Miss Universe Pageant:

The CW has a mid-season replacement coming down the pike called "Crowned" in which teams of mothers and daughters compete in a beauty pageant. You'll notice that after it happened, she kept smiling, never losing a bit of her grace or poise. That's a professional level beauty pageant delegate. She worked hard to keep in shape, be funny, smart, talented, charming, learned dance routines, pat answers to dumb pageant questions and was ready for the big moment in the spotlight.

Then "boom." How many of you would have ran off the stage sobbing at that point?

I expect there will be a great deal of sobbing during "Crowned" a new show on the CW (mid-season replacement) that combines a reality show with a beauty pageant in which mother-daughter teams compete against each other.

This has train wreck written all over it.

Rozzy is preparing for her pre-school graduation. We bought the cap and gown and she tells me that she's been practicing. Evidently, she and her friend Joshua are going to sing the months of the year and do the Macarena. She's very excited because it means she'll be going to kindergarden at Max's school in the Fall.

But more than that, she's excited because it means she'll be getting her own lunchbox. For some reason, that really worries her. She asks at least twice a week if she's really going to be getting her own lunchbox. No matter how often we assure her that she will, she just won't believe it until it happens.

Aren't children supposed to be trusting?

Over the big holiday weekend, I made a deal with Dollie. If she let me take Saturday to geek out with a bunch of my buddies, I'd give her the rest to bend me to her will.

Little did I realize this meant painting Rozzy's bedroom.

Rozzy moved into her own bedroom recently and picked out two shades of pink to paint it. Combine that with the Hello Kitty curtains Dollie made and the Strawberry Shortcake sheets and it looks like a Barbie pinata stuffed with Disney Princesses and PeptoBismol exploded in there. It's pink, I tells ya – retina-burning pink.

It does, however, give anyone who goes in there a healthy glow.

We painted (well, Dollie mostly painted) and put up a wallpaper border. Next comes the sorting of the tiny plastic crap and dividing up the electronics. Max keeps the computer in his room. Rozzy gets the TV and Xbox in hers. Max keeps the software. Rozzy keeps the DVDs and videogames. Oy.

I'm told the plan is to get to Rozzy's school by 6 p.m. for graduation, then drive to Huntsville to spend the night with Dollie's mom, then leave early the next morning for a week-long vacation in Gulf Shores, Ala.

Dollie and her BFF have rented a house on the beach. The two families will co-habitate -- a bonding experience that I'm certain will bring us all closer together -- physically anyway.

And while I'm not a beach person, really, I plan on making the most of this time by completely isolating myself from politics, the media, work and the problems of modern urban living. It will be a week to recharge, revitalize and renew as our family prepares to enter into a new phase.

See, today is Dollie's last day as a school teacher. She bids goodbye to a career she started 13 years ago. She's entering a graduate school program and following her dream. We're all very excited and happy for her.

Some of us are even terrified at the loss of income and the somewhat drastic lifestyle changes in store. But we're all ready to take that plunge because teaching school was killing her, slowly by inches. Each year the students were less respectful, less interested in learning and less capable of taking their work seriously. Combine that with the constant administrative pressures, the uninvolved or indifferent parents and the ever-changing federal regulations and you have a profession that chews people up and spits them out.

Dollie needs this change even more than she needs this vacation.

Hillary Clinton picked up the all-important Jenna Jameson endorsement.

Over the weekend, Tracey came by to visit. I was watching "Basilisk" when she showed up and I paused the show to let her in.

"What are you watching?" she asked.

"It's anime, you wouldn't be interested," I replied.

"You're right," she said.

I've been trying to find some anime to hold my interest. I've long been a fan of cartoons and the art form is more widely accepted in Japan, where comic books are sold to nearly every demographic and feature subjects that vary from Vampire Hunters to soap operas to "slice-of-life" comics that deal with everyday situations.

Manga (pronounced with the hard "G") is a particular style of Japanese comics that I'm afraid my ignorance on the subject won't allow me to properly describe.

"Basilisk" is an anime series produced in Japan in 2005, based on a popular manga series that was produced in 2003-2004. The manga was adapted from a novel called The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, published in 1958.

I bring it up because a company called Self Made Hero is publishing manga versions of Shakespeare plays in England.

The first two titles: "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet" look interesting. Maybe it will open up the Bard to a new audience.

Tom DeLay is pimpin his new book, No Retreat, No Surrender, about his exploits in politics. In it, he calls the Terry Schiavo case one of his proudest moments in Congress. Another of his proudest moments? The impeachment of President Clinton. He does, however, have some criticism for the way things were handled:

	In the book, DeLay criticizes Gingrich for, among other things, conducting an affair with a Capitol Hill employee during the 1998 impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. (The woman later became Gingrich’s third wife.) “Yes, I don’t think that Newt could set a high moral standard, a high moral tone, during that moment,” DeLay said. “You can’t do that if you’re keeping secrets about your own adulterous affairs.” He added that the impeachment trial was another of his “proudest moments.” The difference between his own adultery and Gingrich’s, he said, “is that I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There’s a big difference.” He added, “Also, I had returned to Christ and repented my sins by that time.”

DeLay says in the book that during his younger years in Congress, he liked to drink and womanize, but when he turned to Jesus, he "stopped sinning." His newfound salvation, he implies, gave him the moral authority to pass judgment on President Clinton.

I'm no expert, but I don't think it's supposed to work like that.

Now that the court documents verify that Valerie Plame was a covert agent in the CIA, will the right-wing apologize for saying she wasn't?

[*sound of crickets chirping]