Where Ya Been?

A word and a number will answer that question.

XBOX 360

I find shooting the people on my buddy list (mostly my students) in the head on Grand Theft Auto 4 to be a far better outlet for my personal issues than blogging. At least it's more satisfying. (especially my students) I especially like stealing a helicopter, jumping out at altitude and then crushing people (again my students) with my corpse as I hit the ground.

So what brought me out of my virtual paradise?

It seems that some one somewhere is trying rile up my generation. These little blips are starting to be epidemic. Each comes just in enough time after the last so that it doesn't seem like we're all just copying each others one thought.

The only other bit of writing I've done is a detailed response to the staggering and appalling errors in my performance review. Perhaps when the dust all settles I can share it with you. Until then you can find me on Xbox Live under "TedKnedysCar".

Cold Dead Hands

A very good friend of mine just gave his bride a small pistol as a wedding gift. She gave him a big sword. The firearm was a Walther something. I don't know much about guns. I don't need to. I live in a safe little bubble free of confrontation and securely removed from the bad side of town. I don't have to worry much about crime in my neighborhood. The buses don't run out here. You have to have the means to afford a house and a car to live here. That puts a mountain range that only elephants can cross between me and the Mongol hordes of tweakers and welfare cheats looking to kick in my front door and grab my wife's jewelery box. It's simply too cold and far to walk and by the time someones lifestyle grinds them into petty thievery they've lost the car if they even had one to begin with.

So I live out here un-armed with enough food to last 3 weeks and water to last 3 days if something goes wrong. I have enough gas on hand to drive a week of my regular habits. I have enough oil to last 3 weeks but the system depends on electricity to run. If there's a blackout I have what I need to turn the lawnmower into a crude enough generator to keep the HVAC system going. I have enough propane to heat one room for one week. I'm surrounded by trees and swamps. I could probably keep myself, Lisa and her grandfather alive 10 days if society collapsed outright. That's if the lower class doesn't get hungry enough to walk over here. I have too many sliding glass doors and low windows to protect this place from even a slow moving zombie attack.

In any event, if I had a gun or even a dozen, I wouldn't be able to defend my Bastile from an army of similarly armed and hungry neighbors. A gun would be worth having to defend myself from one determined criminal but not swarms. And a gun certainly wouldn't protect my family from this. But they are fun. They make a big noise and you see holes open up in a target or cans fall over. They make a big difference to those who live closer to the criminal element or have to deliver pizza or staff the grave yard shift at 7-11. I'm very in favor of letting 'the help' have guns.

I often wonder if it would be wise to arm teachers since the epidemic of school shootings is such a great meme right now. I wouldn't have a problem taking the training and openly carrying a side arm. America has a longstanding tradition with offering the duties of a sheriffs deputy to the local citizenry when needed. I see no real difference between myself and our school resource officer who carries her sidearm into school every day. However if you ask me, if I would draw my weapon on a child and fire my answer would be where his weapon was pointed would make all the difference in the world. If it was pointed at me, probably not. I would talk. If the weapon was pointed at another child than yes I think I would fire and feel remorse afterwards.




A lot of people see this picture and think that guy has balls. I see the compassion in that first tank drivers heart. I know my friends in the military are smart and decent people. I don't think they'd turn fire on me if ordered. Not even if their commander in chief was a total douchebag. That tank driver didn't want to harm his countryman. It's a different story when your enemy are foreigners.

It's All Fun And Games Until The HOA Complains To The Building Inspector About Your Lack Of Permits

I almost wish I didn't hate snow so much because this sounds like good clean fun. At least until the dog poop melts.

OK, who here thinks the beer cases aren't random junk picked up by the plows but left over from one of the swim teams "celebrations."

They Need To Publicise These Better

Creature Double Feature! March 2nd '08 No word on what the movies will be yet. And this one breaks tradition and airs on Sunday not Saturday. Still Ernie Boch is A-OK in my book!

Balls And Shaft

I just got home from a much too short weekend in Manhattan. The Kurz and I met up in NYC for a late lunch and some very abreviated sight seeing. Much of our conversation orbited my recent raising to the sublime degree of Master Mason and further light from the appendant bodies. Mike is hooked. He's so totally asking to be one that I find myself invested with renewed curiosity and enthusiam for the craft. Trying to look up the lodge in New York to see if there's anyting going on in the city that never sleeps I find all sorts of other websites. They lead me to other sites.

I come down with a wicked case of ADHD and just start wandering through the interwebs. I find this picture on a site that's claiming to be exposing all sorts of satanic Masonic secrets.



That's not the handshake.

None of the handshakes on that page are correct. If it was a disinformation site meant to trick e-masons who haven't truly recieved light I wouldn't be so concerned. But much of what Kurczy and I talked about was on some of the scandals and controversey surrounding my brotherhood. I feel the need to call out cowans.

Anyway, come home Mike. I want to be there on the 5 points when you're raised.

iRule

The new iPhone finally got set up after waiting all night for an email that was never going to come. Lisa called AT$T a couple times and basically got blown off each time. So I called. Two and a half hours and 3 service reps and a whole lot of swearing is what it took to activate my and Lisa's phones.

Yes we both got iPhones. Lisa needed a new battery for her phone and my phone was a piece of crap. We were due for new phones anyway and even though we shouldn't have for so many reasons we got our one treat for the summer.

I love it.

On another topic also about me. Tomorrow I'm getting surgery on my ankle. I will be in a cast for 2 months. Don't expect much out of me this summer. I'll probably be able to go out and sit places but no manual clutch driving for me. Expect to pick me up or wait until my wife is free to drive me around if you want to hang out.

You See That Sign That Says Rib Tips?

"I wonder if these guys know the Commodores?"

I'm watching Nat'l Lampoons Vacation and all of a sudden I'm overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of loss. For some undefinable reason I feel suddenly ashamed that I haven't seen The Kurz since December. I haven't seen Tommy Okktane since November.

I'm a terrible friend. I need to fix that!

Totally off topic: SADD staged their annual fake drunk driving accident yesterday. They call it the "mock crash." We took the juniors and seniors out to the street in front of the school to watch the show. It totally fell flat.

Not since I went to high school with a broken leg and a song in my heart have I seen a lesson so totally wasted on an unreceptive audience. I don't know how much it cost us but I know donations average $2,500. Those donations are to cover the costs that aren't absorbed by the police and fire departments who "volunteer" their time on the clock. They aslo volunteer the towns trucks and squad cars. The result is one hell of a dissapointing show.

The problem is that thanks to CGI editing with realistic shading on CGI models, a phoney car crash with real cars looks glaringly phoney. Maybe this kind of thing had an impact in 1989 but too little, too late. Tokyo Drift and Grand Theft Auto have taught my kids a physics lesson in ways I never could. They see clean through the hokey staging of a couple junkyard wrecks set dressed for maximum effect. It's too bad. The kids who found it funny are the kids who need to learn the lesson the most. Perhaps it should be manditory for parents to attend. They're the ones who have a chance of actually changing their kids behavior. And they're not so jaded that the lesson doesn't sink in.

By the way Kurczy, it appears that my psyche thinks you're a fucking drunk. Pot, meet Kettle... Kettle thinks I'm black too.

The highlight is that there was enough time at the end of the period that I got to see the tow truck flip the upside down car back over. They pulled it up to stand on one side and then a bunch of fire men pushed it over to the wheels. It was a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertable. The A-pillar kept it from crushing the roof to the doors. I'd buy one.

If I were in charge of this show, I wouldn't be stirring up a witch hunt for teens driving drunk. Teens got the message years ago. They really aren't driving drunk the way we did. The sensational stories are the statistical outliers. The new thing is trunking. The law of unintended consequences has trumped the junior operator laws. Kids don't need to be told not to drive drunk. They need to be told not to drive like assholes in general. Drunk driving is so 20 years ago. Hiding that extra kid who really wants to see the movie too is the current witch needing to be hunted.

Maybe SADD needs to make adjustments to their script.