Category Politics

My Labor Day was pretty nondescript.  The weather was gray, rainy and shitty pretty much all day long.  It did little to motivate me to do anything very exciting with my time.  I attended to a few household needs, did some work on my Tuffwing, played some WoW and generally just shuffled throughout the day.

Some of you may have seen this video posted online (warning, it is disgusting), of supposedly the leader of the Syrian rebels cutting out the heart of a dead enemy soldier and then biting into it.  The point of the video when shown to Americans is to drive home the type of mentality that is present in the Syrian conflict.  To me it seems like you have rampant extremism on both sides of the line.  Of course I have no way of knowing if the man on tape is whom the media has portrayed him to be but none the less, it is a very disturbing visual which would give most people pause.

I think Obama’s decision to not make the call on intervention his and his alone was a wise one.  Putting it to Congress will more than likely prevent the use of authorized military force in Syria, which at this point I think is the best course to take.  Unfortunately, Syria like so many areas in the middle east, seems poisoned with evil, ruthless individuals that place little value on human life or dignity.

Sure we can help support the relief effort, help some of the nearly 2 million Syrian civilians that have already gotten the hell out of that miserable country.  But to support one terrorist group or another should not be a choice we make.  I am not down with backing up heart eating, Al Qaeda loving nutjobs.  My advice to the people of Syria, leave….

So the final interior room that is still the blah builders white, the hobby room, is getting painted finally.  This room has been the dumping ground for stuff that had no other good spot like race timing gear, RC plane paraphernalia, exercise equipment and other various junk.

I pulled most of the loose items out and split the pile between the guest bedroom and the great room.  As I pulled it out I saw lots of sorting that needed to be done.  There are a lot of Ali items in there as well as stuff that can be thrown out or recycled.

I didn’t bother to put much thought into the color for the room, opting for the same pleasant sandy shell color that is used in the main living space and master bedroom/bathroom.

When the room is put back together I plan to do some major rearranging and optimizing.  It should be a nice facelift.

The only painting that is left on my to do list is painting the walls of the garage.  I always had this dream that it would look sweet in Eagles Midnight Green with silver on the back wall. 🙂

This morning I did my first real world video of my robotoaster in action.  It is simply incredible.  Hold on to your seat.

I forgot to mention some other robot news in my household, my Neato is getting replaced.  I mentioned that I had battery runtime issues a little while back.  I was only getting 10-15 minutes per run and was occasionally getting a “Please press OKAY to restart. Battery Issue (ooo2)” error.

I had a new battery set sent to me which I installed a couple weeks ago.  Well the new battery runtime has been steadily going downhill as well and the battery error has still been popping up randomly as well.  So I called Neato back and they told me they would send me a replacement unit, cool.

It’s too bad, up until the recent battery issue my XV-14 has been absolutely bullet proof. Doing it’s job well while requiring a fraction of the maintenance my Roomba army used to require.  The new bot should show up early next week.

So today one of my Obama hating friends asked me how I felt about Obama since the latest headline about Verizon phone records being collected by the NSA.  Of course my first reaction was to laugh out loud a little bit as I normally do when the “Blame Obama!” crowd attributes everything negative that happens in the government to Obama. They seem to believe he is directly involved in every email, text message, phone conversation and decision that is made within the geographic boundaries of Washington D.C.

Of course I think it is shitty that the government basically scrapes all communication that is made within the country and keeps it for safekeeping.  I read about the new underground mega-datacenter that was recently completed whose main purpose is to store, inspect and catalog mountains of communication, all in the name of keeping us “safe” thanks to those sweethearts at Homeland Security.  Yea that agency that was created by W along with the Patriot Act to protect us from “terror”, what a joke.

Do I think that Obama has stuck to his 2007 election promises that included protecting civil liberties? No, not really, but can you please give me a list of presidents that have delivered on the majority of their election promises?  I think you would be handing me a piece of blank paper.

If he is guilty of anything it is allowing the Homeland Security behemoth to keep rolling forward in it’s privacy smashing practices since it’s 9/11 era inception.  Does he have the power to dismantle the agency?  Theoretically yes, realistically no.

I really don’t understand the outrage or surprise with this story, to me it is old, old news.

I haven’t dropped my opinion on the North Korea situation here.  Since I don’t have anything else to write about at the moment I might as well take this opportunity.

North Korea reminds me of a ranting, bratty child. It’s like North Korea urinated on it’s brother, you put them over your knee, smack their ass, and they tell us how much the hate us for punishing them.  It seems like Kim Jong Un is trying to establish himself as an even looser cannon than his dictator father.  It seems every day there is a new quote regarding his promises of destruction against both South Korea and the US.

If am honest, my gut reaction to this idiot is I would be thrilled if he was taken out either by us or somebody we secretly employ.  Of course logic dictates a less violent path instead, hoping that an ever tightening noose of economic sanctions results in forcing the outcome we desire.

Anyone with a functioning brain would realize that if North Korea would ever fire a missile at a US target it would be lights out for them.  Kim Jong Un hopefully is not too far gone to realize this.

Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where we are in a no win situation (thanks W) because the countries are eternally divided by conflicting radical religious sects, I think if North Korea fell it would be a different story.  I see North Korea as East Germany.  If the dictatorship is removed and the North Korean people were allowed to breathe free air for the first time in decades it would be a wonderful thing.

That being said, if I was asked to predict the future regarding North Korea I would expect more of the same.  More ranting, more posturing and maybe eventually Un will eventually scream himself out, just like a 2 year old.

Last night I watched the premiere of Blood and Chrome.  I had to resort to watching the cut up version that was released on YouTube in bits and pieces during the end of 2012.

The 2 hour movie got me very excited for the new series.  It has all the look, feel and action of BSG which is one of my favorite shows of the last 20 years.

So the catholic world was SHOCKED by the announcement that Pope Benedict was going to step down, something a pope has not done since the 1400’s.  All popes are supposed to drop dead, they don’t retire, duh.

I have ranted about the hypocrisy of organized religion many times and specifically this clown whom looks like a spawn of Satan.  Pope Benedict has excused and covered up countless acts of sexual abuse against children by figures in the Catholic church.

His time spent as a “Hitler Youth” doesn’t help his image much either.

I personally think the man is an icon, representing what exactly is wrong with religion, “Do what I say, not what I do”.  He sucks.

The best news out of all of this, if you believe ancient prophecies,is some guy named Malachy said in 1140 that the 111th pope, the one after Benedict, will reign during the downfall of the church.  Hallelujah.

I did not see the state of the union address last night but I did see some clips of Marco Rubio presenting the Republican rebuttal after seeing FB light up with comments regarding how awful it was.

To say the speech was pandering to hispanic voters would be stating the obvious.  He may as well have been wearing a sombrero as he reached for his agua.

I think what is more disturbing for conservatives was just how poorly he came off overall since he is supposed to be one of the new hot commodities in the Republican party.

The reality, despite whatever speeches either party delivers professionally (Obama) or clumsily (Rubio), is the hope of any significant progress being made in the major issues that plague our country is very dim as long as an obstructionist attitude is present in Congress.

When I look back at the title of last year’s end of year blog entry, “2011 the best year yet?” it seems quite ironic considering what has transpired since that time in my life.

Ok let’s handle the easy stuff first, scoring the goals I set for 2012.

Get the master bedroom and bathroom painted – CHECK, splitting up for some reason gave me the kick in the ass I needed to finally get those two rooms painted after a couple years of procrastinating.  It was a huge pain in the ass doing this solo.

Replace carpet – nope, that won’t be happening anytime soon.

Resurface the pool deck – no but it really needs to be done.  I hope to contact Rhinoshield sometime in 2013 to do it.

Run a sub two hour half marathon – BINGO, I killed the Hooter’s Half, running it in 1:55 (knocking 16 minutes off previous best) and change in pretty horrible conditions with minimal training leading up to it.  That was a testament to pure mental will power more than anything else.

Complete the BBR’s (Bar-barian Requirements) – Nope, not close.  I tried to really train hard for this early in 2012 and kept hurting myself from overuse injuries.  I just don’t know that a 45 year old body of my size and proportion can recover fast enough to get it done.  Regardless I am going to still try, hard.

Another Tough Mudder – yep but surprisingly not with Randall.  Instead Charlie and I took down the course which featured a colder ice bath and much more “shocking” finish line.

Volleyball – Um I think I played a tournament.  Oh yea, I played with Tabby and then did a King of the Beach thing with Tabby, Randall and Jeremy.  Vball is just an afterthought in my life anymore.

Travel more – umm well the separation derailed pretty much all travel plans for me, I think the most traveling I did was by tire to Miami a couple times and Titusville

SSR upgrades – yea I did a number of upgrades including the expensive in dollars and time radio upgrade.  I also had a Corvette clutch installed in the truck as well as two new cat convertors, muffler, exhaust tips and panhard bar.  I have put about 6,000 miles on the SSR in my first full year of ownership.

Cranking up my overall happiness – hmmm well the separation from Alison was an effort to do just that on both of our part. It’s too early to make a final call on how successful the move will be.  To say there have been a few ups and downs would be a large understatement.

Ok so let me recap the high and lowlights of 2012.

In 2012 I gave up most meat (beef,pork poultry, etc..) the only meat I consume at this point is seafood and not much of that.  Alison has been a vegetarian for years but I had continued on my carnivore ways.  Well for me the moment I decided to stop for good was at the county fair.  As we were walking around the farm animal displays which included pigs and cattle I looked at these animals and took pause.  Instead of the normal, “aren’t they cute” and move on response, I looked long and hard at the faces of these animals.  I asked myself why it is that I would want to have these innocent animals killed to become a frozen patty on a plate.  I decided at that moment I didn’t want that and have not looked back.

I  haven’t noticed any fall off in my physical well being since making the change.  If anything, 2012 had the most personal physical bests I ever jammed into a 12 month period.

I did a lot of auto maintenance work in 2012, most of which was taped and published on YouTube.  I did brake jobs, replaced starters, alternators, IAC valves and more.  There is something very satisfying about fixing your own vehicle.

Speaking of YouTube, in 2012 I developed a an advertising juggernaut utilizing primarily YouTube and the ads that can be run with your videos.  I had a meteoric rise in monthly ad dollars and before my AdSense account got cancelled I had made almost $100 in one month.  The cancellation of my AdSense account was the source of much frustration and anger.

At first the anger was directed towards Google and their no warning cancellation policy when it comes to AdSense terms.  But in the end the anger should have been at myself for not thinking through recommending people to click on my blog ads.  I did not realize I was inviting others to violate the Adsense TOS.

I was really bummed out about the cancellation but I eventually got the ad dollar wheels turning again, making my mom into a new AdSense user and totally recreating my YouTube channel which took endless HOURS of work.  The main reason you see as many YouTube videos out of me as you do is not actually just because I am a video whore, it’s also because I have all the ad dollars I make funneled right to my mom as a small financial shot in the arm.

In 2012 I fought FEMA and won, jumping through a ton of hoops (and a case of beer) to get a bogus flood insurance requirement dropped.  It was one of several cost disputing/cutting efforts of the year, many of which were necessitated to cut costs associated with the separation. I no longer have a number of services that I once did.  I have been able to shave my electric costs down remarkably, last month I had a bill of $106, insanely low when this same house used to generate bills as much as triple that number at times.

I haven’t had many visitors in the house this year, my dad, step mom, Patrick and his girlfriend visited back in February.  Randall and his girlfriend Tracy stayed for a long weekend and finally Charlie stayed for a very fun few days earlier this month.  Other than that it has been basically me, myself and I (and Tuki) most nights.

The news of course had many big things going down including several tragic shootings, the presidential election and the fact that the world did not end a few days ago.  But you already knew that.

So I guess I should talk more about the obviously biggest event of 2012 or the last decade and a half for that matter, the decision Ali and I made to separate.  We made the decision to do so in March and she moved to her own place in early April.  The decision was a mutual one that involved no shenanigans on either of our sides but instead a genuine effort for both of us to move ahead in our lives in a happier place than we both found ourselves. This decision shocked a lot of people as most viewed us as a solid couple that got along.  For the most part they were right.

The change for both of us has been filled with ruts and potholes as would be expected since both of us have basically been married for our entire adult lives. (two marriages for me)  The change that we both have had to deal with has been large and at times very, very uncomfortable.

I basically have been using it as an opportunity to force myself into new situations.  Whenever I found myself questioning if I should do something or not, I would ask myself “have I ever done this before?”  if the answer was no, then that pretty much meant I needed to do it. For example, jumping out of a plane from 18,000 feet in the air.

Of course part of this change involved setting my foot into the adult dating world.  It has not been easy or natural in the least. I have had enough awkward pauses to fill a sit com.  I may as well stepped foot into the middle of Siberia at times with how foreign the dating world feels.  Dating, for me, is hard.

Probably the hardest time of all has been this holiday season since it involved such painful items as separating Christmas ornaments and having our first Christmas morning where we woke up in different zip codes.

Many people are also very surprised with what Ali and my interaction has been like since the split.  In most cases when couples split there is a very clear division (like my first marriage), ours is not one of those cases.  Ali and I still are friends and support each other in different ways. We still interact and see each other on a regular basis.  It definitely has not followed the typical divorce 101 handbook.

I have had a lot of physical bests this year, despite turning 45 a couple weeks ago.  I did my first 110 pound weighted dip, first 90 pound weighted pull up, first one handed push up, first set of 10 dragon flags and many more.  One of my proudest accomplishments was pulling off a set of 30 pull ups a few weeks back, something that even surprised myself.  The sub 2 hour marathon and my second successful completion of the Tough Mudder were nice little feathers in the hat as well.

Of course at this age injuries are hard to avoid and I had my fair share of them, most recently the knee that was practically locked after the Mudder.  Who could forget the stupid injury to my bicep when I crashed trying to do weighted dips?  I also had a chronic problem with left wrist that lasted for damn close to 4 months.

The Eagles really sucked in 2012.  It was definitely the biggest waste of the NFL Sunday Ticket to date.

2012 has been a rough year for Nicki.  Her well being has taken a dramatic downturn since Ali and I split.  In what seems a blink of the eye she has gone from a healthy/active 9 year old dog, to an old girl that is showing every second of being 10.  The thyroid medicine she is on has made her hair long, dry and shaggy to the point where she looks dramatically different from just a year ago.  She is gimpy and slow, no longer able to run other than the occasional few step trot. She can’t be trusted to not dump in the house if left alone for more than a couple hours.  I can’t help but feel that is partly because of her reaction to the split and change in her living conditions.  It makes me feel guilty and sad.

You know I could really dig into the monthly entries and come up with more to blab about but if you are that interested about it use the BLOG ARCHIVES drop down menu and take a peek yourself.  There are some gems in there.

Ok so let’s talk about 2013 goals.

More than ever before, I go into this new year really, REALLY unsure about where my winding path will take me.  All that was familiar to me for so long is in the rear view mirror which can be both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Home improvement goals are not major.  Getting the pool deck resurfaced/painted would be welcome.  Getting the hobby room and garage painted would be nice but far from important.  I have some outdoor projects to complete but none major enough to require mention here.

My physical goals are always about do it again, faster, better, more.  I’d like to run a half marathon quicker than I did last year. I want to get a 35 pull up set.  I want to be able to complete the old BB requirements.  A front lever, back lever, planche, controlled handstand and human flag are all objects on my radar as well.

Wow I can’t believe I finally got jumping out of a plane off my goal list.  It resided there for at least 5 or 6 years if not longer.

I hope to be able to do some traveling this year.  I have a couple visions in my head, one is top down in the SSR driving north and west until I run into the Pacific Ocean.  The other is traveling overseas to meet some of my international bar enthusiast friends.  There are quite a few whose hands I would like to shake (or cheeks to kiss).

Of course the number one personal goal is always happiness, continued (most of the time) health and an ability to both offer and absorb kindness/laughter/knowledge both to and from the world around me.

Peace.

And of course, a HUGE shout out to Randall…

So I saw more women pop up in the general sex scandals.  I also saw pictures of all females involved, including the wives of General Petraeus and Allen.

When you compare the pictures of the wives versus the alleged mistresses there is obviously  a stark contrast.  Do you think any news outlet would be bold enough to post a headline like “Survey says, generals prefer sexy 40 year olds to dumpy wives” The inverse can be true as well, Jill Kelly’s husband looks like he is built like a weeble wobble.

Today a friend of mine sent me a link  that talked about information cited by this woman regarding climate change.  She stated that overall global temperatures have plateaued for the last 15-16 years.  This is based on average temps collected from various worldwide monitoring locations.

My buddy loves to do this sort of thing, drop an internet link without offering a true opinion of his own.  Then when I react to it he raises his hands innocently and claims he didn’t say things were one way or the other, although obviously the intent is there.

In this case, the intent is to say that concerns about global warming are overblown and exaggerated.  Now unless you own a functional crystal ball, nobody really knows exactly how quickly global warming will negatively impact the planet. (ask New Yorkers their opinion) I compare it to fiscal forecasters that extrapolate numbers two decades in advance and then throw them out there as being reliable.  It’s a guess, an educated guess, but a guess at best.

However to me, when it comes to global warming there is one thing that can not be disputed.  Having 7 billion humans on the planet (and growing rapidly) adversely affects the climate.  Our consumption, pollution and manipulation of natural resources has tipped the balance of CO2 in our atmosphere.  Even this woman agrees on that simple premise, she just questions how quickly things are deteriorating.

The biggest problem with this sort of article is it encourages a “not now, we can worry about it later” attitude about the way we interact with the planet.  I can imagine no scenario where you could logically argue that shifting the world to an ever “greener” way of existing is a bad thing.

If I told you I know you are going to have cancer but if you made certain lifestyle changes, instead of contracting it at 35 years old, you will be able to retard it’s onset until you were 75, would you want to make those changes?   That sounds like a no brainer huh?  Well now apply that simple logic to this blue globe we all share.

It seems as though the internet yesterday was filled with Romney Rage, namely voters that were counting on Mitt to be our next president.  Many of them feel dumbfounded, hurt, and frustrated that their guy got stomped on an electoral vote level and also lost the popular vote that some predicted he would win.

I understand what it’s like to have a man you dislike sitting in the White House, I dealt with it for nearly a decade myself with W, whom to me, was the worst president of my lifetime.  Based on that experience, here is my advice to those despondent about the election results.  Turn that energy inward.

Griping about the election results for a prolonged period of time isn’t going to do yourself or anyone else any good, unless you consider continuing to dig out the massive ditch between the two parties as productive.

Turn that energy towards doing what you can to make your personal situation as productive as possible.  Put down the bag of Doritos, turn off Honey Boo Boo and walk around the block.  Exercise some of your own personal fiscal responsibility to set the example for others around you.

If you are in a job that is low paying or sucks, make an effort to change it.  If you have a problem and you make an honest and determined attempt to fix it, you may or may not be successful.  If you decide to do nothing you ensure your chance of failure is 100%.

Government is there to help you when the chips are down, they are not there to be the chips. Have some pride, do the hard thing, set an example by your actions instead of your mouth.

So finally after a solid two years of rhetoric, threats, hate speech and prophecies of doom, the 2012 presidential election is finally in the books.  To be honest I was a little worried that I would wake up today feeling like I did in 2004 when Bush got reelected, like the country literally just had a collective lobotomy.  Instead I was happy that the country did prove, by a slim margin, that we have not quite reached Idiocracy levels just yet.

I managed to stay awake until the election was called for Obama after Ohio was checked in under the blue column.  I heard the speeches by both candidates after the result was decided were good, too bad I missed them.

Once again Florida grabbed the spotlight as the voting idiots of the nation.  You would think the utter embarrassment of the hanging chad 2000 election would have been enough to motivate state officials to fix the process. No, instead we had people waiting in line on election day for more than 6 hours in some cases because of horrible planning by various county election supervisors. Of course this election day problem was set up by our corrupt governor Rick Scott deciding to cut our early voting days nearly in half, something that was purely politically motivated.

Lee county which is right next door was one of the worst offenders.  They had people waiting to vote at 11pm, 4 hours after the polls closed.  The election supervisor in these counties should be absolutely crucified for their epic fail.

So now the question is what happens now?  There are a lot of unhappy people today.  Many people really believe that Obama is leading the country to an abyss.  Although I am not pleased with where the country sits today overall, I think of the two choices, Obama was clearly the way to go.

It really amazed me that people could casually write off assuming the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression, two pointless wars, and a collapsing automobile, housing and financial industry as something that could be easily and quickly corrected with a wave of the wand.

These people will come back at you and say, “Well he PROMISED he was going to have it all fixed”.  Did you expect him to say at his 2008 acceptance speech, “Listen, I am inheriting the biggest cluster f any incoming president has ever been handed.  I am going to do my best to fix it but it might take more than 4 years to do so.”  Of course not, many voters in our quick fix, immediate gratification, take a pill to lose weight society don’t like solutions that take more than 20 minutes.

So now, with no more reelection worries on the horizon I only hope we can make some real progress, despite having the House still under republican control.  I am hopeful that finally, the promise of letting the Bush tax cuts expire is actually carried out.  Rolling with the rates during the Clinton era is not going to make or break anyone.

The fact that corporate profits are currently at 50 year highs while unemployment has been hanging around 8% is all the proof you need that trickle down economics (Reaganomincs) no longer is the formula for all around prosperity for our nation.  That trickle has had a sponge placed under it which is now squeezed and placed back into the supersized cup of corporate profits.

I also am hopeful that some meaningful and intelligent budget cutting actually happens instead of the horseshit numbers where they predict what will happen 10 years down the road.  I also look forward to the trend of more and more citizens requiring government assistance beings reversed as things continue to slowly improve.  If anyone thinks I support a lazy, leeching, entitled society you are sorely mistaken.

If someone is not making the effort to improve their situation and is content to exist on the governments dime there needs to be better enforcement and policing of these programs.  Unfortunately that is very easy to say and very hard to do.  Some scumbags are very adept at working the system.

If I was to give Romney any credit, it would be that he managed to make the race closer than I first anticipated it would be. He tried to morph himself into a jack of all trades, absorbing any political position that was currently convenient.  Of course the way he did this was pretty sleazy but still, he hung in there.

Please, please, dissolve the law that looks at corporations as people when it comes to political donations, get rid of SuperPacs and anything that resembles them.  Their efforts to distort and deceive on both sides of the aisle are truly disgusting and corrupts the election process to it’s core.

Let’s get this thing out of the rut, everyone get behind and push, Obama has the wheel.

Yesterday my uncle, whom has taken on the role of family historian, sent me scans of a newspaper article from 1938.

It was an article about my grandfather and a friend of his.  Evidently when they were younger they decided to stop conventional life for 8 months and canoe down to Florida.  The article outlined what sounded like a pretty amazing journey which included them riding bike back from Florida as far as the Carolinas.

I had absolutely no idea that my grandfather ever did this.

When I was growing up I knew my grandfather as a guy that always had a smile on his face.  I also remember as I was older how he would always greet me with a very enthusiastic handshake which almost always was accompanied by a reassuring smack on the arm with his other hand.

I actually find myself greeting people I like in a similar way from time to time.  I have no doubt this comes from my years with him.

I knew that grandpa had a pretty interesting history including serving in the Air Force during World War II.  In general though we never talked much in depth about what he had done as a younger man, something I regret now.

Reading about this adventure reopened my interest in what grandpa’s life was really like.  Too bad he is long, long gone.   This story did give me a little insight into perhaps why I find myself attracted to just picking up and going somewhere, seeing the country and appreciating all of the experiences along the way.

If you want to see the second page of the article you can do so here.

Well any hope of the Eagles picking themselves up by their bootstraps and showing they aren’t the awful team that showed up against Atlanta were dashed last night.  They were once again awful.

The offense is back to being incredibly inept in the red zone, despite massing around 450 yards of total offense.  I believe the stat I heard last night was 5 trips inside the opponents 20 yard line resulted in 6 total points. That is terrible.

Vick threw an interception that was run back 99 yards for a TD but it wasn’t really his fault as it bounced off Celek’s hands.  However he also threw a couple would be int’s that the Saints fortunately dropped.

The Eagles offensive line, which has been destroyed by injury is horrible and is surely largely responsible for the incredible amount of hits and sacks that Vick takes.  However Mike doesn’t help himself either.  Vick seems very, very poor at reacting to pressure in an efficient way.

Teams keep using the same formula to beat the Eagles, blitz.  A sharp QB makes a defense pay for this with quick decisions, passing to whomever is left open by the blitz.  Effectively doing this stops the blitz.  Vick isn’t effective in this manner, so the blitzing never stops.

Although it’s hard to believe, the defense actually was playing better under Juan Castillo.  The two games under Todd Bowles have been an unmitigated disaster.  The Saints were rated DEAD LAST in the league in rushing.  They ran for over 160 yards, running through weak Eagle tackling all night long.  It was embarrassing.

There is no consistent pressure on the QB and our “showcase” corners, Cromartie and Asomugha have in a word, sucked.  Asomugha is the biggest disappointment of all because he was paid a fortune to bring his supposed upper tier skills to Philly.   He is kind of a joke.

It’s pretty safe to say the team looks to be in free fall, losing 4 games in a row with the last two losses being absolute ass beatings.  There have been seasons before where this was the case and somehow Andy pulled the nose up.  I don’t think this is one of those years.  I saw true desperation in Andy’s eyes last night, he had no answers.  I think he is done.

Thankfully by this time tomorrow the elections will be over.  It is too bad that electing a leader has evolved into such a bitter, moronic, corrupt and divisive process.  In 2012, elections are catered to the minds that are easily swayed by snappy one-liners, fuzzy math,  robo-calls and junk mail.  Just like politicians are routinely bought, the voting public is as well.  The amount of money spent on psychological welfare to influence the uninformed masses is simply obscene.

No matter who wins tomorrow, I am sure there will be inappropriate chest beating from the victor.  To be clear, nobody should be proud of the state of our country at this time in history.  To me it’s just  a matter of which way we are going to keep the wheels pointed.  I’m not a supporter of U-turns.

Regardless of your political beliefs, this is damn funny, you have to admit.

http://youtu.be/yTCRwi71_ns

When NBC announced the show Revolution I was kind of looking forward to it.  The premise sounded interesting to me, sometime in the near future the world somehow loses electricity (they haven’t revealed why yet).  As a result of the loss of power the planet is plunged back to a feudal times type of existence.

Well instead of being a quality addition to my tv rotation, Revolution has turned into this years Terra Nova.  It basically sucks.   The fact that a show with lots of hype and a big budget sucks is not a new event, it happens quite often.  However in this particular case I am a bit surprised because of the names that are associated with the series like JJ Abrahms and Jon Faverau.

Revolution is weak on so many levels.  The writing is awful with predictable scenarios and outcomes everywhere you look.  I literally laugh out loud at times at just how ridiculous some of the round holes they try to jam square pegs into.

I find the young girl that is the female lead the most annoying of all. It’s not her fault, it’s more the fault of the bad writing that has her all over the road in terms of whom she really is.

Also annoying is the idiotic, random insertion of things into the show that are there strictly because of it’s later time slot.  For example the use of the word “dick”.  He’s a dick, don’t be a dick. I think they even used the word “crap” at one point. Gasp! How shocking.

Then last night they have a total soft porn scene with the annoying young female. For some reason they decide the best way to illustrate her tortured memories is when she is taking a bath. They were millimeters away from nip slip city and did have full side boobage at the end of the scene.  I mean obviously I fully support naked women whole heartedly but in the context of the show it was just idiotic and an obvious attempt to titillate, perhaps because that was all they have to offer.

As another example of the show’s suckage, let me outline a scene from this weeks show.  Yea I guess it is a spoiler but if you are still watching this show, you deserve to be spoiled.

So two of the good people were being held in a compound by about 30 bad ones, headed up by an extra nasty leader of course.   The leader gave each of the good people a gun and said they had to shoot each other.  Whomever shot first would live.  This was the leaders idea of a fun time.

Well the two good people were a dumpy fat guy and a hot latin woman.  The fat guy says he isnt going to shoot the hot woman (duh) so in an act of valor he points the gun to his chest, pulls the trigger and drops.

Evil leader guy comes over, all excited of course.  Well all of a sudden, fat dude opens his eyes and uses the gun to shoot the evil leader dead.  Fat guy had a metal whiskey flask in his pocket that stopped the bullet.

So now for some reason the 30 other armed men in the compound don’t immediately shoot the two good people.  Instead fat guy basically says “listen, all we want to do is just leave, ok?”  They cut to some guy that goes into deep thought and then says “ok get your stuff and get the hell out of here”  I mean wtf is that?

The show sucks.  All I want to know is why the damn power got turned off which is supposedly going to be revealed in the next episode.  Once that happens, I’m out.

Man as we approach the election the ridiculous FB posts regarding it are multiplying like rabbits.  I literally feel a little bit embarrassed for some of the people that post them. Many of the items are just so ignorant and low brow it makes me sad.  I just want it all to be over.

So my buddy Troy loves to poke fun at my extreme concern for animals. I basically hate killing things.  Really the only beings I don’t mind inflicting mass murder upon are fire ants which I am convinced came here straight from the depths of hell.

So anyway here is my latest story. This morning as I was in the bathroom getting ready I saw a small bug in the sink.  It actually looked to be a baby cockroach.  I just wasn’t feeling all that sympathetic so I took a cup of water to wash it down the drain since that is where it probably came from.  I tried to make sure it was well down the drain system by following up with running the faucet for a few seconds.

Well a few seconds after I turned the faucet off I see the bug slowly climb out of the drain, obviously a little disoriented from the near drowning.  Well now I felt bad.  I grab a tissue and scoop it up.  As I am walking towards the front of the house the baby roach climbed off the tissue and onto the middle of my forearm and stayed there.

I popped open the garage door and with one quick exhale blew the bug onto the yard where he will have a fighting chance to survive.

If you asked me to logically explain why I would feel compassion for a baby roach I don’t think I could.  But I do know it does maybe explain some of my thoughts on other subjects that are up for debate in society.

I have no doubt if that bug was in Mitt’s gold plated sink he would have immediately called in the butler to smash it.

This weekend Ali leaves for PA so I take full time possession of the dogs for close to a week.  No highlights planned, just the normal slog plus hopefully a 10 miler Saturday morning.