I Just Stopped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In

I got two Kenny Rogers CDs at Goodwill today. I don't think I had any Kenny Rogers CDs already, although a few of these songs I have somewhere, vinyl perhaps.

Both are greatest hits packages. One is "The Best of Kenny Rogers," a 10 track Capitol CD. Not much there, 10 tracks! This doesn't include any of his rock tracks. The other has 12 tracks and it's one of the 20th Century Masters series, with the exact same title as the Capitol one. It has some of the same tracks, too, plus the biggies by the First Edition, tracks 8 thru 12, including "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town," "Ruben James," and "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)". I like those songs, except when I was a kid we made fun of "Ruby."

So I'll probably listen to those songs a few times and some of the others. Put them on and enjoy!

The other CD I got was by Gin Blossoms, "Congratulations I'm Sorry." I don't think I have this one. I have the other one I know about, the one with "Hey Jealousy."

Photographing Documents

Recently I thought it'd be a good idea to start digitizing my documents, things I have around the house, business papers, scraps of trivia, whatever.

But I've picked through it somewhat, because some of the trivia on scraps of paper is the sort of thing I'll never need forever. But some of it, hey, I don't know if I'll ever need someone's phone number again. So what the hey. Except to do it, then to give it all file names, then to categorize it, blah blah, it gets complicated and time consuming.

I haven't got a great way to photograph these things. Scanning takes too long with my old scanner. So I got it set up with the camera on top of some books, aimed the best I can do it in a consistent way, at the papers before me. Then click it and move on to the next one. I literally did over 1400 pages over the weekend, term papers, college notes, all kinds of crap.

As for all my college and other term papers, I've had the stack of them setting in the basement for years and really didn't want to throw them away. Not that they're any good, really, or likely to be something I'll want to read again. But it just seems bad to lose them forever. Yet I don't want the stack around forever. So I photographed them, put them on the computer, and shredded the whole thing. Over 1000 pages of stuff shredded!

Now I need to go through and label them, or maybe not. Maybe I'll just put them in a big folder that is called term papers -- for this school and this school -- and if I ever want to see them, it wouldn't take endless browsing to find them.

I worked on this project some today, trying to rotate files, brighten them, etc. I did a bunch manually till I figured out a way to batch process them, and obviously that saved a lot of time.

The Language Animals Know

I'm constantly on the lookout for what my animals know, the cats and dog.

They start out knowing nothing about us, our mannerisms, what we say, all that. But then in the course of time they learn all sorts of things, whether to trust us or not.

Somehow they come to associate their name with themselves. I'm still not exactly sure how that happens, except obviously by repetition. But whether they know the names of the others, that's not always clear. I do think our dog knows the words we use for the cats individually.

Then there's all the other things we communicate, especially with the dog. The dog comes in for a lot more interaction because of the bathroom duties. And she, being a dog, cares to be with us more in an intimate and ongoing way than the cats. So she responds to things that are kind, sweet, complimentary, and comes to know things like "Stay" and "No." We think of "sit" as a kind of trick, which is just more of the same.

One thing the cats get trained to respond to, by getting a treat or by having something that will be to their liking, is "Kitty, kitty, kitty" in a high pitched call. You figure they're a blank slate till they get the associations.

Look At All These Hangers

A picture of a thousand hangers is worth a thousand words about them.

My Cat's Jealous Of My Paws

... I mean, hands.

He's anxious to get his food in the morning. The way he judges time is by my movements. So if I go downstairs an hour early, he thinks it's time to eat. But sometimes I need to go downstairs to get something. I hate to do it because I know he'll appear, ready for food. "Not time yet, sorry."

Then when it is time, downstairs I go. He reappears, and of course this time it is time to eat. I open the pantry, get the bag of dry food and get a can of wet. I pour the dry. I open the can and scoop it into a dish. Then it's all set in place.

How much better it'd be from his point of view if he could only open the pantry, get the dry, pour it, get the wet, open it, scoop it, and set it in place! But he can't do any of that. He'd starve, not a happy thought.

It makes me feel very able, though. There I am ... lord of thought and deeds ... able to open cat food and serve it. I not only can think through the process, what it'd take to accomplish it, I'm also able perfectly to follow through on my intentions and get the job done. It's strictly 1-2-3, but I treasure my great ability to do things 1-2-3. As smart as the cat is, he can't do this.

Of course there's things the cat can do that I can't. But in this particular blog post I just want to mention the things I can do that he can't.

My Dog Always Contradicts Me

I'm talking about my dog. She always contradicts me.
It's like a routine.

"You always contradict me."
"No, I don't."

This deserves a threat. "I'll put your fur on the other side of your collar."
"It already is."

American (Adam Lambert) Idol

OK, I do like Allison Iraheta, always have. She's awesome, and only 16? Wow. But other than her, for me it's all Adam Lambert. I'm a huge fan. And probably if they had him in Tiger Beat, I'd be buying it again. Ha ha.

I love his normal look, the brushed down hair, the whole modern, cool look. And I liked the look tonight, like an Elvis look. The weird thing for me, though, with him and Elvis, is I think he looks more like Elvis with his hair as normal than he did tonight. But it was a very dreamy look nonetheless. But skip all that Elvis stuff, I like Adam Lambert for who he is all by himself. Time for a fan letter!

He did "Tracks of My Tears," since it was Motown night. He did it unplugged, a guy with guitar, a guy with bass, and a guy with a drum thing. I was thinking it might be too sparse for the judges but they turned out to love it. I'm looking very forward to getting the download from I Tunes, to hear it in greater clarity. Although they said tonight that the I Tunes songs would be the contestants accompanied by the original Motown instrumental tracks, so it seems like it'd have to be quite a bit different.

Except for Allison and Adam, I'm not enthused or interested in any of the other contestants. They each have talent in their own way -- more or less -- but they're simply like kindling wood before the real fire.

One comes in for the Boheme's severest criticism tonight, and that's Michael Sarver. He did "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," and he failed to get it at all. He said he was going to "church it up," which he didn't. The words to that song are profound and need to be said with conviction, like you are feeling it in the "pit of my heart." You don't sing "pit of my heart" stuff with a breezy indifference to the lyrics. In that case "churching" it up means having a sincere preacher's conviction. If you ain't got it in the vocal sincerity on that song, you ain't got it. And he didn't have it.

Arlen Specter

Arlen Specter is one sickening guy. He seriously needs to be defeated in 2010.

It'd be an interesting project to come up with trivia on this guy, how many times it sounds like he's on the verge of doing something good, only to veer off and do something sickening. It's definitely a habit.

The Republicans are sickening in general (and specifically). To defeat all of them would be a worthy goal, or to hope they wither on the vine.

My Exercise Place

The place where I go to exercise seems like they're overrun with members now. It seems like it might be time to expand.

There's a few treadmills and they were all being used tonight. There's a few ellipticals and a couple were free, one of which I took. The other stuff was being used too, but I didn't look around that much to make a survey.

There's a guy there -- I believe he's called a boot camp guy -- and he was putting his clients through their paces. For quite a while they were all women but now I see there's a few men doing his bidding as well. He's got them running around, out the door, out in the parking lot, then back in. They'll be holding hand weights and running on their hands and feet a while. It all looks quite taxing.

I'm starting to see a few people out there about every time I'm there. Which makes me think maybe they're there a lot more often than that, since I'm not there at the same time everyday. Could it be that someone would be there four or five hours a day? There's one woman I'm seeing all the time. She's probably between 50-60, with pretty blond hair, and she's there virtually every time I go. I noticed she wasn't spending much time on each thing. She was at the bicycle next to me for about five minutes, then over on the treadmill for less than five minutes, then wandering around from thing to thing.

We made eye contact a couple times, which I generally try not to do. Unless someone speaks to me or I see someone I know. I thought maybe she was talking to me once, but maybe she was talking to herself. I'd rather not talk or make eye contact, because then it becomes a social outing. And I'd hate her to think I'm "interested," because I'm definitely not.

Anyway, I was bouncing right along on the elliptical. Sometimes I'm very tired, wanting to give up. Tonight I was working it. I was listening to Kelly Clarkson's new CD (on my Ipod) and it's a good one for exercise. So I ended up in 15 minutes (plus 3 minutes cool down) with 2.03 miles.

My Fourth Grade Girlfriend

I met someone today who had the same first name as a girl who I was "sweet on" in fourth grade. She moved shortly after that and I never heard of her again.

It made me think, what if that was her? Although of course it probably wouldn't be. I might say, I seem to remember you. We went to the same school for a while. But not say you were someone I liked at the time. Because it'd be a massive drag to hear the inevitable, What was your name again? These childhood romances are best left forgotten. I can't say I forgot, but it doesn't enter my mind very often. Every few years at best.

Well, now it's on my mind. So guess what? After all these years, I googled her name and it came up. She graduated from high school the same year as I, and actually in a town within 25 miles of our old school. I never knew where she moved to.

It wasn't meant to be, unless we meet in a nursing home someday.

Pets To Adopt

I went to Pet Smart yesterday and made the serious mistake of looking at the cats that have been left behind. How sad. Each one said something about how their owner had to give them up.

Oh, I can't see that, but I can't adopt any cats. I have two cats and there's no way we want any others disturbing their routine. But it makes me sad to see, and to contemplate what these owners (and cats) had to go through when they needed to give them up. It must have been terrible.

I don't want to look at them. I don't want to get their hopes up. I feel sorry for them, because I know a cat likes to have a home and not to be in a glass cage in a pet store. They want to be sleeping on a bed, stretched on a couch, curled in a chair.

Talking Trash To Ice

I took the dog out for a walk, like always, and noticed a vast difference between today and a couple weeks ago. Today is the first day of Spring, and back then it was winter.

In the fullness of winter, the snow was piled high and deep. It's a heavy mess, like 50 pounds per shovel. And you can barely get rid of it except at a high cost. A big truck will come and haul it somewhere but it's around $50 a load. Then there was all the ice on the sidewalks and on the driveway and road. And even on the south side it lingered forever.

The snow, pushed and shoveled to the side, leaves the ice stuck forever. It's definitely the boss and stays where it's at. You can't arrest it, reason with it, or whip it to any good effect. You chip at it and it just hardens its resolve.

Some of the ice I needed to get rid of was obstinant. I used sand and salt. Then when it warmed up slightly I thought I could spray water on it (the water being warmer than ice, stands to reason). But it must have had an underlayment of residual cold because up came the icy tentacles and claimed the water as its next victim.

Now, though, now I gotcha! It's been warm and now it's spring. So I'm doing my yearly trash talking to the snow -- not so tough now, eh? -- and ice ... You who were so persistent, you who could not be moved, where are you now? It might be bad luck though, because even though it's spring, it still could turn off cold and we still could get more ice and snow. Hope not.

Clay Pigeons Zen

Get a box of clay pigeons and a gun.

But instead of the usual way of doing it -- one of those automatic slings -- throw the clay pigeon up in the air, then grab your gun and shoot it.

Good luck.

Facebook Doldrums

I'm in the doldrums as far as Facebook is concerned.

I don't know. I'm just not that interested in who everyone is sending virtual flowers to, getting sticks, hugging a nurse, seeing who's playing Mafia wars, blah blah blah.

I'm sure it'll come back to me, the interest. But some of this stuff is downright annoying. I keep getting announcements, like it's going to be some kind of personal message to me, and it's something like "Three movies opened this week. See what your friends think of them." Something like that.

Not Wanting To Breathe

I examined my dog's nose to see if dogs had nostrils or just a smooth, uninterrupted surface. It turns out she does have nostrils.

I told my dog I wouldn't want to be breathing through a dog's nose. I would be polluted by its body.

The cat also has nostrils. I told the cat I wouldn't want to be breathing through a cat's nose. I would also be polluted by its body.

They told me, 'We wouldn't want to breathe through your nose either.' I halfway expected that.

I told them, 'Hey, my air's OK.'

'Ditto,' they said.

Watching Tru TV

I've watched a couple more shows on Tru TV. I don't know that this can be a long term thing for me, but it's interesting at the moment. It's all going to hinge on how long my appetite for chases, crashes, and stupidity holds out. I might get filled up soon or maybe it'll take a few weeks.

They have all these old videos of perps trying to outrun the police. It's insane. You'd think they'd know it's all in vain, that they're going to have even more problems when they eventually get pulled over. Come on, the helicopters are very tenacious. And cops can radio ahead -- they're doing it already -- and they're waiting for you just ahead with spike strips.

On today's episode -- the name escapes me, but it was one of the Most Stupid - Most Daring - Most Outrageous chase shows -- a guy who had murdered his wife was making a run for the Mexico border. The way they were describing it, it sounded like he'd not be charged if he could just make it to Mexico. I've heard of people running for Mexico before but I didn't really think you got off scot free by hitting the Mexican border. As it turned out he didn't make it. They had a helicopter harrassing him from just above the road median, then they put out the spike strips and punctured his front driver's side tire.

Other chases included a guy on a motorcycle going 130 mph through traffic in Los Angeles, actually eluding the police pretty well, except for the helicopter in the sky. That allowed them to keep up with him until it seems he ran out of gas. Then he ran a ways but very soon gave up. There was a kid driving a car who kept slamming into stop signs, road signs, mailboxes, on purpose. They finally got him too when he went into a yard and crashed into something. He left the stop sign wiggling back and forth.

The "Dumbest" show I saw part of last night had some great video of people doing things that really hurt, like windsurfing and the guy flips out of the water on to the rocks then back into the water. Or guys on a couch and skies going down the hill and wiping out. Not just wiping out but flipping end over end till they smacked a berm, then the couch smacked them. The problem with this show is they have a few C list celebrities -- like Tonya Harding and I can't remember who all -- making "funny" observations about how idiotic the people in the videos are. The show would be vastly improved without the observations. So I don't expect I'll be watching many of their "Dumbest" shows. I do like Danny Bonaduce, though. I'm happy he's made a name for himself these days, carved out a show biz niche, and seems to be doing OK. Way to go!

Jim Cramer

I didn't watch the whole interview between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer. I intended to, really. But I was watching at Huffington Post and they have some kind of periodic update of their page that happens automatically. So I'm a few minutes into it and the update came, wiping out the video. Nice!

I never got back to it. And now it's all over. Plus, as great as Jon Stewart is, I think I got the gist of it in those few minutes. He shamed Cramer and that's the message. CNBC was in cahoots with the wrong people, not looking out for their viewers' interests.

As for myself, I don't watch CNBC anyway, so I won't be leaving it. I've seen Cramer on a few shows, like on Hardball. I thought he was supposed to be a good guy. I was a little put off by him for being over critical of President Obama's plans. But that's no big deal. Now we find out though. He's the one with the shady history and presentations.

Good for Jon Stewart. Hopefully CNBC will change their sleazy ways.

My Life Would Suck Without You

I love the new single by Kelly Clarkson, "My Life Would Suck Without You."

When I first heard of it a few weeks ago, I thought, yuck, what a title. I heard a few seconds at Amazon, but it must have been one of those days. Plus, I wasn't going to buy it, just to turn around and buy the whole album when it came out. So I only heard it those few seconds, then once on the radio. It sounded a little "paint by numbers" as a song, and I suppose it is.

But seeing/hearing it on American Idol, and now with the CD, hearing it over the speakers and especially on the earbuds, it's a beautiful song. I love the sentiment and the fact that it's romantic and also admittedly dysfunctional. It's easy to identify with that in our ordinary relationships, because we know where all the bodies are buried. Nothing's perfect, but still, I can say to her, "My life would suck without without you!" In fact I can say that a lot more honestly than some of the other romantic songs that don't allow for ambiguity.

I'm old enough that I actually remember when people started using the word "suck," and it wasn't a part of normal conversation. You wouldn't say it if a teacher was in the room, let's say. But as time went on (stroking my very long gray beard), Beavis and Butthead, then kids saying it about everything, now it's something you can hear in church, "The offering sucked today." Heh, I don't know about that last one. So when I heard the title, I thought yuck.

But it's a great song. I love it.

By the way, it's a lot better listening to it up close with earbuds than over the speakers. It's a lot more involved sounding with background stuff that you miss over the speakers.

Seven Days In An Astonished Trance

Here's something I read in the Bible that's extremely interesting: The prophet Ezekiel had the whole vision of God's glory, then in 3:15 it says, "I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Abib near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days - overwhelmed" (NIV). The last part of the verse in the KJV is this, "I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days."

I wonder what it'd be like to be in what amounts to an astonished trance for seven days. You've seen something no one else has seen. You get to a place and others are there and you simply sit there for a whole week in a daze. 1) It'd probably be quite nice, except, 2) These days they'd call the ambulance and you'd wake up in the hospital with an IV drip. That wouldn't be so nice.

This is a great little passage, I'm thinking meant to drive home the intensity of his experience and call. It's like a "no self" experience, which I don't know much about, but I have a book somewhere with that title.

There's another passage in the Bible I can think of sort of like this but not quite. It's where the friends of Job appear in the story, Job 2:13, "So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great" (KJV). I really don't think I could sit on the ground seven days and seven nights. It might be like one of those car contests where they let you take your hands off it five minutes every hour for bathroom breaks. But I doubt it. Again, it's speaking of the intensity of the situation, how bad it is in that case.

A few years ago I gave standing orders that if it ever seemed like I was dead not to take me to the hospital. Ha ha, but you can't honestly expect people to actually follow that. You would either be hooked to the IV or embalmed.

Operacion Repo

I said in one of my articles that I've been turning over to the Tru channel once in a while. Because of all the crap on TV, this channel seems to have some of the most interesting. If you like the idea of seeing people at their worst, being blown up, being pulled over, doing insane things. It's great, but I'd rather they didn't blur it out anyone someone is fingering someone. You know, the human finger is not something that needs to be blurred out. It's not going to kill us to see it. Walk around town, you see fingers everywhere. Anyway....

I'm not such a constant viewer that I know all their shows, and certainly not when they're on. They seem to be always on, like if this show is on now, it'll be on for the next three or four hours. But that's longer than I watch. One show I discovered last night is called "Operacion Repo." I hope I spelled that right; I think it's a Spanish word. On this show, maybe like it sounds, they're busy repossessing cars and trucks that people have fallen behind making payments on. I only saw close to an hour but it was very interesting.

This would be an interesting job. Of course it could be dangerous, because some of the people out there with cars needing repo'ed are hotheads, nuts. Would I like to do it? Let me say both yes and no on that! I think it'd be cool to go along and maybe scout them out. But to have to confront these hotheads, that might get dicey. The skulking around would be fun, probably till you met someone with a gun who wanted to keep their car.

The episodes had such things as this. A lady with a car to be repo'ed was in a pizza restaurant. They went in and told her they needed to repo her car, so give us the keys. Naturally she's up in arms over it, very upset. I don't know. Are you just supposed to hand your keys to anyone who shows up saying hand me your keys? So it seems like she would have a right to object. Things got more than a little out of hand. The owner of the pizza place just wanted them all gone.

A couple other scenes: They tricked a gardener into telling where his employer's car was hidden. The guy seemed kind of dumb, because they pretended they were talking to the employer on the phone and the employer "told" them it'd be OK. So this idiot falls for that, instead of saying "I need to talk to her myself." One other: A lady had a big estate, gated, locked. And this employee from the repo place climbs over the wall, which seemed OK to me, but it turned out that was against the law. So he was arrested, then the repo owner had to bail him out. Very entertaining.

Obama Makes Dow Rise 380 Points

Pretty good snark here, on giving President Obama the credit for today's 5.5% rise in the stock market.

I've always said, though, that if people are supposed to take the blame they should also get the credit. The problem with the Republicans is they only accept credit and never blame. Likewise, they only assign blame and never credit. So they must not think that others would appreciate what they themselves appreciate. Kind of the opposite of the Golden Rule when it comes to them.

Daily Kos diarist "reef the dog" calculates that with success like this, if Obama kept it up at the rate that he produced today, by the end of the first 100 days the Dow will be at 25,000. And by the end of his first term it should stand at 535,800!

So, assuming all this is correct, tomorrow would be a great day to BUY! On the other hand, when everyone is a billionaire it might cost $50,000 for a Big Mac and we'll still have the same (or worse) rich to poor differential.

A Day Of Disgusting Things

Yesterday I nearly reached my breaking point on disgusting things.

I wrote about the big huge dead Talking Catfish that had been wedged in and plugging up my toilet (unbeknownst) since Thursday. So, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The toilet was having a terrible time. I had joked that maybe it was that fish. Then it turned out to be that fish. I reached in there and pulled him out, the details of which I wrote about yesterday. Disgusting.

But that was just one disgusting thing, although probably the crowning example. The others were the ordinary ones of cat poop, dog poop, pet strewing garbage all over, the cat puking, and getting some kind of blank gunk from the toilet under my finger nails. To be fair, this last one was not body waste or fish waste but was just the normal build up of black stuff that sometimes you see around gaskets.

Last night, though, when I was tired, there was nearly one last example of disgusting things. And I thought I saw it all. There was a Tupperware container setting on the counter. I opened it and saw the most vile, filthy, disgusting bunk of something in there, coated and now slick with blue mold, blue through and through. I about lost it. And I did lose ... the Tupperware. No way was I digging that out and trying to clean that dish. I threw it completely away, tied up the garbage sack (which included the dead fish carcass at this point) and turned my back on the whole works.

That lead me to preemptively empty another couple containers of food ... before it rotted.

I'm queasy as can be at this point but thinking it was over ... except there was still the task of taking the dog out, cleaning up dog poop in the yard ... then coming back in thinking it was over ... until I remembered, I still need to clean the cat box!

One of the most disgusting days on record.

Toilet Troubles

We've had toilet troubles for a few days, and it may predate the death of that fish the other day, as in being slow, but it's been so slow as to not actually be flushing.

I had said something about the flushing of the fish (I wasn't the one who did it), but I was really only joking, since I figured it actually went down. But we've been plunging and plunging, trying to get it unplugged for days. I have a worn spot on the heel of my hand from plunging. Nothing did any good. I read on wikihow how to fix a slow toilet. Water went down OK from a bucket, so I was cleaning the holes. Then sometimes it wouldn't work and that was mysterious. So I was plunging some more, ever more plunging, to little profit ... until ... I felt a good suction ... and then ...

I saw it, what looked like the fish, black! I tried to retrieve it with a big spoon but it only pushed it back in there. I tried other tools, to some avail, but not much. What this needed, unfortunately, was the human hand. That's bad. But what do you do in an emergency? In went the hand, and fumbled around with it, although it was somewhat wedged in there. I could feel the prickly big fin that sticks up, so I finally got ahold of that, and through some doing, got it retrieved. Now it was with a tool, to put it in the garbage.

Now with the holes cleaned, thanks to wikihow, and the obstruction out of the way, it's flushing with good authority. Back to normal and better than normal because of the better water flow with the holes being cleaned.

This is a disgusting task. I was just kidding about the fish plugging it up. Imagine how interesting it was to tell that other person, oh, by the way, it WAS the fish. Of course it would sound like I was kidding, since we were joking around about it earlier, but I stressed the truthfulness of the situation and it was believed on the second telling. Because it's true.

The Center Of Relevance In Life

I got an email today, according to which I am the proud beneficiary of $25 million, I believe the figure was. Obviously this bequest is going to change my life in numerous ways. One, I plan to save at least half of it, and as for the rest I think I'll probably buy several things I'd like, a house, car, all that.

Checking it out on the internet, at some place with a name like "scam alert," it looks like a lot of others have had the same good fortune. So that's an interesting coincidence.

One of the sentences in the letter was very interesting:

I am the only one who knows of this situation at this time, and good fortune has blessed and planted you into the center of relevance in life.

Good fortune has blessed and planted me "into the center of relevance in life." I believe this is the first time I've ever been anywhere near the center of relevance in life. I've spent a lot of time at the margins, quite far from the center of relevance in life. But now I have been planted into it, I'm doing OK!

Tatiana! - Final Edition

Well, that's it. She bombed out. No more Tatiana on American Idol. I liked her too, the whole drama queen reputation, the good voice. She was fun to watch.

But when you get one more chance, you have to do something with it. I myself wasn't keeping track of the songs everyone sang, so it's all the same to me if you do the same song over and over. I'm not occupying my memory with such details. But the judges were keeping track, and they didn't like the fact that she did the same song three times. Three times??

Simon might have sounded harsh, but it was right on. Was she planning on doing the same song every show. Even I might have noticed if she did that!

I cannot believe, that given that one great, last chance, that anyone would put so little effort into doing something dynamic. You could pick a song off the top of your head in about 10 minutes. Then they have people there to get it arranged, all that. I'd like to see the behind the scenes stuff to see what opportunities they have. Do something with the chance you get.

So now we're without Tatiana. Alas. I was looking forward to seeing her on there. But it was her own fault, at least from where I sit.

Death Of A Fish

When fish die, you don't really notice or care. Unless they're in your aquarium. Then you at least notice. It's nothing that you get too broken up over. Probably if it cost $100 and you bought it yesterday, that'd be a different story.

We had a big fish that was dead today. By big I mean relatively big, five inches or so. It was called a Talking Catfish. I never heard it say anything, but this other person says she heard it croaking out a few syllables of some sort.

It wasn't a fish I noticed very much. Whether it hides or just stays in the background somewhere, it's always something of a surprise to see it at all. But yesterday it was swimming toward the top of the tank, like it was sucking air out of the surface. I called attention to it, that something funky was going on with that fish. Maybe it was dying. Turns out it was two years old.

Then today I looked and it was dead, at the bottom of the tank. So it was retrieved and flushed down the toilet.

When they catch fish -- I saw it on TV -- they catch them by the millions at a time. Then they're sliced and diced and iced, bing bang boom. No one cares about the individual fish. But each single fish is definitely, obviously a single little life. So it's something at least that they live and die.

Tatiana!

Tatiana was picked among the eight wildcard singers on American Idol. I was surprised, mostly for this reason, that I had entirely forgotten about her.

If you're out of the public eye for a couple weeks, that's all it takes. They had the whole group of potential picks sitting there and I didn't even notice her. Then when the judge said her name, she seemed to come out from behind someone else, and I suddenly remembered ... oh, her, how could I forget her?

She was very emotional, very happy to have this last shot. It's going to be a tough competition. I would guess they have to pick, arrange, and practice a completely different song in the next 24 hours. That's going to be very rushed. But there's no way, I would imagine, that they'll just have them do the same song. No, because they were even saying something like, "Pick the right song."

This whole process would be interesting to see, be behind the scenes of.

As for the ones who didn't get picked ... oh well. Some looked like they'd be worthy of another shot, some didn't.

Homelessness

I personally encountered two instances of homelessness today, situations where there is very little hope. I don't know what people are supposed to do in situations like that.

One person simply has nowhere to go and no real prospects. The other one at least has a pickup truck to stay in. Your heart breaks for situations like this, but what can you do? People get in these bad scrapes and so they suffer, to the extent that it is by some fault of their own.

To be homeless would be a disaster. I myself lived in a car for a month, but I was in college, waiting for an apartment to open up, etc., so I don't really consider myself as having been homeless. I had an apartment in another town, but couldn't be there at the time. I slept in a dorm one night, and in a dorm lobby one night. It was not very fun but manageable. The weird thing about that was my car quit working, so I couldn't move it. Then a tire went flat. Then I went to change the tire, but I guess because it set there so long the lugnuts got strange and broke off with the tire iron. Then at some point at the end of that month, the police towed the car and I don't believe I ever saw it again.

If I had to be homeless now it'd be a disaster. Married with pets.

Pork Chops And Tabasco

I'm a big Tabasco fan. I love it on chicken wings and pork chops.

I have a theory, no actual research involved, that Tabasco could probably cure disease. Big stuff too, like herpes, cancer, all that stuff that supposedly can't be defeated. My theory: sprinkle some Tabasco on it and the bacteria will have to die.

I'm very used to Tabasco sauce. I started out having a tiny drop once in a while at my grandparents. Back then we must have stretched out a bottle for years. I don't know. Now I slather stuff with it, both on top and for dipping. But no matter how "used" to it I am, it still has heat that does things to me. Sometimes my hearing gets slightly fuzzy, my nose runs, I'm drinking water.

Because it has these dreadful effects ... that's where I get the idea it can cure disease.

I also used to have a theory that those metal Chinese balls with different gongs in them could cure foot pain, so obviously my theories rely on a lot of wishful thinking.

Rush To Judgment

Republicans better hurry up and get moderate, or their brand will suffer further damage. Right now they're stuck with this clown Rush Limbaugh and the other fringe crazies. Any Republican moderate out there has to be tearing out his or her hair that this is what it's come to.

Really, they just about break free of Dobson, Falwell (who did them a favor by going to his reward), Robertson, that wing. They get rid of Bush, who was not really a friend to the idea of long term conservatism. And now they're stuck with this idiotic Limbaugh, Coulter, that wing of the party.

Today there's this story, that Eric Cantor and Michael Steele are poo-pooing the insane doctrine that they're pulling for Obama to fail. Of course they're getting strung up for it. Because the crazies they're aligned with are the pitchfork brigade, who won't settle for anything less than their own nutty agenda.

Cantor is no liberal and not a moderate. But maybe he can read the handwriting on the wall. The more the Democrats are able to keep the equation this: Republicans = Limbaugh, the worse things will get. (Or the better they will get from my point of view.)

It's funny watching the Republicans show up to kiss Limbaugh's ring. That's giving him big kicks. Do us a favor. Keep kissing it all the way through 2010.