Doing the Obvious

In two unrelated (well, except in my mind) events yesterday, the inevitable happened. Brett Favre got released by the Jets and Alren Specter finally realized that there's no place for moderates in the republican party.

Favre claims he's retired and I tend to believe him (this time). But, I won't be completely convinced until September. On another football related note, I cannot believe how poorly the Raiders' drafted. Another piece of evidence that Al Davis has lost it.

Of course, the democrats are licking their chops over Specter's defection. Assuming that they can FINALLY get Al Franken seated in the senate, they would have a filibuster proof majority of 60 (assuming they all vote the same way). Knowing them, they'd abuse the power so much that they'd lose the majority in 2010, but that's not the point. It would give Obama a freerer hand on energy and health care policy as he'd has a solid majority in the house (and can lose some votes from moderate democrats) and could do as he pleases in the senate at least until January of 2011. People can talk all they want about the first 100 days of his presidency, but this would make the first 18 months far more significant.

Another Shake of the Death Rattle

My m-i-l came home from the assisted care hospital on Sunday. Part of her release was that she would begin getting hospice care. At this point that means that she gets the cool bed and weekly visits from a nutritionist, rn, etc. She's still catheterized and has the portable commode as she's too weak to get in and out of bed herself. As usual, she spent her time in the assisted care facility complaining instead of doing anything to improve her strength.

Ever since her husband died in 2001 she's been in the "woe is me" mode. Her current situation has seriously upped the ante and she's (figuratively) searching the yellow pages for Dr. Kevorkian's number. At this point, I honestly can't blame her.

The wife went to see her yesterday and said she was very clear headed about things (for a change). It's hard to refute her logic. Who would want to spend X months in bed getting worse by the day. Of course, she could try to make her life better by reading, inviting people over, etc., but she wouldn't do that when she was doing somewhat better.

CA does have a weak assisted suicide law, but with her history of depression no doc would ever certify that she's making the decision with a clear head. So, she's going to go on like this for at least a bit longer. But, probably not much longer.

Hatin' on the Haters

Oh, where to start...

I know. You remember those pond scum who protest at military funerals saying that the soldiers had it coming because American tolerates (sorta) gays and lesbians? No, I'm not going to link to them. Well, they're still at it, and spreading their message of love...and by that I mean, the opposite of love.

There's a high school near me that's going to put on a production of RENT (be happy, Jen). This school is in the middle of VERY republican country, so we're talking about a bunch of relatively conservative rich kids. But, our friends from the midwest can't let this stand, so they are on their way to protest. What, I don't know (freedom of speech? operas being turned into popular plays?). Silver lining? You know they're gonna sell far more tickets than they would have otherwise. Maybe then the school will have enough money to hire a gay drama teacher.

I don't know about where you live, but out here the animal rights groups are starting to take on a terrorist vibe. I believe that as the top dog in the land food chain we have some responsibilities towards other critters and, let's face it, animal research isn't pretty (nor is farming, for that matter). Sure, most of the animals are bred to be killed during the research, but that's not the point. But, we tolerate it to support product and medical research (some of which saves other animals' lives, I suppose).

If these people want to protest to make conditions more humane for animals and minimize the amount of research done on them, I willing to listen. But, I'm not for getting rid of it entirely and firebombing houses and cars undercuts their non-violent message.

Now that Bush the C-Student is out, some UCLA researchers grew a pair (hm...perhaps cloned a pair?) and protested against the intimidation. This is not the most extroverted group of people on the planet, so they must really be pissed. And I don't blame them. I'm thinking the FBI's going to be a bit more sympathetic towards them now that there are two people who can read in the White House.

Up and Running

After a very stressful beginning of the week, I got my laptop back up and running. Best I can tell, there's only one program that I lost (I had it as a zip file and not on CD and hopefully I can find it on Limewire) and I saved all of my data. Still, I'm kinda pissed at myself. I'm so fucking stubborn sometimes. I could have easily had this resolved late last week if I wouldn't have been so worried about reloading programs. Yeah, it takes a little time, but about 10% of what I fucking wasted with Norton tech support. I'm such an idiot sometimes.

In m-i-l news, she got admitted to the hospital overnight, then moved to an assisted living joint (she's been there before). She'll be coming home this weekend and will be getting intro to hospice. Her MRIs show that her cancer has spread to her liver. Also, the bigger problem in her back is that the disk where she has the compression fracture is herniated. Oh, and she can't pee, like she's got an enlarged prostate or something.

The wife's birthday is Friday, but she's in no mood to celebrate (including canceling her family bday party on Saturday). We're going to go hear some music tomorrow (the HB's at a school overnight) and we'll do an immediate family birthday dinner when the HB gets back on Friday.

Hopefully things will get better soon.

Death Rattles

One reason I haven't been blogging so much this week is that my computer got a virus. Actually, I think it got a couple and has probably had some low level ones in it for a while. I had been thinking of getting a new one soon anyway, but spending a week reloading software (assuming it would even be compatible with Vista) made my stomach turn.

So, my first stop is Symatec since I use Norton. Not really by choice as it came loaded on the computer. The one thing I love about their tech support is that they take control of your computer and do all of the work. The thing I don't love about them is that they only react to the problems you can describe (despite the $100 fee), so their fixes are minimal and it usually takes 2-3 calls to get it done right. This has been the case so far. I say so far in that each time I've called I've gotten something taken care of (first it was uncontrollable pop-ups, yesterday it was Google hijacking). The good news of all of this is that since they've done the cleanups, my computer hasn't run faster in years. The bad news is that between the cure and virus damage my computer is having non-virus related problems.

So, my second stop was HP tech support. This is always pretty hit-and-miss. Unfortch, they don't have the cool remote help so I had to spend some time on the phone with them on Friday night. Until 3am. Actually, before I got on the phone with them I tried their on-line tech support chat. This was an enormous waste of time. The only thing they wanted to do was reformat the drive and reinstall windows. Uh, I don't think so (see reloaded all of my software comment above).

The primary problem was that the system would boot, flash a blue screen error, then reboot. The tech I worked with got this (eventually) resolved. However, in a bizarre twist, the USB ports will read my external hard drive (you can bet your ass the first thing I did was back-up my data again as soon as the call was over) and replicator port, but not any other USB devices (e.g., MP3 players, camera, etc.). Nor will those things work when I plug them into my replicator's USB ports. So, I have a "date" with the senior tech who was helping me with these after midnight on Friday.

The other week my m-i-l was diagnosed with a compression fracture in a vertabrae in her back. He's got osteoporosis, so it's not a huge surprise that she's got this. It's causing her a lot of visible pain, in addition to her other pains, real or imagined. Falling into the latter is her emphysema diagnosis. My wife found out at the last doctor's visit that her lung capacity is between 92% and 94%. Not exactly emphysema range. But, because she all but refuses to take her Prozac and Xanax she gets a lot of anxiety. Which makes it hard for her to breathe. Which gives her more anxiety. Which makes it hard for her to breathe. Etc. In fact, the doc needs to sign special paperwork to get her the 24 hr. oxygen.

Given the situation, it makes one wonder why she needs the 24 hour care, oxygen, etc. if all she needs to do is take her fucking medicine. Dont' get me wrong, she's old and frail, but she seems to be making this tougher on herself, and far more tougher on her kids, than she needs to.

Calling Them as They See/Saw Them

Hm..weird that I would write about sports announcers twice in a week. However...

Normally, I watch sports with the sound off. After you've watched enough games there's really not much more they can say on TV (having said that, I LOVE listening to games on the radio). With all of the super-loud people on TV, it is hard to remember how different John Madden, who announced his retirement today, was.

I loved his enthusiasm when he was the RAIDERS head coach and was glad that he brought it to the broadcast booth. He thoroughly enjoyed football, knew it inside and out and expressed both. He also brought a coach's view of strategy to the booth (as I recall, there were plenty of ex-players calling games, but no coaches).

I'll admit that I haven't listened to him in a couple of years, but I don't recall anyone saying that he had lost it. Though, I know some who were tired of his shtick. He retired from the RAIDERS before he had to, so it's not surprising that he would do that again. I wish him well and hope that his next chapter is as good as his last one.

Coincidentally (I think), the LA Times ran a story on the Clippers' long suffering (as any long term employee of the Clippers is) announcer, Ralph Lawler. Actually, the coincidence was that I watched and listened to him do a game the day before. He's as good of a play-by-play man as they come, but has languished in LA in the shadow of Chick Hearn (Lakers) and Vin Scully (Dodgers).

He has a job of extremes. On one hand, when I was doing college radio, I would have given my left nut to get a professional play-by-play gig. But, if I knew that the team I was covering would lose 2/3 of their games almost every year, that would give anyone pause. Who wants to deliver bad news to fans just about every night?

What's amazing is that he's one of the only competent employees that is visible to the public that the Clippers' owner Donald Sterling keeps around. To work for such a cheap ass who puts a barely passable team on the court must be tough. One can only conclude that Lawler is a) a crazy optimist and/or b) he LOVES basketball and/or c) he's as loyal as can be. Of course, he's well paid, gets to travel in style, etc. But, still. You'd think that after Hearn died he would have had his agent at least call over to the Lakers. Maybe UCLA or USC basketball?

He's a pro. Too bad he's had to slum it with the Clips.

Catch-Up and Taxes

I think I'm FINALLY caught up at work. Of course, I should say that in a stage whisper or else who knows what else if going to flood my inbox. I've got a proposal due tomorrow and I need to decide if I want to do more work for a new client (they don't pay particularly well).

Monday I sent off our taxes. The good news is that we're getting a refund from the State and Feds. The bad news is that we gave them an interest free loan last year. Sigh.

As a Libertarian, April 15th is a black holiday. It's the one time that you can get people to ask, "Exactly what am I getting for my money here?" What kills me is the republicrats faux anger at the situation. It would be one thing if Reagan, Bush I and Bush II shrunk government, but they didn't. The fact is that there are no serious "small government" republicrats with any power in the party. Shit, these guys spent money in Iraq and Afganistan and wouldn't even put it in the budget.

Both parties want big governement. They just disagree on what they want to blow our money on. It's either matriarchical local programs or patriarchical weapons programs. And, of course, anything that sends federal money into their district.

So, as you look with sadness at your check register, or wait in anticipation at the mail box, spend a few minutes thinking about how well your money's been spent. Once you stop crying, you can go register as a Libertarian (see link at the right).