Recent interviews of Dear Leader Obama with NBC and CBS in Asia featured softball, fawning questions about Obama's stress levels, his weight and his greying hair.
He looks thinner and greyer to me. The presidency is stressful on anyone. Knowing all the horrible things that you must keep secret must be a terrible burden.
It's even harder on a community organizer who's unqualified for the job. ;-)
I am done teaching in the Great White North. It was a good class... things went well after a spate of technical problems on Monday, and the students all gave me good reviews and said nice things. I'm not sure how much to believe them... Canadians are notoriously polite, even when they have good reason not to be.
Now I have 16 hours of travel to get home, because Alberta is not really on the way to anywhere, and it's not that easy to go there or to leave. Oh, I suppose it's a little more of a destination than Manitoba, but not by much.
There, I've managed to insult nearly five million Canadians from two provinces in one paragraph. That's not easy to do. I'm sure I'm going to be found dead with a hockey stick jammed in an inappropriate orifice by a Canadian who's decided the hell with politeness.
We'll see if I get home in one piece.
I wasn't paying attention when this came out in 1982. It hit #3 in the UK on the singles charts. Cute. I always recognized the tune but never knew who it was, because of course broadcast radio doesn't tell you.
This acid house band from Manchester England had a hit with "Pacific State" in 1989 (#10 on the British dance charts). I think it's the only pop/rock/dance tune I've ever heard that featured samples of a loon's call.
I don't even particularly like 808 State. They're too... not slick, but glossy, memorable but somehow unsatisfying. Plastic. Fake. I'm not sure really how to describe it. But for whatever reason, this tune is stuck in my head.
Bastards.
I have a friend whose sister is crazy. My friend has known this since childhood. "Bipolar" would be a more polite term. "Crazy" will do, though.
Alcohol and drugs have not helped the sister's condition, either. And there's no helping her, or interventions to be done. She is impermeable to logic or empathy. She will do her own thing, unless she is locked up. And she lives far away, so it's not really my friend's problem in the long run.
After a visit from her sister which ended in a screaming match on the driveway (well, my friend stood there and her sister screamed nonsense for about half an hour, until my friend invited her in for a glass of wine, which turned into three, which calmed her right down again), the sister was banned. They quit speaking for several years.
Recently my friend reached out to her crazy sister via email, after a bit of a search (the sister had changed her email because creditors were hunting her, or maybe because she's paranoid, who knows).
I told my friend it was not the best idea. "She's crazy, you know," I said. "Yes, but I feel badly about not talking to her," said my friend. "Remember the last time you saw her?" I asked. "Yes, but..." and the conversation was pointless after that.
I don't carry grudges, but I have a good memory for certain things. And if someone treats me badly, then there's no real reason to keep interacting with them, regardless of whether they're friend or family. But that's my rule, not my friend's. So she reached out to her crazy sister.
They had a nice warm loving exchange of emails.
Then the sister's emails got crazy. Accusatory. Blaming. Paranoid.
Then they got nice again.
Crazy. Nice. Crazy. Nice.
"I don't understand it," said my friend, frustrated and disappointed. "It's like she's two different people."
"Duh," I said with a smile. "You KNEW she was crazy. What did you expect?" She sighed and I hugged her. "At least you tried," I said.
They will continue to email, I think. But my friend knows that keeping her sister at arm's length is probably the best thing going forward.
And here's a good example of why.
But you probably already knew that.
The accurate but boring version, read by Steve Taylor in a very educated-sounding English accent, which of course makes it more believable. Who cares that the French developed their own version of Arpanet, called CYCLADES? Only the French. They rejected NATO for 40 years, mainly because Charles de Gaulle was a pompous jerk. Much good it did them. (I must admit, I nearly fell over when Sarkozy said France would fully reintegrate its military with NATO earlier this year.)
The goofy cool version, Monty Python-style. Also much shorter, for today's Attention Deficit Disorder-afflicted students.
This has to be one of the funniest lines of all time in any movie.
Please pardon the video maker's inability to spell "Fifth" in the opening credits. Really, how hard IS that? "Please step away from the keyboard, sir; you are clearly too stupid to be using the Internet."
Two gunmen took half a dozen people hostage last night at a nearby store. I find that to be very annoying.
Various people have asked me in the past why I bother to carry a gun.
That is an example of why. It's insurance. You never know when you are going to need it. You hope you never do. But when you do need it, you are very glad you have it.
Other people around me may feel threatened that I have a weapon, but that's why I don't advertise it. And in the end, I don't care about their feelings. My life matters more than their false feelings of safety. If a business or a home that I visit has a sign that says "Gun-Free Zone," I just smile and walk right in. It's none of their business whether I have a weapon. And in fact, such signs attract criminals, because they know that people in that location will not be able to fight. So it's really self-defeating to advertise a "Gun-Free Zone." You're inviting gun violence. Better to advertise "Weapons Welcome." Criminals will turn and walk the other way. Criminals like defenseless victims.
I'm not a victim.
These guys are so silly. This is a medley of John Williams' music from several movies, with lyrics all about Star Wars (for which John Williams wrote the music as well). (h/t Mr. Burkey)
I like the spoof of the Titanic theme at the end. I really hate that theme. Really. Hated the movie. Hated the theme. Hated the iceberg. Hated the water. Rather liked all the floating corpses. Especially Leo's. Well, his sank. But anyway. Hated everything about that movie. (Shudder.) It makes me want to sit through all of "Slumdog Millionaire" with my eyes pinned open.
