"Next Blog"

Sometimes when I ought to be doing something constructive, I'll push the "next blog" button at the top of this page (or from any other blogger site). I keep hoping I'll come across something interesting, even bookmark-worthy. Maybe become a reader of some blog originating from across the country or around the world. And I likewise hope that maybe somebody else out there is doing the same thing and will come across my little blog and become one of 23-or-so daily hits (the vast majority of which are people I know pretty well).

I know it's a big internet, so I'm not really surprised that my blog has never popped up from a "next blog" button-push. Nor have any of the blogs I frequent. But what amazes me is that I can sit at the screen and push the button 20 or 30 or 50 times and NEVER see anything remotely like my blog (or even my friends' blogs). First of all, I'd say over half are not in English. A huge number are just photos (usually artsy... although I should warn you if you want to try this at home, last time I did this one of the photos was a southerly view of a northbound Harley-Davidson, being ridden by an obese woman in a thong--needless to say, no bookmark there). Some folks have basically made online photo scrapbooks of their kids. But I'm not coming across people just writing stuff, least of all stuff I would characterize as thought-provoking.

Now, I'm not suggesting that everybody should blog about politics and economics and such. I realize there are (thankfully) not that many nerds of my caliber in the nerdosphere. But I would have thought I'd find some business insights, or sports, or religious musings, maybe some professor rambling on about his or her subject. So far, no luck. (I'll bet right now in some small town in Bangladesh, a blogger is writing, "I was looking for a decent Bangladeshi-language blog with pictures of cute kids and all that kept popping up is some guy writing in English about the electoral college and jogging!")

Anyway, if you have stumbled across this blog randomly, welcome. Apparently it is the only one of its kind on the entire internet.

Benefit of the Doubt

Maybe I'm just too nice (although that's very debateable). But I have a hard time getting all worked up over the gaffes of public figures, whether they are the guys I support or oppose. The most recent was where Barack Obama said that his grandfather helped liberate Auschwitz in WWII. Pundits couldn't wait to point out that the Red Army liberated Auschwitz--so, therefore, Obama was... what? A liar? The grandson of a commie? What went through my head was, "Oh, he probably was at Buchenwald." Sure enough, a day later came the clarification--his grandfather was with Ike's troops that liberated Buchenwald. Same thing when he declared a few weeks ago that he had visited 57 states. I'm sure he just meant "47." (Although I did take the opportunity to rib a couple of friends who are Obamaniacs, but that was for fun, not spite.) This past week the biggest gaffe was Hillary Clinton talking about why she's not dropping out of the race for the nomination--she pointed out that her husband didn't win out until June, and that RFK was famously assassinated in June of '68. The media pounced: "OH, she did NOT!" But anybody with two brain cells could tell that the operative part of the statement was the date (June), not the fact that Obama could somehow be killed. Indeed, if she were to drop out and the unthinkable happened, she'd still be the heir-apparent. These games of "gotcha" are so unnecessary.

Of course, it works both ways. I've been sent a youtube of McCain saying Shi'ite when the proper word was Sunni. That means, of course, that he's unfit to be commander-in-chief. And of course, every time George W. Bush misspeaks, it's taken as a sign that he's dumber than a chimp. (Although I must admit, my favorite Bush-ism is when he said that litigiousness was the reason why many Ob-Gyns could no longer practice their love with women.) We forget, of course, that Bush went to Yale undergrad (where his grades were better than the "intellectual" John Kerry) and then Harvard for his MBA. Yeah, I know his Dad went there first, so that's the "only" reason he got in. But he somehow got OUT, and I doubt very much that the tenured faculty of Harvard and Yale threw all their standards out the window just because a Bush was there. Funny how nobody points to the 57 states comment and then speculates that Obama must have somehow gotten a bump on admission to the Ivies because of his unique racial heritage.

How about this--a cease-fire on the stupid stuff. Let's just stipulate that if you reach the level of these guys (and gals, Hil), you're no slouch. Sure, if you catch somebody in a real lie or if they prescribe bad policy, fire away. But otherwise, let's lay off.

McCain, Money, Etc.

A couple of months ago I posted about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's tax returns. The conclusion--for two people competing for the votes of the "common man," they're pretty rich. In the same post, I speculated as to the answer to the famous question: "Which candidate would you rtaher have a beer with?" At the time, John McCain had not released any tax documents. He still hasn't, to the best of my knowledge, but he has taken some flak for not even intending to release his wife's tax info. From what I gather, they have always filed separate returns, and she's the real rich one. I just read that the McCain campaign has released a summary of Cindy McCain's 2006 tax return (I don't know why it's not '07; maybe she filed an extension...?) The upshot is that she made a little over $6 million. I knew she was rich, now we have some clue HOW rich. She made about 4 times Obama's best year, and about half of Hillary's average for the past 10 years. No way of knowing if '06 was a good or bad year for her, but suffice it to say she's not hurting. As to the beer question--I had forgotten that she's the president of a beer distributorship. Maybe if McCain wins, she can make a commander-in-chief brew, or executive office ale, or similar. Wait--we've already had that back in 1977!

The only reason I'm mentioning the money is for the sake of closing the loop. I knew she (and therefore he) was in the millionaire club, so there's no real surprise there. Even if he only made what they pay senators plus his income as a disabled veteran, he'd still rank up there with Obama's "bad" years, all of which are quadruple the national average. More interesting to me is that he also released 1100+ pages of medical records. To quote Jim Geraghty of National Review, they show he's been swimming with cocoons. That was too good a line not to repeat.

Reality TV

My buddy is moving, and I'm babysitting his 32" hi-def TV for him until he leaves town. It's low-def to me, as I'm not paying extra just to have a wider picture for a month. But, thanks to the extra TV in our house, the "old" TV is currently living in the master bedroom, which means I can lay in bed and watch crap TV--something we usually don't do. I still have this odd habit when channel surfing of slowing down at MTV or VH-1, in the off chance they might have actual music videos. (Ah, the good old days.) Some days they will have a top-100 songs of the 80s or such, which makes it worthwhile. But there are some incredibly stupid "reality" TV shows out there. It's hard to review the genre since I never watch for more than a minute or two... I'm embarassed to admit having paused for that long, but it's like a train wreck--hard to avert your eyes sometimes.

Last night, I'm surfing and saw a guy I could have sworn was 1976 Olympic decathalon gold medalist Bruce Jenner. Turns out (I went to google and found this out) that he has married some fashion heiress, and their blended family (The Kardashians) have a reality show now. Apparently the camera just follows them around all the time and they just do whatever mega-rich celebrities do, and this is supposedly entertaining enough to justify the show. And they are not alone in that--there are similar shows with Hulk Hogan's family and the guy who played Peter Brady. Sorry--never seen an episode. That entire concept may be the second-dumbest thing I've ever heard.

The winner, however, is the dating reality shows. These have actually been around for a few years--during our cross-country trip in 2005, we got into watching a series on Tuesdays (in a different state every Tuesday) called Average Joe. It's been a while, but as I recall, it was a bunch of regular guys competing for the affections of one or more really pretty girls, but they were also competing with a bunch of pretty-boy male model hunk-types. I don't remember how it came out, but we got sucked in for a while. Now there is the same thing with Beauty and the Geek, there's The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and, best (or worst) of all, there are some amazingly low-class shows where a house-full of contestants compete to be the love interest of an otherwise pretty unattractive celebrity. I think the first of these was Flavor of Love, in which a bunch of ghetto girls compete for the right to date Flavor Flav, the rapper from Public Enemy. To say I don't get it is understatement of the year. Not only is Flav profoundly unattractive, the "ladies" (and I use the term VERY loosely) have almost no redeeming features. This show spun off I Love New York, in which one of the girls who (sadly) lost out on the Flav sweepstakes got her own show, where a bunch of boyz from the hood then competed for her. And her only claim to fame was having been a loser on somebody else's show! Apparently, this genre was a hit. So they made a version for aging metal-heads in which a bunch of tattooed amateur pole-dancers competed for a relationship with Brett Michaels, the 40-something lead singer of 80's hair band Poison. And now there is one in which teams of straight men and lesbians compete to be the main squeeze of a bisexual celebrity named Tia Tequila. For the life of me, I have no idea what she is famous for, besides being famous, I guess.

Again, the disclaimer--I've never watched even a full episode of any of these shows, so maybe they have some redeeming features of which I'm unaware. But the whole concept seems just odd to me. On The Biggest Loser, you might win $250,000 for the grand prize, or even $100,000 as a consolation prize. And if you don't win anything, your time on the fat farm is supposed to be beneficial--you drop 80 or 100 lbs and live a longer and happier life. But on these stupid dating shows, all you "win" is the right to be the main squeeze of a celebrity for the few weeks until the next season starts (Flavor of Love is in its 3rd or 4th season, so I guess none of those relationships from the first couple of seasons worked out. Sad, isn't it?). In return, you go off to live in this media fishbowl and debase yourself in public for from one to thirteen weeks. During this time, what about your job? Who pays your rent?

I'm pretty sure it's like professional wrestling--all fake (I hope that didn't spoil it for any rasslin' fans). And I know that people my age have pointed to signs that the culture is going to heck in a hand-basket for generations. But the fact that somewhere out there are people who actually tune in to Flavor of Love on purpose--who pull for their favorite "lady" and think it's real, maybe even romantic... well, that freaks me out. And the fact that Bruce Jenner could go from a world and Olympic record in the decathalon and the front of a Wheaties box to whetever he's doing now, that's doubly sad.

Guilty Pleasures

I just came from a "Princess Date" with my daughter. We do this occasionally; usually a Saturday morning breakfast date. Today we went to a little breakfast cafe near our neighborhood. I had my favorite bad-for-you breakfast: biscuits and gravy. And we're talking LOTS of sausage gravy, the thick kind with hunks of meat floating in it. And a side of bacon. When you figure that yesterday I grabbed a McBurger on the way to the movies, I'll bet my cholesterol is running to 4 digits.

Speaking of the movies, I took #1 son to see the new Indiana Jones movie yesterday. Much like the breakfast--very little redeeming nutrional value, but lots of fun. It was better than Temple of Doom (that's not tough), but probably not quite up to the level of Lost Ark or Last Crusade. At least it wasn't nearly as bad a sequel as the 2nd set of Star Wars movies. But, like them, the sense of nostalgia covered a multitude of sins.

My New Candidate

I've found my candidate. Not John McCain. John McClane. Check out his website. Yippeee-ki-yay!

Why I'm Happier Than Obama

Actually, I don't know for sure that I'm happier than Barack Obama. He makes more money and is increasingly likely to be the democratic nominee for president, and according to the polls may be our next commander-in-chief. Or negotiator-in-chief. Or withdrawer-in-chief. or whatever. (JUST KIDDING!) I, on the other hand, don't have to go to Kentucky this week or deal with the mainstream media. I'll also be on summer vaction in 10 more workdays. Still, a news item a friend sent me this past week says that research shows that, in general, conservatives are happier than liberals. Now, some wags might point out that this is likely a correlation based on other factors--more rich, married, privileged WASPy guys who go to church every Sunday vs. poorer, single, struggling, discriminated-against skeptics. But apparently this study adjusts for such factors. It seems the deciding factor is one of attitude toward the universe. Here's a news flash for those who haven't figured it out yet: LIFE ISN'T FAIR. According to the study, this really bothers liberals (who are really nice people, and want to make it better). Some, like Bill Clinton, even "feel your pain." (that is, when he isn't feeling up your daughter.) We evil conservatives, though, say, "Yep. I knew that. So what?" Makes sense to me.