Unnecessary Pipe Trench Excavation

Archive for the ‘media’ Category

Okay, so far today (well, it’s still today to me, as in Thursday, but I suppose that technically, it is Friday and has been for nearly six hours … ah, the joys of being marginally employed AND telecommuting) I’ve read and or heard people compare John Hughes to no less than Chekhov and Salinger. I have only one thing to say about that. Several things, actually — more than several. And here they are:

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. And finally, just let me emphasize … no. Not. Even. Close.

Look, I’m sorry he’s dead, okay? Death sucks; I’ve had a ring-side seat for it a few times now, so trust me on this one. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Really. But he apparently went quick, no lingering in a hospital being poked and prodded and toyed with like a lab rat, only to have his suffering prolonged. So there’s that. And he made it to 59. Okay, that’s well under par for Western standards, but for much if not a majority of the world, that’s a ripe old age; most people in Asia and Africa are damn lucky to see 59 years.

Read the rest of this entry »

No please don’t thank me, Mr. Breathed. Rather, let me thank you; you deserve it.

Thank you for the all the comics over the years … Bloom County, Outland, and Opus. It almost seems a shame to call them comics, as your humor, often drenched in political satire and social commentary, was consistently clever and amusing, and frequently bordered on brilliant – sometimes it even crossed that border into a land that few reach. At times your work was also touching, even poignant, and for that I think the term “art” can be applied, and deservedly so.

You came along at a critical time for me; I turned 12 at the end of 1980, the year that Bloom County debuted. I didn’t really get Bloom County then, but I kept reading; I was an avid comics reader. And as my adolescent mind began to … well, I hesitate to say mature; some might say my mind has yet to mature, and I would admittedly be hard pressed to disagree – let’s just say as I traveled headlong toward adulthood, somewhere along the line I began to get the strip. I even started to look forward to it. When I would read the funnies while eating cereal before school or stretched out on the living floor late on a Sunday morning, Bloom County was always the last strip I read; I always saved the best for last.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Bloom County, Outland, Opus

Just looking over the last post …

There is no better salve for a restless soul than the open road and singing at the top of one’s lungs to Social Distortion.

That’s good stuff. Too bad it was tempered by idiots on the super highways and the economic meltdown (I love the BBC, but it got a wee bit carried away with the doomsday proclamations). Anyway, so I was in Savannah, GA last week for business. No, I didn’t meet Chardonnay or any of the other real-life characters in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but I did see the house. I also managed to find time to take a few shots. My primary photographic goal was to capture the moon coming up over the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most spectacular of moon rises (the night that would have made a most kick-ass picture — clouds and lighting on the horizon, with the moon ducking in and out — I was sitting through boring presenations. Plus, the night I did shoot, while I had a tripod out, and was using the timer, I still had camera shake in many shots, thanks to the wind. Having camped on the beach numerous times, I should have thought of this, but alas, I did not … live and learn, I suppose.

I did manage to get some half-way acceptable shots of the sunrise, despite the fact that it was so hot and humid my lenses fogged the second I emerged from the car. But in a not uncommon occurrence (for me, at any rate), the best photos of the trip were the ones I took just screwing around, in this case waiting for the moon to come up … I really like these two below.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Social Distortion, BBC, Savannah, moon, sunrise

Someone had to have thought of that already. C’est la vie, onto our regulalry scheduled rant:

In the span of 48 hours, just two days, Barack Obama managed to break not one but two campaign promises. He’s not even captured the office he’s running for, and already pledges made on the campaign trail are getting jettisoned.

Just once – one time – I’d like a politician to prove my cynicism ill-founded. Just once. Nothing would make me happier than to be proven wrong when it comes to my so-called negative outlook and politics.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Obama

There really is something rotten in Denmark: www.somethingrotten.dk. This makes me enormously happy, knowing that some English bloke (if her were a Yank, I would have said dude, I suppose) keeps a blog about his new (apprently he’s been there for a couple of years now) life in Copenhagen, the world capital of bike commuting. And he calls it Something Rotten, heh.

Yet another cool blog that I discovered via Dave Moulton’s blog, Dave Moulton being a frame maker of some repute, not to mention a musician and author (I don’t think you could come up with a much cooler combination, really). I suppose it’s only natural that as I sit in the coffee shop post Saturday morning/afternoon ride, drinking espresso and getting caught up on my blog reading (i.e., goofing off, when I should be doing my taxes), that I would be turning to bike blogs. I must say, the weather cooperated—to a degree (a somewhat chilly one, heh); at least it wasn’t pissing down the entire time. But of course after returning to Cincy to warm, April 70-degree weather, it was a crisp 40 degrees Fahrenheit when I rolled onto the Little Miami bikepath around 11-ish. For the record, I got up at 8:37 a.m., but by the time I got all ready and drove (I know, I know) to Loveland, it was almost 11.

… I never got around to posting this last week, as there was no place to plug into at the coffee shop—all the tables that have access to an outlet were taken; the weekend scenesters and suburbanites up for some shopping and a dose of urban coolness were out in force, in spite of the weather. When I got home I got distracted; I don’t remember by what. My ride was probably ill considered in retrospect. The cold I had been flirting with since the day after my return from La La Land (SoCal), finally became intimate with me early this week, and pretty much kicked me in the ass, hard. The too-long bike ride probably didn’t help, I imagine, nor did going to to the gym Monday night and doing walk/run intervals on the treadmill. By early Tuesday morning I had turned into a green fountain of phlegm.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Denmark, Copenhagen, bike commuting, Dave Moulton, bike, treadmill