To Think That Sex with Call Girls is Actually the Lesser Evil

Almost exactly two years ago, Eliot Spitzer, with his obviously angry wife at his side, resigned as Governor of New York State after it was disclosed that he frequently purchased the services of a high-end prostitute.  I found that completely and utterly repugnant, and my admiration for the crusading governor immediately turned to disgust.

Initially, I saw David Paterson - a local Long Island man - as a worthy replacement.  Then the fumbling and bumbling started - he could barely exercise any control over the State Legislature, although the Democrats had the majority in the Senate for the first time in a generation.  Of course, the fiscal crisis that erupted in September, 2008 didn't help, and a series of high profile scandals within the party made effective governing even more difficult.

But it seems that Paterson not only could not rise above the problems, walk the high road even when times are tough - he's actually as corrupt and degenerate as any politician that comes out of that thing called the Albany Machine.

Spitzer's sins were those of the flesh - and really do lie between him and his family, they do not involve the public trust (let's just say that things would have been much different had Client 9 used state funds to pay for the evening's entertainment).  Paterson's sins are worse by many magnitudes - the allegations, if proven, are true political corruption - using the power of the office to commit criminal acts.

Reading the latest set of allegations makes me almost physicially ill - he asked for and received free tickets to the opening game of last years World Series, and when he was confronted with the illegality of accepting such an expensive "gift" he tried to pay for the tickets with a freakin' backdated check.

It's time for you to go, Governor.  Now.

There's the door, don't let it hit your ass on the way out.

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Unsubscribing from BoingBoing

In my post last week, I tried to convey the feeling of freedom I got from mistakenly clicking on the "mark all as read" button, which wiped out the 1000+ backlog of unread blog entries.  The word I was looking for was serendipity - the happy accident.

Unfortunately, it took less than a week to build back up to the 1000+ mark of unread posts, which made me seriously look at what I subscribe to and what I actually want to read.  What I've found is that the blogs that get unread the most are the ones I've categorized as "General" - where the subject matter crosses many lines, or has no other reference point than there are topics that I feel I should keep abreast of. 

Out of those, the ones that are most unread are, ironically, the blogs that have the highest volume of posts.  And chief amongst these is the venerable Boing Boing - perhaps the king, queen, bishop, knight and rook of all blogs.  When I started reading Boing Boing, I was keenly interested and actively participating in the on-line tech community, via TWiT (mostly) and many of the Mac sites (frequently TMO and MacUser) and Ars Technica (occassionally), and Boing Boing was a frequent and relevant reference.  My interests have moved on - TWiT has shut down the forums, my skills and knowledge on the MacOS are no longer cutting edge and simply cheerleading is a waste of time - so I rarely comment on the Apple sites or Ars Technica , so being au courant on the latest Boing Boing post is no longer essential. 

And frankly, Boing Boing has gotten boring.  Regurgitating New York Times articles, tirades against intellectual property laws, fawning over freaky artwork - all wrapped up in 200+ posts a week.  Not for me - no more.  Stick a fork in me - I'm done.  A half-hour ago, I hit the unsubscribe button, and it was like the bell had just rung on the last day of school before summer vacation.

While I'm at it, I'm unsubscribing from Lifehacker and Laughing Squid, too.  Not that there's not interesting stuff there - but way too often, it's like a big circle jerk - BoingBoing reports on a NYT article that's repurposed in Laughing Squid, which is then quoted in Lifehacker for some reason.

Not that any of these well advertized blogs care about my eyeballs - I read only through the feeds, so I don't count at all.  Good.

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Google Reader - Happy Accident

Lots and lots of feeds in my Google Reader - and for the past month or so, I've been slow in keeping up with them.  Humor gets read all the time, and most of the Beading and Apple blogs as well, but I've fallen behind on Law, News and Politics, General and Books and Authors - to the point were a 1000+ count has been the usual header.  I rountinely mark as read old stuff in the high-volume blogs like Lifehacker and Boing Boing, but that's not been enough to keep the count down.  Since I've returned from vacation, the Reader's been stuffed like this:

But I just went to add a new subscription to the PMC blog, and I accidently hit "Mark All Read."  My Reader now looks like this:

Scary, but a bit refreshing. 

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Moving Air - A Good Night's Sleep

Finally got a good night's sleep - first in about 10 days.

My fan died.  Which wasn't unexpected.  Those little desktop fans aren't really meant for constant operation, and since I kept forgetting to turn it off, it just gave up the ghost on Sunday or Monday.

I tried sleeping without the fan, but the air felt just dead, and opening the windows is not a good idea when the temp's in the single digits.  On two nights I broke down and cranked the windows open - and the morning wasn't pleasant.  52 degrees is not a good thing when you need to shower and not crawl back under the covers.

So, I finally broke down and ordered a Vornado floor fan from Amazon, and I must say - I'm really loving it.  I want some noise - and I had gotten used to the bid shop fan I had been using for 9+ years, which died on me back in October.  The Vornado is decibles quieter, but it moves the air and the whoosing is extremely soothing.  I had a Vornado once before, and it didn't last long, was very noisy and extremely ugly.  This one isn't much prettier, but it's smaller, lighter and does the job.  I only wish it had a remote control.

Oh well, it's better than nothing.

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Books

Courtesy Marnie MacLean - New York Times

My house is long and narrow, and looks as though a river of books has run through it and washed various volumes at random into the bookcases that run along the walls.

Jane Smiley
Books You Can Live Without - Room for Debate,
New York Times, December 27, 2009

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At the Closing of the Year*

If I cannot bring you comfort
Then at least I bring you hope
For nothing is more precious
Than the time we have and so
We all must learn from small misfortune
Count the blessings that are real
Let the bells ring out for friendship
At the closing of the year

Happy New Year to all.








*Credit - Wendy & Lisa

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Local Diner WTF?

The roads are pretty clear, but I didn't want to travel too far for lunch today, so I settled on the usually mediocre but fairly expensive Airport Diner.  It's only real virtue is the proximity to my office.  I also had a hankering for a Philly cheesesteak, which is pretty standard diner fare.

So, while I'm sitting and waiting for my order, I watch my waiter having a ferocious conversation/argument with the manager.  After much pointing - to me, to the dessert case and back at me again, the manager walks over and very tentatively asks -


"Did I really order cheese cake with mushrooms and onions?"

Apparently my waiter (young and American) was both stupid and hard of hearing, because he insisted that I said cheese cake, not cheesesteak.  In fact, I said "Philly cheesesteak."

The manager looked quite relieved, but I actually felt a little nauseous.  I think I came about this {} close to getting a slice of Junior's best covered in mushrooms and onions.

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The Big Snow

Honestly, I thought the "Blizzard of December 2009" was going to be a whole lot of nothing.  We rarely get any significant or even measurable snowfall on Long Island before January, let alone a freakin' blizzard.  Even as late as Thursday evening, the meteorologists were calling the predictions for significant accumulation "rogue models" - this storm was just going to skirt the East End, and the most we'd see were flurries. 

Some flurries - by the time it ended, we got more than 2 feet of snow.  I wish I could give you an exact measurement, but I couldn't get out of the house until the crews came and dug us free.  As with any significant snowfall, we end up with drifts against the front door and garage, and try as I might, I couldn't get the storm door opened more than a few inches.  The snow was waist and breast high against the front door and the garage door.  But that doesn't count, as it's all drift snow.

The best measurement I can give is this:

The bump you can barely see is four inches of snow on top of the mulch mounded on top of the  two-foot high planter.  This is in an area protected from drifts (there's a berm and trees just to the left), I so I think this measurement is pretty accurate.  But once the shovels and plows come through, the poor planter gets completely buried.  We probably won't see it until the Spring.

Speaking of the seasons, Winter starts in about two hours.

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