Tangled in a World Wide Web

According to this page , a good translation of the words "auld lang syne" is " times gone by ." Play the tune. Well, another year is gone and I must say, "Good Riddance!". This has been a year of many disappointments and shortcomings... mostly mine. I suppose I should have known what the year would be like when I went to the doctor 3 times before the middle of February. I had been to the doctor, maybe 3 times in the previous ten years. I should have seen it for the portent that it was. It hasn't been all bad. If you get past the miserable first 5 months that I was sick and the traffic stop that nearly turned into a COPS episode on Easter Sunday; forget the home invasion, the murder of my brand new camera and the vandalism of my car all in May and June and gloss over the joke that my job has become since July; if you can look past all that plus my car being totaled last month , well the rest was just an average year. Above Average I suppose it sounds li...

The Wreck Last month, November 18th, I was driving to work like any other Tuesday. I was yielding to oncoming traffic, as per the sign, at a major intersection, as I do five days a week minimum, when my car was rear-ended. Now, obviously, I am fine but my car was seriously damaged. Don't get me wrong, I have been driving it for nearly a month, albeit with my teeth clenched and my fingers crossed, waiting for the rear end to fall off. Finally today, after nearly a month of telephone tag with the insurance agent, I got an estimate, $3,145.97. Sounds bad. Gets worse. [See Pics Here] According to the nice fellow who gave my car a cursory exam which amounted to the equivalent of "turn your head and cough" and lasted all of three and a half minutes, this is probably enough to total my car. Yea! A Total Loss I spoke with the insurance agent, finally, and it appears his assesment mirrors that of 'Bubba' the body jock. Apparently a ten year old car with over 160,000 mile...

Last night I watched the last ever new episode of Boston Legal. It is a strange and wonderful show with a merry band of misfits, an odd and well disguised sense of morality and the balls to take on timely issues when the people we expect to take them on, tend to gloss over them with well-planned and superbly executed soundbites. I will miss the antics and the camaraderie, the silliness and the politics (is that redundant), the absurdity and the unexpected. In all its wondrous absurdity, it usually poked fun at real problems, real issues or realistic cases. It did so as one might poke a bear with a stick, with little thought of consequence or repercussions. Perhaps it was the bear that finally caught up with them, or maybe just the intelligent arguments became too much for the advertisers. Let's face it, advertisers need sheep and intelligence is counterproductive to the cause. Intelligent broadcasting attracts intelligent audiences and intelligent audiences are not as easily distr...

This was originally posted at myspace.com/imanetjunkie HERE . (On Thanksgiving) It is so easy to forget what Thanksgiving is all about or to become so self-involved as to forget what we have to be thankful for. I haven't forgotten that the economy is bad. I haven't forgotten that we are in the middle of a war with no real end in sight. I haven't forgotten that people are starving and homeless here at home and abroad. I haven't forgotten Aids or Alzheimer's. I haven't forgotten that in the same year of change that we elected the first black President of the US, we also categorically and intentionally denied the freedom and rights of a growing portion of the population to enjoy the same privileges to share their lives and declare their love in front of God and man, to secure the same benefits as a traditional married couple. In essence, we haven't stepped forward, only sideways. I seem to have forgotten my point momentarily, however. I expected to be working o...

I am appalled and offended today. I am a big fan of Google and most of its services. One of the things I enjoy is what has become known as Google's Doodles - the little drawings that adorn their logo on holidays and days of note. Today apparently does not meet the criteria. Today is supposed to be the day that lives on in infamy. From FDR's speech to Congress on Dec 8 1941... The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor - Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply ...