How and Who?

How did Beijing get the Olympics? Oh, I know the Olympic Committee.., cities throw lavish parties to get attention on how wonderful they would be as hosts..., some people we don't know vote..., a decision is made a few years in advance.

I look at the pictures of Beijing and think, who in their right mind voted for them? At first I was outraged due to China's wonderful human rights record. Then I started to look at the pictures coming in from China. They have done a lot of construction in a very short period of time. The pictures of the main stadium show an awsome arena. This leads me to wonder how safe are things? They don't have a great record regarding building safe and secure buildings and in such a short period of time...

The other thing I keep seeing is SMOG. How can world class athletes compete in that? When I see people with masks on walking around to get to work I think how is someone going to run in that? How much damage is that air going to inflict on a runner?

When I found out the Olympics were going to be held in China I decided I was not going to watch them. Do my little part to show my displeasure, I know how big an impact that can make...

However, now as they draw closer I wonder who is this going to hurt? Not the giant government of China that is going to block internet access or the giant TV companies covering the event, or the advertisers of products that I don't buy anyway. Will it hurt the athletes that won't even know I did not watch? Will it only hurt me because I like watching the Olympics. I feel a pride when I see the opening ceremonies and the US team comes in in their usually ugly outfits made in Canada. But then, will I even be able to see them thru the SMOG?

580 Update

I know that if I say these words I will regret it, my commute has not sucked - much - lately. Yesterday was a little slow on the way home, but I'm listening to a book on CD, so I was OK with it. While there has been a lot of crap along the highway, most of it has been very difficult to identify. Not a lot of great bumper stickers or crazy drivers. Kinda quite. I think maybe some people are on vacation, perhaps out of town and not driving on 580.

So stay tuned for major crap tomorrow.

One bumper sticker somewhere:

Maybe the Hokey Pokey IS what it is all about.

A question we should all ask ourselves.

Admit it

You watched The Secret Lives of Women last night, didn't you? You found the WE channel and invested an hour of your time looking at someone else's life. Door Dyke was most upset by the first cousins. What was yours???

Overhead today

I was walking by three men at lunch today and they were sitting on a wall talking. This is what I heard:

"95% of the time you will win the fight if you throw the first punch, instead of yapping your mouth"

I thought, there are statistics for this kind of thing? Had the speaker been in 100 bar fights, 95 of which he had thrown the first punch and won and lost the other 5 cause he was yapping his pie hole?

That led me to start thinking, is this just about bar fights or does it apply to officially sanctioned boxing matches as well. I could not really find any scientific data to back up this statement, but I did find out that there are a lot of boxers named Oscar.

Huh?

Just a quick post under the heading of WTF. I went to check my personal e-mail today. I have a rocketmail account (as most of you know) I have had this account for close to 12 years. Rocketmail was bought out by Yahoo a few years ago, but I was able to keep my rocketmail address. So now on the Yahoo Mail site they have posted the following:

NEW EMAIL ADDRESSES
Now Yahoo! Mail delivers two new ways to get your perfect email address: @ymail.com and @rocketmail.com.

New? New? New? I remember they kept trying to get me to change my mail to a yahoo address and I kept refusing. I want to keep my rocketmail address until I die and then I want to pass it on. Anyway, did they just think people would forget that rocketmail existed prior to today?

Busy Night in Blog Land

After telling my beloved about Uncyclopedia she said

"Hey what ever happened to that Peter Pan guy". For those of you that don't know about him, he is a guy that lives in Florida, that dresses up as a little fairy and lately he has proven the theory that there is someone for everyone. He designs and sews his own cloths and will be on TV on WE-TV on the 29th of July - a show called "The Secret Lives of Women" don't miss it. Just when you think your life is weird, check out this site. Peter Pan is alive and well and living with his Tinkerbell in Florida.

Holy shit, have you ever watched this show? "The Secret Lives of Women", my beloved just found it so we can record PP & Tink and right now they are highlighting a woman that is a prostitute as her "day" job. She actually just said that she loves her job because she does not have to be on her feet 24/7! Did she really just say that? Of course, what goes thru my mind is not on her feet, not on her feet, not on her feet????

OK, this might be my new favorite show. A married couple in an open relationship that met at Barnes & Nobel - what are the chances of that?

Now there is DeDe - the average housewife during the week and swingers on the weekend. She has been married to the same man for 22 years and at the altar she leaned over and told him that she was bi-sexual and brought her girlfriend home after they returned from their honeymoon. The girlfriend has moved out and now they have swingers parties in their home every Saturday night. Don't the neighbors notice?

Now there is the poloyamourous chick. She has four non primary partners and I am not sure how many primary partners. Primary partner is one you share finances, a home or children with. She has about 12 people that have keys to her apartment! My beloved just asked "how does she have time for all this".

This show is GREAT. Thanks my beloved! OMG!!! They are back to the prostitute, she was living with her father and stripping. He knew that she was probably doing more and told her she should just go and hook up with a brothel, since they are safe and clean. What a dad!!! And I am sure you will be glad to know that she enjoys her job!

Oh, I have to stop now cause I am just overwhelmed!

My People

I think I have found my people! Check out this site. The Uncyclopedia is CRAZY. Click on Random Page. I got to a page called the Language of Cows - I am not sure I understand it, but I think it is funny and since this my blog that is what counts. Type in the name of your home state and see what you get or the place you live now or someplace you have never been, you will learn things you never knew that you needed to know.

Only in Rhode Island

There are some people that are just stupid or drunk, Stanley Kobierowski seems to be both!

Rhode Island is known for some pretty crazy laws, for instance:

It is considered offensive to throw pickle juice on a trolly

or

the fact that it is illegal to wear transparent clothing, good to know.

or

Any marriage where either of the parties is an idiot and/or lunatic is considered null & void.

If Stanley Kobierowski is married I would say his wife might consider evoking this law.

Sunday Morning Ritual

Today I spent my morning as usual, drinking coffee and reading the obits. I had picked out the ones I was going to blog about and then I read the travel section of the local paper. I normally read the Chronicle and my beloved reads the local paper. Today she was reading and asked me where Bhutan was. Truthfully I was not sure, I thought somewhere in Asia, but was not certain. For those of you interested, it is north of India and south of Tibet. She thought it was someplace I would like to visit and she was right. After reading the article I definately want to go and my beloved said she would like to go with me. So, don't be surprised if you get a postcard from Bhutan. Well, the postcard would BE from Bhutan, but it would probably be written on the plane home and mailed from our local post office.

But the article that that went along with the travel article was by a man named Randy McMullen who went on the trip with the travel writer and his partner. Randy lost his wife Marilyn suddenly three years ago. They had always wanted to go to Bhutan, but had never made it and when his friends decided to go on this trip, he felt the time was right to take the journey. He speaks of the prayer flags that fly all over the place - you take a flag or banner and write a message or prayer or maybe just a name on it and place it in an spot where the wind catches it and sends a prayer up to the deities or the person they are directed at. He found the right spot for his flag with the help of a young monk who knew where the wind would blow and carry the prayer to the right place.

Three years ago when I went to Thailand, I had a similar experience. Passing thru wat after wat, seeing how beautiful each one was, being confused at which ones we had seen that day, thinking things could not get better. We were taken to Wat Phra That Lampang Luang


where you could write a prayer or a name on a big yellow banner that would be wrapped around the stupa and whispered to Buddha. It gave me great comfort to write Jolie's name on that banner and believe her name was whispered. This past week, was the fifth anniversary of her death and it still gives me comfort to know her name is being whispered to Buddha.

I am sure that Randy's prayer reached the right place.

Glass, glass and more glass

I love glass. I do not hide it. I like looking at it. I like touching it. I like making things with it, I like blowing, fusing and slumping it. So yesterday, my beloved, the door dyke and her beloved went to the De Young in Golden Gate Park. I was thrilled from the moment I first saw the new building, we had not been since the museum re-opened. The building is great, if you go don't miss the tower. The view is fantastic!



Anyway, they are having show of work by Dale Chihuly. A big part of his glass life has been spent at RISD, in Providence, Rhode Island. Small world. I can remember going to RISD on a school trip and seeing the big furnaces that contained molten glass. As the old saying goes, if I knew then what I knew now...Oh well.



The show is small, that does not mean there are not lots of pieces, there are hundreds. All shapes, sizes and colors, all just amazing! I think my favorite were the cylinders. Trying to figure out how they are made was fun and finding out that I was pretty much right was even more fun.

Last Blog

Forgive me blog-gods it has been two weeks since my last blog entry. I will make one every day for a week to atone for this sin. I just looked at my blog and realized it has been two weeks since I last wrote. I guess I got a little blog-blocked after being vitually smacked about my obit blogging. Well, I don't want to be one of those people that blogs on such an irregular basis, so here goes.



Last night my beloved and I went to see The Police and Elivs Costello. My beloved not being a big fan of The Police did quite well and we had a lovely time. Except for those baby boomers that don't understand they are well into their fifties now - not as young as they were the last time they saw Sting, Stuart and Andy - as blogged about by St. Scobie.



But that was not my point. I must get back to my roots and that means talking about 580 and my daily commute. So, I went a different way last night so that I could pick up my beloved in Walnut Creek. After picking her up the traffic report came on and they reported on a spill of plastic bottles and chairs from the back of a truck onto 580 East. She turned to me and said, "gee, right up your blog ally" and for a moment I was sad that I had missed it.

So, I will try to get back to my roots and look for more crap on 580.

That smell

Last night while sitting in our house with the doors open my beloved and I looked at each other and said - do you smell that?

Smoke! The wind was blowing quite strongly and when standing outside I could tell the smell was coming from the north east. Shortly after we heard sirens.

We could only hope that it was only grass and trees that were burning.

Busted by the Obits

The internet is truely a crazy thing. One of the things I like about blogging is that except for the friends and family that know who "this" blogger is I am pretty much anonymous. It seems that shortly after someone dies someone sits down and google's the dead persons name and if I have blogged about them, my blog pops up front and center. If I have written something nice they don't seem to comment. If I say something they don't like, they let me know. I never willingly write to hurt, I just comment on what I read.

Having lost someone lately I do know for a fact that a funeral home has a big sheet you can fill out that helps you or them write the obit that gives as much or as little info as you want. So, perhaps to save the feelings of those left behind I'll stop using names in my Sunday Rituals, because I don't think the newly departed really care what I think, but they just might care what those they left behind feel.

You Kiss Your Mother With That Mouth?

Yesterday I was leaving work and I was in my car with the windows down and stopped at the driveway of the parking lot. A car was coming down the road and I was waiting for it to get by me so I would not cut out in front of it. Well the car came towards me and then pulled into the parking lot - no blinker! A pet peeve of mine. So I looked at the driver and said "nice blinker"

She looked like a cartoon character - jawbone on, blond hair blowing in the wind, she turned and screamed at me "SHUT THE FUCK UP". I laughed and continued on my way. I thought about it for a while, how angry do you have to be at life in general to scream at a stranger like that?

Today I looked out a window at my office and there is her car. I am contemplating walking over to see if I can see where she works or maybe leaving her a note asking if she kisses her mother with that mouth.