HEY, HO, LETS GO

Crashing surf, bickering gulls, an ice cold can of Tecate, and nothing on the agenda but time.

TO DO LIST: 2009

Now is the time when I resolve to start doing or stop doing certain things in anticipation of a glorious new year. Begin anew, rejoice in the miraculous rebirth of self, or some other flaccid platitude.
Without further ado:

• Get ripped like exercise crazed Navy Seal on speed.
• Find job that leaves me creatively, emotionally, spiritually, financially, cosmically, holistically, and fundamentally satisfied.
• Make the perfect bowl of oatmeal.
• Begin creative writing: screenplay, novel, short story. Anything.
• Regrow hair.
• Lose those last nagging ten pounds.
• Travel to a warm, salty place and chillax.
• Prepare for the singularity.

WHO SELLS GOOD BUGGY WHIPS THESE DAYS?

The former chairman of the NASDAQ bilking his investors with a high tech Ponzi scheme? AIG just now disclosing billions lost in worthless credit default swaps after the government bails them out. And all of the top management is still employed. How can this be worse than just letting these criminals go to jail and letting the morally and financially bankrupt system follow its own natural course. Let the market sort this out and leave my tax money out of it! If the big 3 automakers can't build cars that Americans are willing to buy then let them die. New companies with new and innovative products will replace them. Thank goodness the government didn't subsidize the carriage and buggy whip industry 100 years ago.

NO COOKIES IN THE LIBRARY

Something must be done about these fuzzy, blue, mentally ill patrons.

LUDDITES LAST STAND

I think it will be interesting to see what happens when all over-the-air television broadcasts become digital. Even though there have been innumerable public service announcements and a concerted ad campaign by the FCC I think there will be a huge uproar. The same people who are still watching TV with rabbit ears are (by and large) the same people who are on the wrong side of the "digital divide". There are simply two kinds of people in this country: those who are at least somewhat comfortable with computers and who are linked to the greater society via the Internet and those who either can't afford a computer or are unwilling to embrace the future. Time is running out for the Luddites. When their screens fill with snow and they are finally totally cut off will they accept the inevitable or will they get in their wagons and trot to Washington en masse and demand a return to simpler times?

SUNSHINE

I was playing trivia at Molly Malone's Irish Pub in Louisville on election night 2000. I vividly remember when Florida was mistakenly put in Gore's win column and it was assumed that he would be our next president. A month later in a hotel room in Chicago I watched a resigned and fatalistic Al Gore concede to he who shall never be named again. Eight years later after thousands of our soldiers have needlessly died, after our constitution has been mangled, after the reputation and mystique of this country has been degraded to perhaps its lowest ebb in many generations, we have come out of this fugue state of hatred, denial, and division. The sun has shone on this nation once again.

BRAINS!!!

As we take a shambling lurch toward my favorite holiday, a little gore flecked reading is in order. I suggest World War Z by Max Brooks, a surprisingly serious and well written take on the whole flesh eating corpse genere.