The Usual Saturday Re-Run and A Few Other Thoughts

Well, seeing as how it IS Saturday and it IS Fall and there WILL be football later on, we'll do our usual, customary, and reasonable Saturday re-run... this time taking a page out of the "one year ago today on this date" book. 

But before I do... The lead item in the post below supports Blog-Bud Jim's annual "Thanksgiving Comes First" campaign. Jim usually waits until around this time of year to kick off the campaign but he got started a lil early this year. Why? Because he saw Christmas displays in a local store in frickin' SEPTEMBER. That just has to be a new low for money-grubbing retailers in these United States and I'm pleased to report there is no such activity (to the best of my knowledge) here on The High Plains of New Mexico. All that said... I'm behind what Jim is on about here in EVERY way. Thanksgiving DOES come first, quite literally, so keep Christmas where it belongs. And go read Jim.

There are also a few random musings below the re-run.

Friday, October 03, 2008

A Campaign, Some Pain, and Palin

Blog-Bud Jim, aka Suldog, has launched his second annual “Thanksgiving Comes First!” campaign… and has asked those of us who agree with him… and who are the proprietors of blogs… to join the campaign. Well, I can’t think of anyone who actually approves of seeing Christmas sales, Christmas advertising, Christmas-this, or Christmas-that, before Thanksgiving has come and gone. NO ONE… period, end of report, full-stop. I’m quite sure even the employees and management of those businesses who launch Christmas before Thanksgiving is even here have a distaste for the project at hand. I mean… how could you NOT?

So. I’m on board with this. I hope you are, too. Jim has great narrative reasons and not a few rants on the subject at the link above and here, as well. Do go read.

―:☺:―

Light blogging today. I spent one and a half hours in the dental chair yesterday getting a root canal, and I’m still a bit sore today and jes a lil bit short on what I’ll euphemistically call “good attitude.” The procedure itself is relatively painless thanks to really good anesthetics, liberally dispensed. But the length of time the procedure takes tends to take a bit out of ya… if’n ya know what I mean. An hour and a half is a long time to be flat on your back with various and sundry implements coming and going in your mouth, not to mention the interesting and unusual sounds associated with this event. It’s a little trying.

I’ve often said I’m blessed with relatively good health… in that I don’t have a weight problem, my “numbers” are all excellent, there’s no arthritis, no rheumatism, and I have none other of the minor ailments (or major ones, either) that seem to afflict us all as we grow older. Except for this “bad teeth” gene. I really should count my blessings in this space, but it’s real hard to keep one’s perspective intact… occasionally.

―:☺:―

One final thought… or thoughts… before I go back to couch. I watched the debate last evening and I thought Sarah Palin won. Biden was a little better here and there, but Sarah scored the most points and was the more convincing of the two. Gwen Ifill did a passable… but only just… job of moderating. I would have preferred Jim Lehrer over Ifill, but who am I to say? I DO have an issue with the McCain campaign and the way they’ve “run the show” during the time since the GOP convention's been over. And rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll just give ya what I left over at Phlegmmy’s place on the subject:

I had mixed emotions about Sarah's performance last evening. She did as well, or better, than could be expected... given her constraints. And by that I mean she was obviously instructed by the campaign to "stay on message." Her BEST moments were when she cut free from "the message" and talked about her direct experiences as governor and mayor. The woman connects with people... easily and sincerely... and the frickin' "campaign" isn't using her strengths to their advantage.


I'm beginning to think the McCain campaign is one of the most inept I've EVER seen. Missed opportunities abound... like a failure to hammer home the point HE (McCain) went after Fanny/Freddie with a vengeance while the usual suspects were at the trough... and so on.


McCain's finger-in-the-wind, focus group driven, faux populism just irritates the livin' HELL out of me, too. If I hear this "greed and corruption on Wall Street" generality without specific examples... including what he's gonna DO about it, assuming it exists... one more time I'm gonna... oh, well. I'm sure you get my drift. Very disappointing. I expected better from McCain than this. And we deserve better, too.

I have more to say on this subject, but I’ll save it for another time when I’m better able to convert thought into text. I’m at something of a nadir in this regard at the moment. Methinks more… and better… drugs are called for.

Committed to The Inter-tubes by Buck on 10/03/2008 02:19:00 PM 21 Astute Observations

―:☺:―

So.  That was the way the world was one year ago on this date.  It's kinda funny how things change yet they remain the same.  I've been under the weather of late, what with trying to kick the world's most persistent cold and fighting off yet another in my seemingly on-going series of oral/dental infections.  It's not to whine, Gentle Reader, but as I noted above: it's real hard to keep one's perspective... occasionally.  That goes for my normally bright and cheery good mood (heh), too.

So here we are, pecking away at the keyboard at oh-dark-thirty, having just poured our second cup of coffee.  I hit the rack early last evening... around 2200 hrs... and managed to get five hours of uninterrupted sleep before my eyes popped open.  And they would NOT close again, no matter what I did.  So I gave up the futile attempts at sleep and fired off the coffee pot around 0400 hrs.  And here we are.

―:☺:― 

Speaking of bright and cheery... Our mini-orgy of hockey is done for the time being.  We watched both available games Thursday evening and yesterday's Wings game.  Thursday's games were better, Gentle Reader, and it might surprise you to see me say something like that.  Well, on the other hand, maybe not.  It's never fun to watch your team blow a 3-1 lead and lose 4-3, even if it IS the first game of the season and there are 81 more to be played before we get into the post-season.  Yet, still... yesterday was an inauspicious beginning, to say the very least.  Thursday, OTOH, was just excellent hockey.  It's always a pleasure to watch that Ovechkin kid (he got two goals Thursday against the B's), and it was MOST certainly good to watch Super Joe's retirement ceremony later on that same evening in Denver.  And what was even better was watching the Avs rise to the occasion and do their former captain proud by soundly thrashing the Sharks.  THAT was unexpected, to say the least, yet very gratifying.

One more hockey thing and then we'll go.  SN2 and I had an extended phone conversation last night and towards the end of the call he asked if I was watching the game... "the game" being Pittsburgh - NY Rangers.  "Nope," sez I... "must be a local thing."  (SN2, you may or may not recall, lives in Pittsburgh now... he being the XO of Navy Recruiting District Pittsburgh)  And local it was, being broadcast on FSN-Pittsburgh.  "Well, that's too bad," sez he.  "No," sez I... "it's a great good thing it's not on here and I wouldn't frickin' watch it even if it were."  About which I got a "Hunh?"  That triggered a two-minute rant about just how VERY sick I am of seeing/hearing/reading about God's Gift To Hockey in the form of one Sidney Crosby.  ENOUGH, already.  MORE than enough.

Nope, I'm still not over it.  And the prognosis isn't good, either.