Grazing Rites

I know I promised some of you an in-depth report on Palin’s scandal(s) but information is still forthcoming and at times a little contradictory so let me just ask you one question for now, care of Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative:

“Can anyone say with a straight face that Palin would have gotten picked if she were a man?”

So yesterday I ripped into Palin’s so-called experience and qualifications, today let’s look at her policies – what small amount of them there is to look at, that is.

She wants creationism taught in public schools – that should energize the crazy base of the Republican Party but anyone who understands the concept of separation of church and state and that a big part of the founding of America was freedom of religion from an oppressive government should be rightly upset. I’ve always found the Republican contradiction fascinating, like a car accident: they want smaller government, “government that gets out of your way” they often say, including McCain and Palin, yet they think it is the role of government to tell you what religion to practice and who you can love. How can smaller government be big enough to include mind control? MKULTRA notwithstanding.

I would love to critique her foreign policy stances, but she doesn’t have any.

She claims global warming is not man-made. Think of the craziest Republican you can, even whoever you just thought of has probably acknowledged that global warming is man-made. Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan are on board, so is President Bush for God’s sake. I guess she never got around to that inconvenient truth – I guess that’s why they call it ‘inconvenient’.

She’s willing to pick up Hillary’s mantle of the cracked glass ceiling but there are a couple problems with that…
1. She disagrees with Clinton on just about everything.
2. She’s not running for President, she’s running for Vice President – they are different jobs unless she plans on having McCain whacked.
3. She said she didn’t like Hillary because she whined too much, way to strike a blow for women’s rights against misogynists, agreeing with them! That’s a unique strategy to be sure.
4. The guy she’s running with voted against equal pay for equal work, one of the hallmarks of the feminist movement.
5. She’s pro-life. If she doesn’t think a woman should be in control of her own body and her own life then why does she think one should be in control of the country?
I could go on but continuing to think about it is making me sick.

Oh, and McCain only met Palin once before getting her to join the ticket. It must’ve been one hell of a meeting.

Palin doesn’t even know what the Vice President does. Not long ago she said she didn’t want the job because it seemed do-nothing to her and she “needs to be productive”.

She has 5 kids, one is a 5-month old with Down syndrome, I’m not saying that precludes being president, I just see it as one hell of a raw deal for the kid, particularly if she ends up President in short order. They’ll have to be formally introduced when she leaves office unless she takes as much time off as Bush and hasn’t the country and world loved him for that?

Oh and she hates polar bears.

Obama’s speech last night was pitch perfect and as many on MSNBC were quick to note, although not quick enough to beat me to it, much of it reminded me of lines from The American President.

Obama: “Jon McCain’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t care, his problem is that he doesn’t understand”

Shepherd: “Bob Rumson’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it, his problem is that he can’t sell it”

I rest my case.

It reminded me once again when, months ago when watching my DVD of The American President Mindi turned to me and asked “why can’t we have leaders like that, who give speeches like that?”

Almost makes you want to giggle. Or weep with joy.

The response has been generally positive with one notable and disappointing exception, The Associated Press. I think I’ve completely given up on them which I’m surprised to find myself saying. I could rip their analysis apart but Keith Olbermann already did the job, and in such a prompt manner that they managed to correct a factual error he pointed out before it was published in many places. But AP aside, as one guy on MSNBC said “this will be a hard convention to follow…for 40 or 50 years”

But not to be outdone McCain tried to cut Obama’s positive press short by announcing his VP running mate first thing this morning.

And to ensure full coverage, he made a pretty bold (read: crazy) choice.

In an immediately identified pander to disaffected Hillary supporters he selected a woman. Now don’t get me wrong, I hate identity politics with a passion and was really looking forward to putting that paradigm to bed but the fact that his choice is so vastly under qualified in a field with other more qualified females I can’t help but wonder if he just grabbed the first one he found.

Before I get into his selection I also find myself wondering if he’s a couple steps behind – it could go either way. The question pivots on another question: did Hillary really put her supporters in the Obama column with her convention speech? If the answer is yes, McCain is about 3 days too late with his announcement. If the answer is no, then perhaps McCain is still a shrewd, strategizing maverick at heart. McCain supporters: I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

Also this selection is, hopefully, going to be very critically looked at given McCain’s age and past health issues. Expect to hear the phrase “a heartbeat from the presidency” a lot over the next week. I watched CNN for about 5 or 10 minutes this morning and heard it at least a half dozen times.

Alright, let’s get into it. Everyone meet Sarah Palin. To ensure impartiality I’ll let Wikipedia make the introduction…

“Palin was a 1984 runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, receiving a scholarship to attend the University of Idaho, where she received a journalism degree. After working as a sports reporter at an Anchorage television station, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska, City Council from 1992 to 1996, was elected mayor of Wasilla (population 5,470 in 2000) in 1996, and ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor in 2002. She was elected Governor of Alaska in 2006”

Let’s break down these, excuse me while I die laughing, qualifications. You can’t even call her a beauty queen as she was runner up – I dare say working with horses would be a better qualification, who thought anyone would ever say that?

A journalism degree I can respect but taking that, plus her beauty pageant experience, and turning it into a position as a sports reporter hardly distinguishes someone for political office.

She was mayor of a town with 5,470 people. To give you an idea of what kind of accomplishment this is, in 1999 she won reelection as mayor with a grand total of 909 votes.

Then she LOST in her bid for Lieutenant Governor in 2002 but then somehow was elected Governor in 2006 (thanks Diebold?).

Couldn’t win a beauty contest, couldn’t hack it as a real journalist, and couldn’t win election as Lieutenant Governor. She did win City Council, Mayor, and Governor. So by my count that’s 3 for 6.

Let’s check the flip side. Biden was a lawyer, 1-term Councilman, 6-term Senator. By my count that’s 8 for 8 and I’m not even counting his chairmanships.

Shortly after the announcement someone on CNN predicted she would “with no national experience, no foreign policy experience, and a virtual unknown on the national stage it’s only a question of just how badly she’ll be pulverized in the debate”.

So one of my 3 days off this fair was a total bust with what essentially amounts to food poisoning. For most of the day I could only watch DS9, NewsRadio, or West Wing – everything else seemed to either make things worse or offer no comfort. So when I didn’t have my head in the toilet I was laying in bed watching TV or reading. Later in the day hunger finally caught up with me, what with having not eaten all day and instead spent the time voiding myself. There was thankfully some leftover pizza and caffeine-free Pepsi in the fridge. After the family came home and the kid went to bed I spent a few hours reading the new Star Trek novel, Greater Than The Sum which actually got pretty interesting about half way through.

So as I went to sleep I was overcome with an odd feeling, not nostalgia or familiarity exactly but something in between – like finding an old blanket you had forgotten about when the weather first gets cold. Eventually it occurred to me that this was how I used to spend days off, without the profuse vomiting of course. Since sharing my living space days off were usually focused on cleaning, watching the kid, or doing things I couldn’t or wouldn’t normally get to do for whatever reason when the family was home like monopolizing the TV with a single-player game on the Wii. But just laying down, watching some DS9, reading a new Star Trek book, and eating pizza making up an entire day – that was how I used to relax. I had nearly forgotten.

I remembered thinking a few times throughout the day that it had been a complete waste of a day, but perhaps not.

Is it possible to be so excited for something over 2 months away that you can’t sleep? My current insomnia with James Darren’s Come Fly With Me stuck in my head says yes.

It’s not even the super-exciting stuff I’m thinking about. It’s the little stuff like getting on the plane, checking in, walking to the monorail, the M&M store…that’s the kinds of things that I keep thinking about.

So apparently somewhere between 11% and 27% of Hillary supporters during the primary are planning to vote for McCain.

I think she shares more than some small measure of responsibility in this. For one thing she continued her campaign long after it became mathematically impossible for her to win, and at great continued expense. How difficult is it to understand that you don’t spend money you don’t have? Plus as I’ve mentioned at length her campaign got much nastier that anyone else’s. She crossed the line repeatedly and exactly as I predicted the Republicans have been using clips of her negativity in their ads.

Now Debra Bartoshevich, a “Proud Hillary Clinton Democrat” and former DNC delegate, is appearing in an ad for McCain.

What does this tell us? Well by not supporting the person who agreed with Hillary 95% of the time and instead supporting someone who agreed with her rarely they are showing that they are not issues voters; and as a logical extension of that never supported Hillary because of her policies or beliefs. Maybe they were caught up in her cult of personality, maybe they just wanted a woman, or maybe they thought she somehow deserved it. Whatever the misguided reason, now they are clearly voting out of spite – either that or the only thing they care about is so-called experience. But given that McCain has more experience than Hillary I daresay that’s a false reason being provided to excuse their inexcusable betrayal of what Hillary believed in and fought for.

But then again Hillary hasn’t been doing very much to counter this. Perhaps she never cared about her issues either, maybe she felt she deserved it or just wanted a woman to win. For example if Debra truly was a “Proud Hillary Clinton Democrat” could ol’ Hillary just give her a call and tell her to knock it off? Either Hillary tacitly approves of this behaviour or Hillary isn’t Debra’s hero despite her claims to the contrary.

Someone is lying, or at the very least obfuscating; maybe a few someones. This morning I saw McCain break one of the convention etiquette rules by campaigning during the other party’s convention. He appeared at a high school and brought some heartthrob with him to hug the high school girls. And McCain’s the one blasting Obama for celebrity status and connections? The hypocrisy is overwhelming.

Hillary’s efforts to minimize this have been, well, minimal. Hillary’s response to the ad that uses her name and her campaign placard to attack the democratic presidential nominee? “I’m Hillary Clinton and did not approve this message”.

Wow. I mean, it’s mildly funny but it’s damn near the very least she could do.

If she somehow manages to turn the tide against the democrats how can she ever have a serious future in politics? She’s already alienated the Republicans, although they’re not above using her if it suits their purposes, and now she stands poised to sabotage and alientate the democrats by handing them another loss through her prior actions and current inaction.

A bit later than I thought but I think perhaps we’re finally getting where we need and want to be; competence and cohesion - my team, a team once again. We got food in the fridge - it’s a silly benchmark but it’s something for the team that requires the team pulling together to make happen. Maybe now we can get through this, together. I’ve carried us through the storm; now with more oars in the water hopefully we can chart our own course to smoother waters.

Now comes the march to the finish line. Fall, the equinox, my birthday. Kids and undergrads go back to school, teachers go back to work, the hemisphere says goodbye to summer and I do something different. They move left, I go right. In the summer I pay the price, in the fall I reap the reward for being the contrary…and not just a little bit crazy for choosing this lifestyle.

A mini-break with the family or perhaps just my girlfriend, a trip to Vegas with Jon and Josh to catch some Vic Fontaine, more free time, cooler weather, and time with my family. Mr. Mom and Maid days, a slower pace; less money but more time to enjoy what you have, and what you’ve earned; trading the work To Do list for the personal one. My son’s second Christmas.

To: mOreskes@ap.org

Subject: Ron Fournier

Mr. Oreskes,

I am writing you to express my dismay and disappointment with the recent article written by Ron Fournier with the headline “Biden pick shows lack of confidence”. It is labeled as analysis but much of it seems to be opinion.

For example the statement that Biden is “the ultimate insider” seems at best a debatable title and in fact seems more like someone trying to make the news rather than report on it.

But that is just the beginning, when he writes of Biden that “he talks too much” that is an offensive characterization that seems more like a childish attack than any kind of analysis. But this irrelevant and immature insult was apparently important enough to merit its own paragraph. This is the AP, not a personal blog - I expect a higher standard of reporting from an organization with such longevity. If Mr. Biden had a facial blemish would that also factor in to Mr. Fournier’s analysis? I can appreciate that Mr. Fournier has for whatever reason a personal dislike of Joe Biden, I just fail to see what about that is news.

In this decade of questionable reporting I have always trusted the Associated Press to remain objective, unaligned, and non-partisan. This article has severely shaken my confidence in your organization to report the news, not to make it or express a personal opinion.

Thank you for your time.

For the record my Top 3 VP choices would be:
#1 Wes Clark (military credentials & excellent speaker)
#2 Bill Richardson (added diversity & even better speaker than Wes)
#3 Joe Biden (Foreign Policy & Experience)

And, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’d even be willing to accept Clinton.

Now these are not predictions, they’re what I would prefer.

If Obama manages to keep his VP selection secret until the time of his choosing for the announcement I think it could be quite a coup. I think it would actually score him points on the ready to lead board and the better than Bush board. I know it seems an unlikely conclusion to draw.

Bush couldn’t keep much in the way of state secrets very well – there were leaks all over the place, if his White House had been a condo he would have been sued and the place condemned ages ago. The only reason those leaks generally didn’t get attention without help from the Douche Bag of Liberty (cancer doesn’t stop you from being a douche) was because 9/11 scared the media into submission. But thankfully over the last few years the media has woken from its slumber and is starting to think critically again. Well, except for Fox News of course but if they became non-partisan I’d start reading Nostradamus for surely the end would be nigh.

If Obama can control this information it shows both his ability to effectively lead a large complex political team and that he has and can select quality trustworthy people to surround himself with. There are plenty of incentives for anyone in the know to leak the name of his VP. They might even think they’re doing him a favour. And following Bush, the guy who created the department with the most political appointees in history (see: political patronage), the guy who consistently selected, hired, promoted, and appointed people on grounds other than ability, the guy whose inability to keep a secret or safeguard the citizens is frankly legendary this shows a stark contrast.

This would say that an Obama White House could keep a secret, when it’s in the nation’s best and still legal interests such as protecting the identity of a CIA covert agent whose spouse publicly disagrees with you. Vetting the VP, keeping the selection secret and controlling the flow of information is a fantastic test run for many presidential issues like writing policy and addressing international conflict. Having a skilled, informed, intelligent team, preventing harmful leaks, and controlling the flow of information is critical in those cases and can make the difference between success and failure; a bill passed into law or not, a conflict avoided or war begun.

It may not seem like much but the stage managing of this can be considered one of those hypothetical commander-in-chief tests on some levels.

So now that the trip is booked I’ve been looking into some details, thinking about different options for entertainment, dining, and transportation.

The first thing I was pleased to discover was that the location James Darren is performing at has a bowling alley…with 64 lanes. The property is pretty far off-strip and in the opposite direction of our semi-off-strip hotel. So if we end up having to wait for a lane I swear I’ll shoot someone in the face.

I was also happy to have the existence of a second pool at the Stratosphere pointed out to me. Mindi and I had thought there was a second pool but weren’t sure and couldn’t find directions. On TripAdvisor someone described it as having “the ambiance of a high school parking lot” but the person who said that was over 50 so it could go either way.

Today I discovered something called the ‘Hoover Dam Comedy Tour’. I was completely sold on renting a car and driving there ourselves, maybe trying to fit in a few other things along the way or in the area as well, but this has me wondering. If it’s anything like Sleuths it might be worth giving up our freedom for. It’s only $79.99 USD and runs 6.5 hours. It includes a professional comedian as tour guide, a meal at the Boulder Dam Hotel where presidents used to dine, a scenic photo op at Lake Mead, a tour of Boulder City, a fudge or custard snack and tickets to a comedy show at Harrah’s.

Also it sounds like I’ve barely scratched the surface with regards to dining options – the Stratosphere buffet, 50s diner, and Hard Rock are all musts of course - it sounds like there’s more options that you can shake a stick at. I wonder if they have anything like Sleuths…

Yippee!

“I’ve got the world on a string
Sitting on a rainbow
Got the string around my finger
What a world
What a life”

James Darren tickets went on sale today. Oh yea.

I was delayed a couple minutes from purchasing by a poorly timed call from work but I think the outcome was just about ideal.

I decided to go for the best seats regardless of price; this is Vic afterall and considering all the money I would have spent at the Experience, $40 a pop for tickets didn’t seem so bad.

So we got a booth (a booth! How Vegas is that?) at the back of the closest section, dead center. We’re essentially in the middle of the room.

You know what; I’ll just let the picture do the talking.

Sometimes my financial decisions seem counter-intuitive, often to just about everyone but myself; for example when I went on my big-ticket technology spending spree in spring with the new PDA and computer. Neither item was a necessity at the time strictly speaking, but interest rates paid on no-risk investments were dropping and inflation was rising. The money could sit in the bank and end up being worth a bit less or I could spend it on something that would end up costing a bit more if I waited to buy it later.

Of course my spending isn’t one-dimensional as that. There’s also my income that fluctuates seasonally.

So I found out today that some of my investments interest rates were dropping by 0.75%.

This is the time of year when I make the most money.

Conclusion? Time to book and pay for a vacation.

It’s not just for me, it’s for the economy. High inflation and dropping interest rates are signs of economic instability or a downturn – spending money generates economic activity that can assist a recovery.

So, not only does it make good economic sense to go on a vacation, it will help the economy recover.

It’s my duty as a citizen of our economy to go on vacation – it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Good ol’ me, always willing to take one for the team.

I’m not worried, when Obama takes office in January the economy will begin a significant recovery, I’m just doing my part in the meantime.

Finally it seems like the worst is behind me, except for pay day of course. Today I got up early but felt fine, minor challenges but compared to the last two weeks nothing too bad. Then I finally found the time to walk over to Hunky Bill’s and get my Ukrainian Breakfast. I was pleased to discover they hadn’t raised their prices this year - because after the last two weeks I would’ve paid $20 for some Hunky Bill’s.

They weren’t completely set up but thankfully they had everything they needed to fill my order. Hunky was in rare form, singing and dancing along to the concert stage music and mocking Tim Horton’s. Service was prompt and funny.

The fair has begun.

Now I wait for the call. The opening day call when some area is overwhelmed and I’m sent in as reinforcements. Often an area I’ve never worked in before - although every year the list of places I haven’t worked gets a little shorter.

The call could send me somewhere difficult with lots of hard work but I don’t mind that much because it’s just nice not to have the ultimate responsibility for a change. Then, with a little luck, things slow down to a decent pace tomorrow and I’m really able to catch my breath…and begin planning for the next phase, and the next year.

I’ve faced my fair share of challenges but lately it’s felt a little different. Maybe it’s because so many challenges came from within not from without. Me and my team against the oncoming storm, that’s the way it used to be. Granted there were one or two notable exceptions but by and large that was the way it went. Now I feel like I’m on a team of two.

James Darren tickets go on sale August 18th at 1pm EST. These tickets will probably be the first thing we buy for the trip – the point of no return if you will. And coincidentally I have that day off so I can hopefully score some sweet seats. I figure I’ll get tickets for the first show and if we decide we want to go back maybe we can try our luck at one of the half-priced ticket outlets on the strip.

You manage the chaos of the chaos manages you. It sounds like one of those meaningless clichés but when you’re in the middle of chaos the words have meaning. Idiots throwing stupid monkey wrenchs at the 11th hour. You pick your battles, give up the marginal territory to win the war.

And a little Vic Fontaine doesn’t hurt.

Just when I think I’ve got things back under control, I get screwed again.

Someone quits, I finally find and train a replacement – I’m still a little short handed but I have just enough to get by and the process takes too long by the time I train anyone else I won’t need them and that training would take place when I’m at my busiest. Then I get hurt at home somewhat due to a growing mess, so despite my injured exhaustion last night I spent over an hour making some real progress cleaning up so that hopefully my home won’t attack me at just about the worst possible time.

So today I figure I finally have it all figured out so I don’t need to go in to work until 10am, a whole extra hour of sleep would be my reward to getting through a week and a half of getting screwed. But instead of not starting work until 10am I start getting a deluge of calls, voicemails, and text messages at 8:15am! I have to rush in to work to solve a problem caused by other people not responding to my requests from months ago so I get to work at 9:30am – it would have been sooner but all the calls kept delaying me. On my way in I get a call from one of my staff who says she has food poisoning so now I have to work until 8pm at least, and probably a little bit later than that. So now I have to work another 11 hour day, 12 hours if you count all the work I did by phone before actually getting on-site.

I swear sometimes life sucks so hard you begin to wonder why you bother.

This was a fantastic movie. It briefly skirts the edge of good taste but by-and-large is a great film for pretty much anyone - although anyone with knowledge or appreciation of american politics will get a bit more out of it. Kevin Costner, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, George Lopez, Judge Reinhold, and Nana Visitor all do excellent jobs, as do the rest of the cast.

So right around the time one of my staff quit without warning or much in the way of reason my girlfriend develops serious back problems and the kid develops a bad attitude.

The worst possible timing? If not then damned close.

Even if none of those 3 things had happened I’d be exhausted so you can imagine how I feel now.

In short, this is the movie Shoot ‘Em Up should have been.

You spend a good initial chunk of the movie waiting to find out if they’re in the Matrix but, as I predicted, the self-controlled adrenal boost is a serviceable explanation - remember the mom lifting a car to save her kid thing.

Marc Warren was a pleasant surprise although he was underutilized in my opinion. There was one scene where he’s sitting next to Angelina Jolie and you just know he’s thinking “I’m sitting next to Angelina Jolie; I could have the head of a dog, set myself on fire, and do mid-air cartwheels on a unicorn and still no one would be looking at me“. But between Burn Up and this he seems to be getting some mainstream attention, which probably explains his unfortunate absence from the next season of Hustle.

Oh well, if it’s good enough for Adrian…at least Marc’s choosing some good projects.

What was I talking about?

Is stress neither created nor destroyed? Is there a conservation of stress that never sees it increased or decreasely globally but merely transferred?

I wonder stuff like this when I’m stressed, I worry that venting won’t really make it better, just transfer the stress to someone else and that isn’t very nice if it’s the case.

Anyways, I am profoundly tired.

That is all.

So I officially got my time off approved for Vegas. Set myself as Out Of Office in Outlook so no one can try to schedule me for anything. Locked in, it’s official, good to go.

Now it’s time to move on to actually booking stuff.

Part of me can’t really believe its happening. Actually happening. Not another abandoned pipe dream. It may sound odd but Jon really saved my bacon here, the prospect of the trip has kept me sane during recent insanity – well, reasonably sane. It’s not like I found myself thinking “I can’t punch this guy in the face or else I might not get to go to Vegas” when faced with some random challenging situation…but close.

Also I guess part of me had begun to wonder if Jon and I would ever take a trip again, it had been so long. Let’s see…Portland was 2000, Edmonton 1 was 2001, Anaheim was 2002, and I think Edmonton 2 was 2003. So yea, about 5 years I think. Half a decade. Damn. No wonder I was getting twitchy.

Not that I haven’t had great vacations without Jon. Toronto in 2003, Europe in 2005, Vegas in 2006, and Orlando last year were all pretty awesome in their own rights.

Anyways I look forward to adding to the list of awesome vacations.

I was talking about tactics and such with my friend the other day and it reminded me of this cool trick I used to use in XvT.

One of the missile countermeasures was called flare and it essentially was an anti-missile missile. It would launch straight up from the back of your TIE fighter or whatever and then track down the nearest missile and take it out.

Well what I would do is fly right at a guy, back in the day it was Mezo more often than not, we’d unload on each other ripping each other’s shields apart and then in the game of chicken I would blink first by angling slightly downward. He would fly above me and just as he went out of sight I fired the flare which essentially shot little missiles into his now unprotected hull at extremely close range, finishing him off and giving me time to recharge my shields by dumping all energy into them. As an added benefit since it was a small missile even though it was a near impact it didn’t damage me at all.

Anyways it’s like one of two original strategies I ever invented when playing that kind of game.

On MSNBC Keith Olbermann begins the show with a countdown of days until the election – it occurred to me yesterday I could just add one and it’s an effective countdown to Vegas.

So I crunched the numbers on various dates and have found the most advantageous time to go to Vegas is November 5th - 11th. We’re still waiting on the 3rd person to get their time off approved before booking anything but really that’s just a question of how many people, not when or if. Also it looks like Jon is pretty well sold on the Stratosphere. The more I looked at other properties the less comfortable I became with taking a risk on somewhere new.

I want to show the guys a good time when I play tour guide. And we’re all a bunch of reasonably healthy guys, the walk to the monorail should be easy enough. And if they give me any lip I tell them how a pregnant woman did it repeatedly without complaining. Then ask if they want a fresh one.

These dates also have the added benefit of coming right after the election so I don’t lose yet another night in Vegas to election returns. Maybe we’ll all get together the night before to watch the returns. I’ll make an Obama pennant, it’ll be quite the photo op.

So I was trying to explain The Big Bang Theory to one of my fantastic staff today - did I mention my remaining team is fantastic? Anyways I must not have done a very good job of explaining it as I got questions like “so do you have to understand science to get it?“

I suppose “a show about two physicist roommates” doesn’t really do the show justice.

So I told her that while the science is generally accurate you don’t need to understand that to get the jokes. I told her about Penny and Raj…and Howard’s awesome belts and I think I made the sale.

I’ll have to load up an episode on my PDA and get her to take a break to seal the deal.

Anyways, new episodes begin the day after my birthday.

I’ve delayed posting this so as not to spoil it for anyone - especially given that the whole world seems like they’ll see it anyways.

I wasn’t sure how Heath Leger’s death would effect my enjoyment of the film but his performance was so rich you completely forget who it is. He created a character so unique that it truly was the character and not the actor playing a part.

It’s longer than your average movie and you’re grateful for it. Harvey Dent’s foreshadowing was a little heavy but well performed. The choices they made with regard to Joker’s backstory and motivation were fantastic - way to break the superhero movie formula.

Unrelated to the film my circumstances in seeing the movie were needlessly inconvenient so I’d say the movie was great but not worth an entire day of your life.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as Suzie - she stabbed 3 people and then shot her boss. I just got the knife in the back so perhaps I shouldn’t complain but who quits a job with no notice and no reason, and does so by going over his boss’s head right before the busy season?

Well, a jerk obviously. But he knows who suffers most by his dick move - my family. Maybe because he doesn’t give a damn about his own family - or indeed anyone but himself - that he sees this as acceptable behaviour. For someone who got pissed off, I’m talking really angry, at the slightest unintentional discretion he doesn’t understand the conventions of polite society.

I insulated him from all but the most serious of transgressions, let him essentially make his own schedule, and humoured his eccentricities and this is his response. To screw not only me, and consequently my family, but his former coworkers. I can’t imagine what it would have taken to actually earn the barest of his respect. Given that he never spoke of ever having liked any job I daresay it may have been impossible.

Patti was right, as she often is.

In the long run it’s probably better for all of us - with a little luck, and not just a little sacrifice on my part, I might have us back up to capacity in about 5 days. If not for some bureaucracy I could have cut that time in half. I thought desperate operational need might justify circumventing more procedure - don’t get me wrong they’re prioritizing my request I was just hoping to skip a few more steps in the name of expediency.

Like when Jack Bauer needed to get to someone in the Chinese consulate near the end of Day 4. Palmer said “for them they’re moving very fast, but from our perspective not nearly fast enough”.

Oh well, compared to some of the end-of-the-world-scenarios I’ve dealt with before this isn’t that bad. My remaining team is fantastic and a couple of them have already stepped up to the plate to take some of the pressure off.

Hit the ground running, manage the chaos, find the hole in the crowd and blast through, find the eye of the storm and be decisive.

It’s like riding a bicycle really. Crisis management, I mean.

How else do you know you’re really alive if you don’t face serious challenges and push yourself every now and again?