fork in the road

It's still raining.

One of the more under appreciated albums of the last decade is Pearl Jam's "Versus." I have long been an advocate that Ten is better than Nirvana's Nevermind, and the Pearl Jam is a better band, and that the only reason they are not recognuzed as such is that Eddie Vedder & crew had the balls to move forward and try to make things better rather than suck on the end of a shotgun.

Along those same lines, do you ever wonder what Marylin Monroe would be if she were still alive? Elizabeth Taylor was one hot mama back in the day, and look what happened to her. Would Marylin have turned out like Liz?

aint no sunshine

It started raining last Thursday I think. Today has been the least grey since then:

It is supposed to be rainy from now until Saturday.

Bill Withers is the man:

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
It's not warm when she's away
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
and she's always gone too long
Anytime she goes away

Wonder this time where she's gone
Wonder if she's gonna stay
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
and this house just ain't no home
anytime she goes away

And I know, I know...

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
Only darkness everyday
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
and this house just ain't no home
anytime she goes away

today's Boondocks

(click to enlarge)

couldn't have said it better myself...

the towel

When do you scrap your day as useless and wasted and just throw it in?

Really, any day that you think has been wasted has indeed been wasted, because not only have you failed to get anything done, but you failed to relax and enjoy time off. It's almost 10 and I still haven't accepted the fact that I am not going to do any school work whatsoever today. I don't have to get anything done, so putting it off isn't the end of the world. Sometimes, I'm just too tired to work. Not sleepy, but tired in the head and tired emotionally.

But who wants to read blogs about people just bitching about their life? I don't.

Something I haven't written about thus far is my enigmatic addiction to super geek tv. I try to limit the shows that I get into to one, and since I started school last year that one has been Battlestar Galactica. It comes on at 10pm on fridays, which unfortunately is generally an ideal time for me to take a study break.

They're showing reruns of the second season right now, but that is just as well since I didn't watch over the summer (I'm not THAT much of a loser). In the episode this friday, one of the characters (Starbuck, who is a woman in the new series) returned to her war torn home planet and went way out of her way to go by her old apartment. Once there, she popped in an old tape, lit a cigar, and sat back and listened to what I have now identified as Philip Glass' Metamorphosis 1 from his 1989 album "Solo Piano."

This is one of those shows that really works if you let yourself believe. If you don't, then it is just a dorky Sci-Fi show that comes on at a time when no reasonable person would be home. But if you do, the characters are engaging and complex and the story line has meaning that you can sink you teeth into and should give you something to think about in life. The contrast of this song with the chaos & pain that is going on rivals Goodfellas' use of Layla as the one of the best theatrical uses of music of all time.

At the time of this post, you can download the song here - apparently it is public domain piece.

So, in the episode while this song is playing, Starbuck comments that "Everyone else is fighting to get back what once was theirs. I'm fighting because it's the only thing I know how to do."

update: refund aproved

I just got off the phone with US AIR. Well, mostly I was on the phone with "hold," but you know how it goes. You may remember that my friends & I had a big trip planned to see the Panthers play the Saints in New Orleans. Needless to say, the trip is canceled and a couple of weeks ago I tried to get my $225 dollars back from USAIR. They balked and said I had a non-refundable ticket.

The short version is that I just invested 40 mins on the phone and they agreed to refund my ticket. The long version is that I had to ask for supervisor, who never actually got on the phone, and when they finally refunded my money it was because there had been a schedule change - not because for all they know half of my 14 family members are living in the Astrodome and the other half have yet to be located. To be clear, I don't have any family down there and my family is safe in their respective locations, but US Air didn't seem to give a shit either way.

I am considering taking $20 of the refund & spending it on one of the NFL's "Be A Saint" T-shirts, but I'm not sure about wearing enemy colors. Of course - it is for a good cause and would be a nice way to show support for the city when we finally do get to New Orleans for that football weekend. (assuming they don't move the team)

money for nothin

Evacuee hits $1.6M jackpot

Lena Anderson
Louisiana Gannett News

OPELOUSAS - The "Wheel of Fortune" finally turned the right way for New Orleans evacuee Jacquelyn Sherman.

On Tuesday, at Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino, she was playing a slot machine patterned after the popular game when she hit the jackpot.

Her winnings: $1.6 million before taxes.

"When it happened, I didn't know what was going on," Sherman said. "I had just put in my $20 in the "Wheel of Fortune" machine when it hit. My feeling about this win is better than being blessed. Thank you, Lord."...

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Now, I obviously don't know what this poor woman has been through in the last 5 weeks or however long it has been since the huricane, although I have done what I think is my fair share of doing what I can - and I have tried to spread the word about Operation Eden so that people will realize and remember that the rebuilding process is not just a long one, but in some places it really hasn't even begun.

That being said - I can't believe this woman was playing friggin slots - and not just slots, but $20 slots. Like I said, I don't know anything about this woman other than what it says below, but if she has gotten any money from FEMA or charities that actually help people, she should have to pay it back. That money is for food & diapers & rent - not playing $20 slots.

If she wants to go and blow of some steam and forget her troubles for a while, I understand - but there are nickle slots (I think) and quarter slots. Do you know how many times you can LOSE at quarter slots before you run out of $20? Right - 80! That means, if you drop one quarter every 45 seconds, without leting up until you are broke, you will have gotten one full hour of entertainment.

And I haven't gotten into the whole blasphemy issue. I don't love Jesus or anything, but isn't it odd that this woman thinks winning money is better than being blessed by the almighty?

Hopefully we will get a follow up story like "Evacuee donates half of winnings to huricane relief efforts."

---------------------------------------------------

... Sherman's road to becoming a millionaire started when Hurricane Katrina threatened New Orleans, leading her to evacuate to her sister's home in Opelousas.

It so happened that by Tuesday, after more than a month of living with dozens of displaced family members with no real signs of hope on the horizon, Sherman spoke that morning with her niece, Jamie Sherman, about being depressed.

Together, they prayed.

"I told my aunt that God works in mysterious ways and that I had prayed that something good would happen for the whole family to be happy," Jamie Sherman said.

That "something good" and more would come later that night when Jacquelyn Sherman and her sister Clarissa Sherman decided to take some time out for entertainment and pay a visit to Evangeline Downs Racetrack & Casino. Before she knew what hit her, Jacquelyn Sherman went from having practically nothing to being a millionaire.

"I have to get an attorney and make some decisions about my future," she said Wednesday at a news conference at the racetrack. "It hasn't all sunk in right now. I'm tired. We were up very late last night and back here very early. I plan to go home right now and rest, take a nap. I have so many thoughts going through my mind about what to do and how to do it."

Jacquelyn Sherman's win is the single largest jackpot won since the casino's opening.

they drove olde' Dixie down

The Black Crowes played at the 930 Club this week this week and I could have gone but didn't. OK - so I'm a moran. They encored the first night with the Night They Drove Olde Dixie Down, by The Band.

Perhaps that was in honor of the controvercy going on in Utah. Or maybe it was just because they knew that I love the song, love the South, and foolishly passed on a great opprotunity to see the Crowes for the first time.

It's pretty crazy that a guy from Canadia wrote this song:

Virgil Caine is the name and I served on the Danville train
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of sixty-five
We were hungry just barely alive
By May tenth Richmond had fell
It was a time I remember oh so well

Chorus
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing, they went
La la la la la la, la la la la la la la la, la

Like my father before me I will work the land

And like my brother above me who took a rebel stand
He was just eighteen, proud and brave
When a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Cain back up when he's in defeat

[chorus]

Back with my wife in Tennessee when one day she called to me
Virgil, quick come see, there goes Robert E Lee
Now I don't mind choppin' wood
And I don't care if the money's no good
You take what you need and you keep the rest
But they should never have taken the very best

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing, they went
La la la la la la, la la la la la la la la, la

Feelin' Blue?

Have you lost purpose in your life? Do you feel unsatisfied in a deeper way? Ask yourself...What Would Miers Do?

In Midcareer, a Turn to Faith to Fill a Void

By EDWARD WYATT and SIMON ROMERO

DALLAS, Oct. 4 - By 1979, Harriet E. Miers, then in her mid-30's, had accomplished what some people take a lifetime to achieve. She was a partner at Locke Purnell Boren Laney & Neely, one of the most prestigious law firms in the South, with an office on the 35th floor of the Republic National Bank Tower in downtown Dallas.

But she still felt something was missing in her life, and it was after a series of long discussions - rambling conversations about family and religion and other matters that typically stretched from early evening into the night - with Nathan L. Hecht, a junior colleague at the law firm, that she made a decision that many of the people around her say changed her life.

"She decided that she wanted faith to be a bigger part of her life," Justice Hecht, who now serves on the Texas Supreme Court, said in an interview. "One evening she called me to her office and said she was ready to make a commitment" to accept Jesus Christ as her savior and be born again, he said. He walked down the hallway from his office to hers, and there amid the legal briefs and court papers, Ms. Miers and Justice Hecht "prayed and talked," he said.

She was baptized not long after that, at the Valley View Christian Church.

read the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/05/politics/politicsspecial1/05miers.html?th&emc=th

that smell

On the way to school - really on the way anywhere - I have to go through an intersection and inevitably sit at a light that has a McDonalds on the left & Long John Silvers on the right. The smell is enough to make me puke.

Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars
Oak tree you're in my way
There's too much coke and too much smoke
Look what's going on inside you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Angel of darkness is upon you
Stuck a needle in your arm
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose
One more drink fool, will drown you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Now they call you Prince Charming
Can't speak a word when you're full of 'ludes
Say you'll be all right come tomorrow
But tomorrow might not be here for you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

Hey, you're a fool you
Stick them needles in your arm
I know I been there before

One little problem that confronts you
Got a monkey on your back
Just one more fix, Lord might do the trick
One hell of a price for you to get your kicks
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you
Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you

secret password

You know how on password protected sites they always give you a secret question incase you forget your password? Usually they make you chose one of their questions like "mother's maiden name" or "first pet name" or "highschool" or whatever. Well, my undergraduate institution lets you make your own question and at some time in the indeterminate past I made my question "where."

That's it - that's the whole question. I don't know where. I tried "nowhere" and "there" but neither worked. I'll let you know how this turns out for me, but the moral of the story is don't be dumb like me.