Three Hundred Fifty Four Days, Seven Hours, and Twenty Two Minutes Till Spider-Man 3!
Wednesdays, I usually get to work around 3, and after changing my shirt and turing on the lights and fans, I get a glass from the bar for ice, and water, or pop, or whatever I may be drinking for the first seven or so hours of the night.
There are times, however, that I start the sauce, or even get to cutting the steaks before I think to get a drink. This happened to be one of those times. I just didn't have a sudden need for liquid refreshment until I was working for about fifteen minutes.
I wiped the blood from my hands, went out to the bar, grabbed and glass, and suddenly I couldn't see.
It took only a split second before my eyes adjusted and the emergenct lights clicked on.
All I did was pick up a glass! How on Earth did I break the lights?!
The twin 6 foot (maybe it's five... but they're long!) flourscent bulbs above the pasta-maker had been flickering for several days.
It seems toolman Timmy didn't fix something quite right. I guess a few fuses blew and it would be a while till someone, other than Timmy, could come and do something.
For the first several hours assorted lights and appliances would go off.
Other than the griddle, eveything we have is gas powered. Why would anyone want a fully electric kitchen?!
If the power is out for too long, though, the pilot in the stove goes out. I more-or-less figured out how to check that, and it stayed on.
The exhaust fans went out a few times. The pasta-maker is gas, but something about it has a wire... so the... firey... heatey thinies wouldn't stay on.
THe pilot never went out! That's always a plus. The pasta-maker has a bad habit and throwing people on their asses in a wave of flame when it's pilot goes out.
As the "fixing" progressed, wires and things began to heat up, and smell. So Timmy and the electrician had to swich things around, turn off certian breakers for short periods of time... At one point Timmy shut the power to the dumbwaiter off, then asked my to send him the step ladder down on the dumbwaiter...
Some pigs sat in the dark and ate...
Early Satruday morning, to make things even better, all of the East block Washington street had a power surge. Our neighbors lost computers, play stations, TVs, and who knows what else. I don't believe anything at Goo's broke, but whatever fixing that had been done around 3 am Thursday night/Friday morning, was undone. Wait... the air went out. There was nothing to cool the bar upstairs.
Louise told Donna she wanted everyone done and out by midnight.
Fat chance of that happening.
Different fixing people (the guys that handle our air and ice machine) were all ready downstairs and would be needing to shut assorted things off.
To further prevent things from going smoothly we had a bar-walk/crawl/young piglets just old enough to drink show up at about 11. They left quickly, and didn't break a lot of glasses this time. So of course Donna was more backed-up on slips than on a normal Saturday.
I left when I was done.
Mrs. B. had come back to work Saturday. For some reason Rhonda was trying to get Mrs. B worked up and to yell about assorted things. Mrs. B. had also been drinking and taking pain pills, so I'm curious to see how that turned out.
In other news, Green went to Ohio for a few days for some reason I didn't bother to ask about or remember, if he told me.
He's supposed to be back tonight, and in time for us to go to Paul's.
If he is, huzzah, and hopefully a good full night of RPing.
If he isn't, I'll watch a movie or something at home.
I should probably try to call him and find out...
So I'll leave you with an inordinately inordinate amount of filler, brought to you by Scott Paulsen and the English language!
anfractuous \an-FRAK-chuh-wus\ adjective
: full of windings and intricate turnings : tortuous
Example sentence:
"The film is finally sunk not by its anfractuous plot but by its weight of whimsy." (Nigel Andrews, Financial Times, March 30, 1984)
Did you know?
Plots and paths can be anfractuous. They twist and turn but do not break. Never mind that our English word comes from Latin "anfractus" (same meaning as "anfractuous"), which in turn comes from the Latin verb "frangere," meaning "to break." ("Frangere" is also the source of "fracture," "fraction," "fragment," and "frail.") The prefix "an-" here means "around" (from "ambi-"). At first, "anfractuous" was all about ears and the auditory canal's anfractuosity, that is, its being curved rather than straight. Now "anfractuous" has been around some 400 years, without a break, giving it plenty of time to wind its way into other applications; e.g., there can be an anfractuous thought process, or an anfractuous shoreline.
"Are you depressed? Fatigued? Do you have only two eyes? Ask your doctor for the little orange pill. Side effects may include excessive trust and loss of your common senses.
Much of my time is spent in a fantasy world. Perhaps that is why, deep down inside, I am a realist.
Being such, I generally do not believe in conspiracy theories. For instance, I've never bought into the notion that my government is hiding the mummified remains of a space alien and a crashed flying saucer in a hangar somewhere in no man's land. Likewise, I am convinced Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed President Kennedy (sorry, Dr. Wecht). I am definitely not in camp with the most recent of these crackpot ideas, the one by which Flight 93 was gunned down by U.S. fighter jets protecting the Capitol.
However, most recently I have begun to notice something a bit strange bubbling under surface of advertisements for pills. Everywhere I turn there is now an offer of a drug of some sort, available by asking my doctor, which will cure just about any disease or syndrome I could possibly have, even if I never knew it was an actual disease or syndrome before being informed as such by viewing the ad.
Allow me to explain.
It used to be that if your digestive system produced too much stomach acid and you burped, it might seem as though some of that acid splashed up into your throat. Some people called this “indigestion” or plain old “heartburn”. It was not a “disease”, a “syndrome” or even a lowly “condition”. It was heartburn. To relieve it, you took Tums or Rolaids or, if you were like my grandfather, dissolved a Bromo Seltzer tablet into a glass of water, later asking your grandchildren to pull your finger.
The leap from “burping” to “disease” happened when the pharmaceutical companies were attempting to perfect a drug to help heal stomach ulcers. The drug, omeprazol, was found to do a mediocre job of healing the ulcers, but did a bang up job cutting down on the stomach acid. The problem, of course, was that there were already hundreds of antacids on the drug market. Who needed another?
The answer? People whose stomach acid was so bad, they'd moved beyond having heartburn - people with a condition, a syndrome, or better yet, a disease.
And we shall call it “Acid Reflux Disease”!
Ask your doctor about Prilosec, the snappy marketing name for omeprazol.
It's my conspiratory belief that many of the newest so-called “diseases” are not diseases at all, but marketing strategies. Furthermore, I can easily picture a weekly meeting in the boardroom at Big Pill Inc., in which they discuss which drugs failed testing and what they can used them for now.
That latest cure for high blood pressure didn't work, but in clinical trials it was found to grow hair. That's no high blood pressure medicine. That's a pill that cures Premature Male Pattern Baldness Syndrome, a syndrome invented minutes after the blood pressure pill failed. Do you have it? Sure you do. Just watch TV. And that other high blood pressure medicine? It was also a failure, but it did increase the flow of blood to certain areas of a man's body. Let's not waste those pills! Let's invent Erectile Dysfunction and spend millions in advertising to convince healthy men they need help getting it up! Sometimes, it takes years for Big Pill, Inc. to find a suitable disease or syndrome to market their failed drugs towards.
My favorite of the latest diseases to sweep the country and keep us all up late into the night is “Restless Leg Syndrome”. The first line of the magazine ad clears it all up. “Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) is a recognized medical condition”, it states. It's “shared by nearly one in every ten adults”. Most people, claims the ad, experience it in the evening with symptoms like, “the compelling urge to move”, “disturbing sensations in the legs”, and “trouble falling asleep”.
Ask your doctor about Requip, the pharmaceutical name for which is ropinirole HCI. Ropinirol was developed to treat Parkinson's disease. Marketers at Big Pill, Inc., found that, taken in small doses, ropinirol will dull the nerve endings in your legs. It's not enough dulling to do damage, but it's perfect for people with restless legs at night who feel a compelling urge to move.
If only there was a disease with an easily marketed name.
Hmmm.
How deep into that board meeting were they when someone raised her hand and said, “How about Restless Leg Syndrome”?
I am not a conspiracy nut, but I am beginning to believe that diseases are not discovered, but are, more and more often, invented. It wouldn't surprise me if right at this moment, Big Pill, Inc., is trying to figure out what to do with a failed cure for Multiple Sclerosis that when you take it does nothing to help your nerve damage but does, oh by the way, sprout a third eye from your forehead.
Wait!
Let's not waste it!
I see a major problem in this country caused by…
Anyone?
Yes, Henderson?
“Two-Eye Syndrome, sir?”
Ask your doctor."
jitney \JIT-nee\ noun
*1 : bus; especially : a small bus that carries passengers over a regular route on a flexible schedule
2 : an unlicensed taxicab
Example sentence:
Guests at the seedy hotel could ride from its parking lot to the beach in a battered jitney that seated 15 comfortably, but that held 20 or more on most trips.
Did you know?
The original jitneys weren't worth a dime - just a nickel. In the early 1900s, "jitney" was slang for "nickel" (the origin of this use is unknown), but it wasn't long before the term was applied to a new mode of public transportation that only cost a nickel - at first, anyway. When they were introduced in American cities at the beginning of the century, vehicular jitneys could be any automobiles that carried passengers over a set route for a cheap fare, but eventually the term was applied specifically to small buses.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
"I git my Presidential appointment and - pow! - it's dahn to “Spies n' At”!
The President nominated a new director for the C.I.A., an Air Force General named Michael Hayden. About General Hayden, President Bush said, “He's supremely qualified… the best man for the job.”
Heads up, General. That's exactly what he said about the last guy he nominated for your job, eighteen months ago. Porter Goss was also “supremely qualified” and “the best man for the job”. Now he's extremely unemployed and the best man out of a job.
The differences between the old Director of Central Intelligence and the man who would be the new C.I.A. chief are many and obvious. First and foremost, Goss was a civilian and Hayden is a military man. But the most glaring aspect of their backgrounds is that Goss was not a yinzer.
The General?
Yinz better sit dahn, hon. He's from up the north side. Went to school dahn n'at North Catholic. Got his degree over ‘ere at Doo-kane.
Prepare yourself, Washington.
After the general passes inspection and become the new spy guy, the chatter on the super secret radio frequencies is going to change. “Jumbo! Jumbo! ‘Is here is Chip-Chop. Chip-Chop to Jumbo! Have yinz seen ‘at Gumband? Jumbo, this is Chip-Chop. Do you read me? Over!”
The Spy Who Come in to Go Bowl.
The fact that an Air Force General rose through the ranks of Washington elite to become one of the head guys over at the National Security Council without most of the city of Pittsburgh knowing he existed tells you everything you need to know about the qualifications of Michael Hayden. This guy is going to be a great C.I.A. leader. He don't know nuthin'. He don't don't tell nuthin'. And even if he is nebby, he don't run off at the mouth.
It's very exciting to have a local man, a success story, nominated to one of the highest posts in the country. I feel almost as good as I did the day Shirley Jones got the lead in the Partridge Family. But, be warned. Having a yinzer in D.C. changes things. Prepare yourself for a whole bunch of “I knew him when” stories as soon as the General steps in front of the Senate to face his inquisition. All the television news teams are scouring the north side from The Park House to The Recovery Room, looking for anyone who knew the general when.
“'Is one time? My girl got knocked up? He seen the two of us coming out of the free clinic and I thought, ‘Holy crap! Now everybody's gonna know'. But you know what? He didn't say nuthin' to nobody. I coulda told ya right den and nere dat dat guy was gonna be a James Bond one day. You could just tell.”
It's all quite surprising, frankly.
Where the General hails from, when someone mentions there's a problem with Iraq, the easy solution is to take it down to Stosh on East Street. “He's got a garage. Them IROCs are a pain in the butt to get parts for. Chevy shoulda never stopped makin' the Camaro. ‘At was a great freakin' car. Take it dahn to Stosh. Yer IROC problem? Solved!”
How ‘bout Iran?
“Well. I tell ya. My cousin Angela married this dude from down Blawnox and he was into that. He run every day. First thing in the morning, no cruller or nuthin'. I seen him oncst when we was all still hammered, sittin' in Primanti's in the strip. He come runnin' by ‘den. Chuckie says, ‘Hey, ain't that yer cousin's ol' man?' Sure enough, ‘dere he was, runnin' his ass off at seven in the mornin'. Two weeks later? He drop dead as doornail. Heart attack. I ain't ran since.”
One of the most important tasks the new C.I.A. head will face is cleaning the agency up after years of neglect and bad policy. The General, being a yinzer, will face this problem head on. On his first day on the job, he will issue a memo.
To: All Agents
From: General Mikey
Cheese and crackers. ‘Is place is a mess! Please redd up yer spaces and git yer crap together afore somebody goes ghost. An anudder ting. Yinz don't have to go turn on Bill Burns to know house come Ize all angry n'at. We got a bug onna rug. Shut yer yaps and quit ariin' yer dirty drawers in tahn. Jeez o man and Jiminy Christmas! Does Horne's tell Kaufmann's dere bidness? Redd up and nen git aht dere and git yer job done. Don't go by way of Altoona to do it, neither. Remember what happened to the last guy that dint do his job, that Porter Goss. He's now strictly mills on wills.
That is all. Next one to speak is a monkey fer a week.
Thank you, President Bush. Thank you for nominating a real person to an office that can make a difference. Thanks for putting a yinzer in power.
Oh, and by the way…
You may want to rethink that September 7 th date for the invasion of Iran. We just got some new top secret documents, holding specific information. That date? It's the Steelers home opener. If you want the C.I.A. involved, you'd better rethink.
Got me, Jumbo?
This is Chip-Chop.
Over."
scurrilous \SKUR-uh-lus\ adjective
1 a : using or given to coarse language b : vulgar and evil
*2 : containing obscenities, abuse, or slander
Example sentence:
I wondered why the man next to me kept making scurrilous remarks about the speaker under his breath.
Did you know?
"Scurrilous" (and its much rarer relation "scurrile," which has the same meaning) comes from Middle French "scurrile." The Middle French word, in turn, comes from the Latin "scurrilis," from "scurra," which means "buffoon" or "jester." Fittingly, 18th-century lexicographer Samuel Johnson defined "scurrilous" as "using such language as only the licence [sic] of a buffoon could warrant." Qualities traditionally associated with buffoonery - vulgarity, irreverence, and indecorousness - are qualities often invoked by the word "scurrilous." Unlike the words of a jester, however, "scurrilous" language of the present day more often intends to seriously harm or slander than to produce a few laughs.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
"For years, I thought “The Great” was Willie Mays' first name. I'd never heard him described as anything but “the great Willie Mays ”.
I've been waiting for my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, to win a ballgame so that I could talk a little baseball here in the old clubhouse. Sure enough, this week brought with it the second Tuesday of May, which meant it was time for one of the six monthly Pirates wins.
So let's talk baseball.
I became a baseball fan in the 1960's while listening to an AM radio on a screened-in porch in suburban Baltimore. My Mom was a big baseball fan and so, when Mothers Day rolls around I like to think back on those days when it was possible to win a home run title without any help from your pharmacist.
Or so we like to believe.
The facts, however, tell a different story. The drugs may have changed, but the cold hard truth is that the ballplayers I rooted for as a child, the men I imitated as a little leaguer were big cheats, too. They did drugs. They used performance enhancement. They cheated, just like the behemoths of today. If you need clarification, look no further than the man I hold up as the greatest baseball player that ever lived - Willie Mays.
There's never been a player who could do all the things Mays could do on the field as well as he. Willie was what is called a five-tool player - he could run, hit, throw, field and hit for power. He combined these five aspects like no other player had before or has since.
Mays was the best.
In addition to those five tools, Willie Mays also possessed an understanding that few who played during his twenty seasons had and even fewer have today. He understood that baseball is not a game or a contest, but a form of entertainment. People paid money to see Willie Mays because Willie Mays put on a show, every single game, every single night.
How?
In a recent interview with Bob Costas, the 75-year old Mays admits that with his speed and agility, there weren't many fly balls hit into the Giants outfield that he could not reach. Some days, however, he would pretend to slip, stumble, or misjudge a ball, just so that he could arrive at the nick of time. That way, the Hall of Famer said, he could put on a little show for the people.
So aware was Mays of the paying audience that he would wear a hat two sizes too small for his head. That way, each time he accelerated while chasing down one of those flies or rounding second and heading for third, his hat would fly off, seemingly because of his blazing speed. It was, claims Mays, a little show for the people.
He was, in his prime, the best baseball strategist to play the game. Because he had studied the tendencies of opposing pitchers and batters, he could position himself and other outfielders on the Giants perfectly, pitch to pitch. He was seldom fooled.
Did I say he “positioned” his teammates?
He did, or so he now claims. “I ran the field,” Mays told Costas. “I told the manager, ‘You run the bench. I'll run the field.”
So what am I to now think of my greatest ballplayer ever to play the game? Are these just the ramblings of an old man who wishes to magnify his own importance? Or was Willie Mays, my hero, just another of a breed of athlete I deplore - the showboating, uncoachable superstar? Why did I not realize as a child that Mays making basket catches was all just showing off? Why did I never know about his refusal to listen to his coaches, opting instead to run the team from the field?
Probably because I didn't read the sports pages.
Probably because I didn't have a subscription to three different sports magazines.
Probably because there was no ESPN.
Probably because I didn't care.
You see? When I was a kid, the only part of Willie Mays' life I was interested in was the part that happened between the base paths between the first and ninth inning. I didn't know anything about his personal life, his off-field drama or on-field arrogance. All those things, if they were reported at the time, flew by without a second glance from me.
I only wanted to know how to make an over-the-shoulder basket catch.
Some days, while watching baseball, I wish I could somehow reverse time and go back to when I knew so little about Mays, Aaron, Mantle and Clemente. I think when you hear old guys talk about how much they are disappointed in today's ballplayers and their strutting, juiced personas, that's what they're saying.
It's not the ballplayers that are different.
It's the fans.
Perhaps we know too much.
To give you some perspective about how similar yesterday's superstars are to today's millionaires, drink in what Willie Mays had to say when Bob Costas asked him about steroids. “If they had been available in your day,” Bob asked, “Would Willie Mays have taken steroids?”
Without pausing for thought, Mays said, adamantly, “Absolutely! I would have tried them. I tried everything that was out there to try to get an edge. Some worked. Others didn't. But we all tried. We wanted to win.”
And with that, Willie Mays changed from being the best five-tool player of all time to the best six-tool player of all time. To hitting, fielding, throwing, running and hitting for power you can add brutal honesty.
Say hey.
And pass the juice."
nugatory \NOO-guh-tor-ee\ adjective
*1 : of little or no consequence : trifling, inconsequential
2 : having no force : inoperative
Example sentence:
The team's heartbreaking loss in the first game of the championship series was rendered nugatory after they came back to win the next four.
Did you know?
"Nugatory," which first appeared in English in the 17th century, comes from the Latin adjective "nugatorius" and is ultimately a derivative of the noun "nugae," meaning "trifles." Like its synonyms "vain," "idle," "empty," and "hollow," "nugatory" means "without worth or significance." But while "nugatory" suggests triviality or insignificance ("a monarch with nugatory powers," for example), "vain" implies either absolute or relative absence of value (as in "vain promises"). "Idle" suggests being incapable of worthwhile use or effect (as in "idle speculations"). "Empty" and "hollow" suggest a deceiving lack of real substance or genuineness (as in "an empty attempt at reconciliation" or "a hollow victory").
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
"We'd like to move forward in the war on terror, but our sources tell us now is not a good time. Apparently, the Paulsens need milk and one of the chickens has gone missing.
It was revealed this week that our government's efforts to find al-Qaeda operatives in America include monitoring the phone calls of tens of millions of average citizens. According to a report published in the newspaper USA Today, three of the major phone companies in the U.S. have been supplying the National Security Agency since the attacks of September eleventh with the phone numbers of, well, just about everybody.
This apparent act is horrible, mainly because it prompted many politicians to speak.
One side claimed our rights as citizens were being trampled upon, likening the information search to the secret police busting down the door looking for little Anne Frank. The other side immediately grabbed the microphone and shouted from the podium something about being at war and how tapping some phone calls, in a time of war, is a needed and important weapon.
I'm not sure what the government will do with the information it is supposedly gleaning from my phone, but here's how I feel about it: more power to them if they can make heads of tails of my conversations and used it to defeat the enemy.
Whoever that enemy is this week.
Granted, I am different from most people. Because I whine nightly on one of America's great subversive broadcast mediums, most people within the sound of my yowl already know much more about me than they care to. They know my fears and needs, wants and fantasies. I've talked about personal things no one should have been allowed to know and having done so, have been reprimanded later by family, friends and strangers, promising to each of them I would never mention them by name again. I've gone on at length about my various gross and demeaning physical ailments and subsequent visits to crackpot doctors who prescribe even grosser and more demeaning cures and treatments. I've forcefully shared my views on any number of subjects including sex, religion, politics and who I'd rather sleep with - Dr. Ruth, the Pope or Jimmy Carter.
If you're keeping score at home, it's Westheimer, but only after a fifth of Jose Cuervo.
Night after night I've prattled on using 53,000 watts that cover portions of five states. Now, thanks to the world wide web, everybody knows my bidness. There are four bored souls in Nairobi who now know that once, when I was a kid, I was taken into to custody for shoplifting porn and, as an added bonus, my great fear comes not from terrorists but clowns.
And monkeys.
For me to pretend to get upset about the idea of government moles infiltrating my imagined privacy is not only lunatic, it's also pretty damned hypocritical. First, I'm pretty much an open book. Secondly, by the time most people (even extremely bored NSA fact-checkers) get to the fourth chapter of that open book, they'll be asleep, the book gently resting on their face until the combination of drooling and snoring wakes them.
“Quigley! Have you gotten that information from the Paulsen file?”
“Uh, I'm working on it, sir.”
“You're not sleeping in there, are you?”
“No, sir. (Yawn!) It's fascinating stuff.”
Because of the radio gig, I'm not your Joe Average. So what about Joe? The question most average people are asking about this whole NSA spying thing is, “How much freedom am I willing to surrender to help my country in its efforts to protect me?”
It's a good question.
But it's the wrong question.
There are no freedoms to surrender. Not anymore. Not today. Privacy went away the day someone decided we all needed to have a phone we could carry around and talk into, 24 hours a day.
Those same politicians who are jumping up and down this week in an effort to appear to be interested in their constituents, the ones who are crying out about “loss of freedoms” and “invasion of privacies” do not live in the same world you and I share. If they did, they would pretty quickly realize that few people have an interest in protecting their personal information anymore. Instead, they want to tell everyone in line at the grocery store “all about it”. They want to inform us of their radical terrorist activities while we're trying to watch a movie. They want the world to stop, no matter what's going on, so that they can answer the phone, wherever, whenever. They must welcome the NSA's butting into their conversations because they sure as Hell don't mind forcing them on me - whether I have a warrant or not.
The idea that any of the humans I encounter on a daily basis are upset about losing their freedom is quaint. These people are the new America, self-important fools who walk around, 24 hours a day, publicly chattering into cell phones while the rest of us look and listen.
Do you think they're upset that someone in the Pentagon knows their business?
Everybody who shared a place in the 12 items or less line last night at Giant Eagle with someone who was, I'm guessing, a friend of Charmayne's, already does. The way I see it, if the President can use the fact that Charmayne “doesn't like it” when “Joe Bob goes up the butt”, then I say, more power to ya, W.
Win that war.
Tap that phone.
Just don't try and go up the butt.
Charmayne don't like that."
kitsch \KITCH\ noun
*1 : something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality
2 : a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition
Example sentence:
On the route up the mountain, there is plenty of kitsch (from teepees to giant dinosaur replicas) to entice campers to visit the roadside shops.
Did you know?
"The fashionable clothing label...kicked off the revival last June..., putting its models in [Carmen] Miranda-inspired swimsuits and marching them through a gantlet of 50 tons of bananas," writes Mac Margolis in Newsweek International (January 2006) of a fabulously kitschy gala commemoration for the late Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda. Since we borrowed "kitsch" from German in the 1920s, it has been our word for things in the realm of popular culture that dangle, like car mirror dice, precariously close to tackiness. But although things that can be described with "kitsch" and the related adjective "kitschy" are clearly not fine art, they may appeal to certain tastes - some folks delight in velvet paintings, plastic flamingos, dashboard hula dancers, and Carmen Miranda revivals!
There are times, however, that I start the sauce, or even get to cutting the steaks before I think to get a drink. This happened to be one of those times. I just didn't have a sudden need for liquid refreshment until I was working for about fifteen minutes.
I wiped the blood from my hands, went out to the bar, grabbed and glass, and suddenly I couldn't see.
It took only a split second before my eyes adjusted and the emergenct lights clicked on.
All I did was pick up a glass! How on Earth did I break the lights?!
The twin 6 foot (maybe it's five... but they're long!) flourscent bulbs above the pasta-maker had been flickering for several days.
It seems toolman Timmy didn't fix something quite right. I guess a few fuses blew and it would be a while till someone, other than Timmy, could come and do something.
For the first several hours assorted lights and appliances would go off.
Other than the griddle, eveything we have is gas powered. Why would anyone want a fully electric kitchen?!
If the power is out for too long, though, the pilot in the stove goes out. I more-or-less figured out how to check that, and it stayed on.
The exhaust fans went out a few times. The pasta-maker is gas, but something about it has a wire... so the... firey... heatey thinies wouldn't stay on.
THe pilot never went out! That's always a plus. The pasta-maker has a bad habit and throwing people on their asses in a wave of flame when it's pilot goes out.
As the "fixing" progressed, wires and things began to heat up, and smell. So Timmy and the electrician had to swich things around, turn off certian breakers for short periods of time... At one point Timmy shut the power to the dumbwaiter off, then asked my to send him the step ladder down on the dumbwaiter...
Some pigs sat in the dark and ate...
Early Satruday morning, to make things even better, all of the East block Washington street had a power surge. Our neighbors lost computers, play stations, TVs, and who knows what else. I don't believe anything at Goo's broke, but whatever fixing that had been done around 3 am Thursday night/Friday morning, was undone. Wait... the air went out. There was nothing to cool the bar upstairs.
Louise told Donna she wanted everyone done and out by midnight.
Fat chance of that happening.
Different fixing people (the guys that handle our air and ice machine) were all ready downstairs and would be needing to shut assorted things off.
To further prevent things from going smoothly we had a bar-walk/crawl/young piglets just old enough to drink show up at about 11. They left quickly, and didn't break a lot of glasses this time. So of course Donna was more backed-up on slips than on a normal Saturday.
I left when I was done.
Mrs. B. had come back to work Saturday. For some reason Rhonda was trying to get Mrs. B worked up and to yell about assorted things. Mrs. B. had also been drinking and taking pain pills, so I'm curious to see how that turned out.
In other news, Green went to Ohio for a few days for some reason I didn't bother to ask about or remember, if he told me.
He's supposed to be back tonight, and in time for us to go to Paul's.
If he is, huzzah, and hopefully a good full night of RPing.
If he isn't, I'll watch a movie or something at home.
I should probably try to call him and find out...
So I'll leave you with an inordinately inordinate amount of filler, brought to you by Scott Paulsen and the English language!
anfractuous \an-FRAK-chuh-wus\ adjective
: full of windings and intricate turnings : tortuous
Example sentence:
"The film is finally sunk not by its anfractuous plot but by its weight of whimsy." (Nigel Andrews, Financial Times, March 30, 1984)
Did you know?
Plots and paths can be anfractuous. They twist and turn but do not break. Never mind that our English word comes from Latin "anfractus" (same meaning as "anfractuous"), which in turn comes from the Latin verb "frangere," meaning "to break." ("Frangere" is also the source of "fracture," "fraction," "fragment," and "frail.") The prefix "an-" here means "around" (from "ambi-"). At first, "anfractuous" was all about ears and the auditory canal's anfractuosity, that is, its being curved rather than straight. Now "anfractuous" has been around some 400 years, without a break, giving it plenty of time to wind its way into other applications; e.g., there can be an anfractuous thought process, or an anfractuous shoreline.
"Are you depressed? Fatigued? Do you have only two eyes? Ask your doctor for the little orange pill. Side effects may include excessive trust and loss of your common senses.
Much of my time is spent in a fantasy world. Perhaps that is why, deep down inside, I am a realist.
Being such, I generally do not believe in conspiracy theories. For instance, I've never bought into the notion that my government is hiding the mummified remains of a space alien and a crashed flying saucer in a hangar somewhere in no man's land. Likewise, I am convinced Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who killed President Kennedy (sorry, Dr. Wecht). I am definitely not in camp with the most recent of these crackpot ideas, the one by which Flight 93 was gunned down by U.S. fighter jets protecting the Capitol.
However, most recently I have begun to notice something a bit strange bubbling under surface of advertisements for pills. Everywhere I turn there is now an offer of a drug of some sort, available by asking my doctor, which will cure just about any disease or syndrome I could possibly have, even if I never knew it was an actual disease or syndrome before being informed as such by viewing the ad.
Allow me to explain.
It used to be that if your digestive system produced too much stomach acid and you burped, it might seem as though some of that acid splashed up into your throat. Some people called this “indigestion” or plain old “heartburn”. It was not a “disease”, a “syndrome” or even a lowly “condition”. It was heartburn. To relieve it, you took Tums or Rolaids or, if you were like my grandfather, dissolved a Bromo Seltzer tablet into a glass of water, later asking your grandchildren to pull your finger.
The leap from “burping” to “disease” happened when the pharmaceutical companies were attempting to perfect a drug to help heal stomach ulcers. The drug, omeprazol, was found to do a mediocre job of healing the ulcers, but did a bang up job cutting down on the stomach acid. The problem, of course, was that there were already hundreds of antacids on the drug market. Who needed another?
The answer? People whose stomach acid was so bad, they'd moved beyond having heartburn - people with a condition, a syndrome, or better yet, a disease.
And we shall call it “Acid Reflux Disease”!
Ask your doctor about Prilosec, the snappy marketing name for omeprazol.
It's my conspiratory belief that many of the newest so-called “diseases” are not diseases at all, but marketing strategies. Furthermore, I can easily picture a weekly meeting in the boardroom at Big Pill Inc., in which they discuss which drugs failed testing and what they can used them for now.
That latest cure for high blood pressure didn't work, but in clinical trials it was found to grow hair. That's no high blood pressure medicine. That's a pill that cures Premature Male Pattern Baldness Syndrome, a syndrome invented minutes after the blood pressure pill failed. Do you have it? Sure you do. Just watch TV. And that other high blood pressure medicine? It was also a failure, but it did increase the flow of blood to certain areas of a man's body. Let's not waste those pills! Let's invent Erectile Dysfunction and spend millions in advertising to convince healthy men they need help getting it up! Sometimes, it takes years for Big Pill, Inc. to find a suitable disease or syndrome to market their failed drugs towards.
My favorite of the latest diseases to sweep the country and keep us all up late into the night is “Restless Leg Syndrome”. The first line of the magazine ad clears it all up. “Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) is a recognized medical condition”, it states. It's “shared by nearly one in every ten adults”. Most people, claims the ad, experience it in the evening with symptoms like, “the compelling urge to move”, “disturbing sensations in the legs”, and “trouble falling asleep”.
Ask your doctor about Requip, the pharmaceutical name for which is ropinirole HCI. Ropinirol was developed to treat Parkinson's disease. Marketers at Big Pill, Inc., found that, taken in small doses, ropinirol will dull the nerve endings in your legs. It's not enough dulling to do damage, but it's perfect for people with restless legs at night who feel a compelling urge to move.
If only there was a disease with an easily marketed name.
Hmmm.
How deep into that board meeting were they when someone raised her hand and said, “How about Restless Leg Syndrome”?
I am not a conspiracy nut, but I am beginning to believe that diseases are not discovered, but are, more and more often, invented. It wouldn't surprise me if right at this moment, Big Pill, Inc., is trying to figure out what to do with a failed cure for Multiple Sclerosis that when you take it does nothing to help your nerve damage but does, oh by the way, sprout a third eye from your forehead.
Wait!
Let's not waste it!
I see a major problem in this country caused by…
Anyone?
Yes, Henderson?
“Two-Eye Syndrome, sir?”
Ask your doctor."
jitney \JIT-nee\ noun
*1 : bus; especially : a small bus that carries passengers over a regular route on a flexible schedule
2 : an unlicensed taxicab
Example sentence:
Guests at the seedy hotel could ride from its parking lot to the beach in a battered jitney that seated 15 comfortably, but that held 20 or more on most trips.
Did you know?
The original jitneys weren't worth a dime - just a nickel. In the early 1900s, "jitney" was slang for "nickel" (the origin of this use is unknown), but it wasn't long before the term was applied to a new mode of public transportation that only cost a nickel - at first, anyway. When they were introduced in American cities at the beginning of the century, vehicular jitneys could be any automobiles that carried passengers over a set route for a cheap fare, but eventually the term was applied specifically to small buses.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
"I git my Presidential appointment and - pow! - it's dahn to “Spies n' At”!
The President nominated a new director for the C.I.A., an Air Force General named Michael Hayden. About General Hayden, President Bush said, “He's supremely qualified… the best man for the job.”
Heads up, General. That's exactly what he said about the last guy he nominated for your job, eighteen months ago. Porter Goss was also “supremely qualified” and “the best man for the job”. Now he's extremely unemployed and the best man out of a job.
The differences between the old Director of Central Intelligence and the man who would be the new C.I.A. chief are many and obvious. First and foremost, Goss was a civilian and Hayden is a military man. But the most glaring aspect of their backgrounds is that Goss was not a yinzer.
The General?
Yinz better sit dahn, hon. He's from up the north side. Went to school dahn n'at North Catholic. Got his degree over ‘ere at Doo-kane.
Prepare yourself, Washington.
After the general passes inspection and become the new spy guy, the chatter on the super secret radio frequencies is going to change. “Jumbo! Jumbo! ‘Is here is Chip-Chop. Chip-Chop to Jumbo! Have yinz seen ‘at Gumband? Jumbo, this is Chip-Chop. Do you read me? Over!”
The Spy Who Come in to Go Bowl.
The fact that an Air Force General rose through the ranks of Washington elite to become one of the head guys over at the National Security Council without most of the city of Pittsburgh knowing he existed tells you everything you need to know about the qualifications of Michael Hayden. This guy is going to be a great C.I.A. leader. He don't know nuthin'. He don't don't tell nuthin'. And even if he is nebby, he don't run off at the mouth.
It's very exciting to have a local man, a success story, nominated to one of the highest posts in the country. I feel almost as good as I did the day Shirley Jones got the lead in the Partridge Family. But, be warned. Having a yinzer in D.C. changes things. Prepare yourself for a whole bunch of “I knew him when” stories as soon as the General steps in front of the Senate to face his inquisition. All the television news teams are scouring the north side from The Park House to The Recovery Room, looking for anyone who knew the general when.
“'Is one time? My girl got knocked up? He seen the two of us coming out of the free clinic and I thought, ‘Holy crap! Now everybody's gonna know'. But you know what? He didn't say nuthin' to nobody. I coulda told ya right den and nere dat dat guy was gonna be a James Bond one day. You could just tell.”
It's all quite surprising, frankly.
Where the General hails from, when someone mentions there's a problem with Iraq, the easy solution is to take it down to Stosh on East Street. “He's got a garage. Them IROCs are a pain in the butt to get parts for. Chevy shoulda never stopped makin' the Camaro. ‘At was a great freakin' car. Take it dahn to Stosh. Yer IROC problem? Solved!”
How ‘bout Iran?
“Well. I tell ya. My cousin Angela married this dude from down Blawnox and he was into that. He run every day. First thing in the morning, no cruller or nuthin'. I seen him oncst when we was all still hammered, sittin' in Primanti's in the strip. He come runnin' by ‘den. Chuckie says, ‘Hey, ain't that yer cousin's ol' man?' Sure enough, ‘dere he was, runnin' his ass off at seven in the mornin'. Two weeks later? He drop dead as doornail. Heart attack. I ain't ran since.”
One of the most important tasks the new C.I.A. head will face is cleaning the agency up after years of neglect and bad policy. The General, being a yinzer, will face this problem head on. On his first day on the job, he will issue a memo.
To: All Agents
From: General Mikey
Cheese and crackers. ‘Is place is a mess! Please redd up yer spaces and git yer crap together afore somebody goes ghost. An anudder ting. Yinz don't have to go turn on Bill Burns to know house come Ize all angry n'at. We got a bug onna rug. Shut yer yaps and quit ariin' yer dirty drawers in tahn. Jeez o man and Jiminy Christmas! Does Horne's tell Kaufmann's dere bidness? Redd up and nen git aht dere and git yer job done. Don't go by way of Altoona to do it, neither. Remember what happened to the last guy that dint do his job, that Porter Goss. He's now strictly mills on wills.
That is all. Next one to speak is a monkey fer a week.
Thank you, President Bush. Thank you for nominating a real person to an office that can make a difference. Thanks for putting a yinzer in power.
Oh, and by the way…
You may want to rethink that September 7 th date for the invasion of Iran. We just got some new top secret documents, holding specific information. That date? It's the Steelers home opener. If you want the C.I.A. involved, you'd better rethink.
Got me, Jumbo?
This is Chip-Chop.
Over."
scurrilous \SKUR-uh-lus\ adjective
1 a : using or given to coarse language b : vulgar and evil
*2 : containing obscenities, abuse, or slander
Example sentence:
I wondered why the man next to me kept making scurrilous remarks about the speaker under his breath.
Did you know?
"Scurrilous" (and its much rarer relation "scurrile," which has the same meaning) comes from Middle French "scurrile." The Middle French word, in turn, comes from the Latin "scurrilis," from "scurra," which means "buffoon" or "jester." Fittingly, 18th-century lexicographer Samuel Johnson defined "scurrilous" as "using such language as only the licence [sic] of a buffoon could warrant." Qualities traditionally associated with buffoonery - vulgarity, irreverence, and indecorousness - are qualities often invoked by the word "scurrilous." Unlike the words of a jester, however, "scurrilous" language of the present day more often intends to seriously harm or slander than to produce a few laughs.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
"For years, I thought “The Great” was Willie Mays' first name. I'd never heard him described as anything but “the great Willie Mays ”.
I've been waiting for my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, to win a ballgame so that I could talk a little baseball here in the old clubhouse. Sure enough, this week brought with it the second Tuesday of May, which meant it was time for one of the six monthly Pirates wins.
So let's talk baseball.
I became a baseball fan in the 1960's while listening to an AM radio on a screened-in porch in suburban Baltimore. My Mom was a big baseball fan and so, when Mothers Day rolls around I like to think back on those days when it was possible to win a home run title without any help from your pharmacist.
Or so we like to believe.
The facts, however, tell a different story. The drugs may have changed, but the cold hard truth is that the ballplayers I rooted for as a child, the men I imitated as a little leaguer were big cheats, too. They did drugs. They used performance enhancement. They cheated, just like the behemoths of today. If you need clarification, look no further than the man I hold up as the greatest baseball player that ever lived - Willie Mays.
There's never been a player who could do all the things Mays could do on the field as well as he. Willie was what is called a five-tool player - he could run, hit, throw, field and hit for power. He combined these five aspects like no other player had before or has since.
Mays was the best.
In addition to those five tools, Willie Mays also possessed an understanding that few who played during his twenty seasons had and even fewer have today. He understood that baseball is not a game or a contest, but a form of entertainment. People paid money to see Willie Mays because Willie Mays put on a show, every single game, every single night.
How?
In a recent interview with Bob Costas, the 75-year old Mays admits that with his speed and agility, there weren't many fly balls hit into the Giants outfield that he could not reach. Some days, however, he would pretend to slip, stumble, or misjudge a ball, just so that he could arrive at the nick of time. That way, the Hall of Famer said, he could put on a little show for the people.
So aware was Mays of the paying audience that he would wear a hat two sizes too small for his head. That way, each time he accelerated while chasing down one of those flies or rounding second and heading for third, his hat would fly off, seemingly because of his blazing speed. It was, claims Mays, a little show for the people.
He was, in his prime, the best baseball strategist to play the game. Because he had studied the tendencies of opposing pitchers and batters, he could position himself and other outfielders on the Giants perfectly, pitch to pitch. He was seldom fooled.
Did I say he “positioned” his teammates?
He did, or so he now claims. “I ran the field,” Mays told Costas. “I told the manager, ‘You run the bench. I'll run the field.”
So what am I to now think of my greatest ballplayer ever to play the game? Are these just the ramblings of an old man who wishes to magnify his own importance? Or was Willie Mays, my hero, just another of a breed of athlete I deplore - the showboating, uncoachable superstar? Why did I not realize as a child that Mays making basket catches was all just showing off? Why did I never know about his refusal to listen to his coaches, opting instead to run the team from the field?
Probably because I didn't read the sports pages.
Probably because I didn't have a subscription to three different sports magazines.
Probably because there was no ESPN.
Probably because I didn't care.
You see? When I was a kid, the only part of Willie Mays' life I was interested in was the part that happened between the base paths between the first and ninth inning. I didn't know anything about his personal life, his off-field drama or on-field arrogance. All those things, if they were reported at the time, flew by without a second glance from me.
I only wanted to know how to make an over-the-shoulder basket catch.
Some days, while watching baseball, I wish I could somehow reverse time and go back to when I knew so little about Mays, Aaron, Mantle and Clemente. I think when you hear old guys talk about how much they are disappointed in today's ballplayers and their strutting, juiced personas, that's what they're saying.
It's not the ballplayers that are different.
It's the fans.
Perhaps we know too much.
To give you some perspective about how similar yesterday's superstars are to today's millionaires, drink in what Willie Mays had to say when Bob Costas asked him about steroids. “If they had been available in your day,” Bob asked, “Would Willie Mays have taken steroids?”
Without pausing for thought, Mays said, adamantly, “Absolutely! I would have tried them. I tried everything that was out there to try to get an edge. Some worked. Others didn't. But we all tried. We wanted to win.”
And with that, Willie Mays changed from being the best five-tool player of all time to the best six-tool player of all time. To hitting, fielding, throwing, running and hitting for power you can add brutal honesty.
Say hey.
And pass the juice."
nugatory \NOO-guh-tor-ee\ adjective
*1 : of little or no consequence : trifling, inconsequential
2 : having no force : inoperative
Example sentence:
The team's heartbreaking loss in the first game of the championship series was rendered nugatory after they came back to win the next four.
Did you know?
"Nugatory," which first appeared in English in the 17th century, comes from the Latin adjective "nugatorius" and is ultimately a derivative of the noun "nugae," meaning "trifles." Like its synonyms "vain," "idle," "empty," and "hollow," "nugatory" means "without worth or significance." But while "nugatory" suggests triviality or insignificance ("a monarch with nugatory powers," for example), "vain" implies either absolute or relative absence of value (as in "vain promises"). "Idle" suggests being incapable of worthwhile use or effect (as in "idle speculations"). "Empty" and "hollow" suggest a deceiving lack of real substance or genuineness (as in "an empty attempt at reconciliation" or "a hollow victory").
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
"We'd like to move forward in the war on terror, but our sources tell us now is not a good time. Apparently, the Paulsens need milk and one of the chickens has gone missing.
It was revealed this week that our government's efforts to find al-Qaeda operatives in America include monitoring the phone calls of tens of millions of average citizens. According to a report published in the newspaper USA Today, three of the major phone companies in the U.S. have been supplying the National Security Agency since the attacks of September eleventh with the phone numbers of, well, just about everybody.
This apparent act is horrible, mainly because it prompted many politicians to speak.
One side claimed our rights as citizens were being trampled upon, likening the information search to the secret police busting down the door looking for little Anne Frank. The other side immediately grabbed the microphone and shouted from the podium something about being at war and how tapping some phone calls, in a time of war, is a needed and important weapon.
I'm not sure what the government will do with the information it is supposedly gleaning from my phone, but here's how I feel about it: more power to them if they can make heads of tails of my conversations and used it to defeat the enemy.
Whoever that enemy is this week.
Granted, I am different from most people. Because I whine nightly on one of America's great subversive broadcast mediums, most people within the sound of my yowl already know much more about me than they care to. They know my fears and needs, wants and fantasies. I've talked about personal things no one should have been allowed to know and having done so, have been reprimanded later by family, friends and strangers, promising to each of them I would never mention them by name again. I've gone on at length about my various gross and demeaning physical ailments and subsequent visits to crackpot doctors who prescribe even grosser and more demeaning cures and treatments. I've forcefully shared my views on any number of subjects including sex, religion, politics and who I'd rather sleep with - Dr. Ruth, the Pope or Jimmy Carter.
If you're keeping score at home, it's Westheimer, but only after a fifth of Jose Cuervo.
Night after night I've prattled on using 53,000 watts that cover portions of five states. Now, thanks to the world wide web, everybody knows my bidness. There are four bored souls in Nairobi who now know that once, when I was a kid, I was taken into to custody for shoplifting porn and, as an added bonus, my great fear comes not from terrorists but clowns.
And monkeys.
For me to pretend to get upset about the idea of government moles infiltrating my imagined privacy is not only lunatic, it's also pretty damned hypocritical. First, I'm pretty much an open book. Secondly, by the time most people (even extremely bored NSA fact-checkers) get to the fourth chapter of that open book, they'll be asleep, the book gently resting on their face until the combination of drooling and snoring wakes them.
“Quigley! Have you gotten that information from the Paulsen file?”
“Uh, I'm working on it, sir.”
“You're not sleeping in there, are you?”
“No, sir. (Yawn!) It's fascinating stuff.”
Because of the radio gig, I'm not your Joe Average. So what about Joe? The question most average people are asking about this whole NSA spying thing is, “How much freedom am I willing to surrender to help my country in its efforts to protect me?”
It's a good question.
But it's the wrong question.
There are no freedoms to surrender. Not anymore. Not today. Privacy went away the day someone decided we all needed to have a phone we could carry around and talk into, 24 hours a day.
Those same politicians who are jumping up and down this week in an effort to appear to be interested in their constituents, the ones who are crying out about “loss of freedoms” and “invasion of privacies” do not live in the same world you and I share. If they did, they would pretty quickly realize that few people have an interest in protecting their personal information anymore. Instead, they want to tell everyone in line at the grocery store “all about it”. They want to inform us of their radical terrorist activities while we're trying to watch a movie. They want the world to stop, no matter what's going on, so that they can answer the phone, wherever, whenever. They must welcome the NSA's butting into their conversations because they sure as Hell don't mind forcing them on me - whether I have a warrant or not.
The idea that any of the humans I encounter on a daily basis are upset about losing their freedom is quaint. These people are the new America, self-important fools who walk around, 24 hours a day, publicly chattering into cell phones while the rest of us look and listen.
Do you think they're upset that someone in the Pentagon knows their business?
Everybody who shared a place in the 12 items or less line last night at Giant Eagle with someone who was, I'm guessing, a friend of Charmayne's, already does. The way I see it, if the President can use the fact that Charmayne “doesn't like it” when “Joe Bob goes up the butt”, then I say, more power to ya, W.
Win that war.
Tap that phone.
Just don't try and go up the butt.
Charmayne don't like that."
kitsch \KITCH\ noun
*1 : something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality
2 : a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition
Example sentence:
On the route up the mountain, there is plenty of kitsch (from teepees to giant dinosaur replicas) to entice campers to visit the roadside shops.
Did you know?
"The fashionable clothing label...kicked off the revival last June..., putting its models in [Carmen] Miranda-inspired swimsuits and marching them through a gantlet of 50 tons of bananas," writes Mac Margolis in Newsweek International (January 2006) of a fabulously kitschy gala commemoration for the late Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda. Since we borrowed "kitsch" from German in the 1920s, it has been our word for things in the realm of popular culture that dangle, like car mirror dice, precariously close to tackiness. But although things that can be described with "kitsch" and the related adjective "kitschy" are clearly not fine art, they may appeal to certain tastes - some folks delight in velvet paintings, plastic flamingos, dashboard hula dancers, and Carmen Miranda revivals!