Idiot Me

So I totally forgot to bring a lunch-sized portion from my goddamn mammoth fucking pot of chili today.

What I Did Today

I tell you what: I've got one goddamn giant fucking pot of chili on the stove right now.

I was going to amuse you all today with a posting about how bald people are being stereotyped as evil in this season of 24, but instead I made this goddamn big fucking pot of chili.

I was also going to work on one of the writing projects I've got going in perpetuity, but nope: I made a goddamn gigantic fucking pot of chili.

I was also going to take a big chunk out of the novel I'm currently reading and maybe get started on the relatively new Mao biography, but instead I gots me a goddamn enormous fucking pot of chili on the stove.

If you think I'm not going to enjoy my goddamn massive fucking pot of chili this week you are sorely mistaken. It's a goddamn large fucking pot of chili, and it's going to be goddamn bloody fucking delicious.

Arctic Air From Canada

No, that's not a metaphor. I'm talking literally about the Arctic air coming from Canada.

Beginning tonight, New York's finally gonna get cold. I don't mean, "normal highs around 34-degrees," as they like to say on NY1's Weather on the 1's. I'm talking about high temperatures that may not get out of the teens.

I like it. Obviously, if we had ten days of deep freeze in a row, I'd probably get tired of it. But cold weather that cold makes you feel alive. At least until you freeze to death.

Plus, I like impressing the masses by demonstrating how (while walking the Brooklyn Bridge) I can work up a sweat in any weather. My bald head steams like an Icelandic hot springs, and it makes people happy.

Let's hear it for the cold!

No Fucking Way!

Hillary Clinton is running for president! Out of nowhere! I didn't see it coming! No one could've predicted it! Blind-sided! Shocking!

Official Shitbird - Bob Ney

That'll be 30 months, Bob.

The first of the Abramoff trials has come to an end, and former congressman Bob Ney will be the inaugural Shitbird. His decision to check into rehab didn't cut his sentence to nothing. In fact, the judge, in her infinite wisdom, gave Ney a tougher sentence than the justice department asked for.

What gives, DoJ? You're not famous for your leniency. Why be so nice to Shitbird Ney and request the minimum sentence?

Ney, for his part, hasn't stopped blaming his "demons of addiction" and implied that it was because of the drinking that he made such enormous mistakes.

Excuse me, Shitbird Ney. Back in college, I did some stupid shit while drunk. And all the drink did was allow me to know that I had an excuse for my stupid actions. So sell your "the drink made me do it" elsewhere. I'm not buying. I did stupid shit and I'm completely responsible for being stupid.

Thirty months in prison. Forever a shitbird.

And My Civil Liberties Were Gone Before Lunch

I had occasion to be out and about yesterday morning, and between my commute and two meetings, I saw three men that I mistook for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.

The man haunts me.

24 - The First Four Episodes

There are spoilers in this post, dear B&E readers. If you watch 24, but have not yet seen the first four episodes of this, Jack's sixth terrible day, I advise you to skip over this post.

What I like about this season so far:

- Milo's back.
- Two men are hot after Chloe.
- Assad is a badass. In fact, add a "B" and mix up the letters and his name is Badass.
- The producers aren't afraid to nuke LA.
- Torture now bothers Jack.
- Shooting a man now makes Jack vomit.
- Actually, Jack's sort of a pussy. Of course it's all relative. Even as a pussy he killed a man while cuffed by biting his jugular.

What I don't like about this season so far:

- Milo's not as interesting as he was in season one.
- After he went to White Castle, Kumar became a terrorist.
- Wayne Palmer is a terrible president.
- Wayne Palmer would've been unelectable in the first place.
- The dude doesn't speak Arabic, but he understands "five visitors"? In how many languages do YOU know "five visitors"?
- The argument made for the necessity of torture is a little too convincing.

And a comment about the death of Curtis at Jack's hand(gun)... Anyone who's seen the show knows that Curtis' time was up. Curtis was too black, too handsome, too bald, too proud. He had already lasted longer than any other black, handsome, bald, proud cast member. President Wayne Palmer might make it through this season, but don't expect survival much beyond.

All About Me and You

I've spent much of my spare time since the holiday known by Christians as Christmas doing two things:

The first is filling my iPod. This is time-consuming because my iPod is considerably larger than my computer (in terms of memory, not physical size). So I load a CD, transfer it onto my iPod, then erase it from my computer again. There's probably an easier and quicker way, but since I don't know what it is, this is how I'm doing it.

The other has been the retooling of B&E, which I mentioned in a previous post. Blogger is no longer in beta and can do things it couldn't before. So I've now labeled most of my previous 750+ posts with headings. Hilary, for example, has been wanting to read just my baseball writings for years. Now she can. In fact, if she wants to relive the play-by-play of my Mets live-blog during the playoffs, she can click on "Mets." Or if she wants to read all my non-Mets baseball writings, including my own baseball-playing adventures in Vermont, she can check out the entries labeled "baseball." Hilary will never be without my baseball writings again.

There are still some problems, though, I must admit. The archives, for example, don't seem to link to the archives. This is a problem.

I've also added a few links. Under "Bald Links" you'll notice two old links renamed. And I've added Frank Dodge and Ali. I've never met Frank in person, but I'm assuming he's bald. If he's not, he has my apologies, and I will alter the location of his link sometime in 2009, when I get around to it. The other bald link is Ali. I went to high school with Ali, and for reasons I can't quite recall, we used to tease her about going bald. She wasn't remotely going bald. But I wanted to even out my list of bald links, so for our purposes, Ali is once again going bald.

Under "Effective Links" I finally updated Ballpeen Hammer's name to Virgil. And I added a link to The Nation because everyone should read The Nation.

Then I added some "Topeka Links" for my Kansas people. Most of you know that I grew up there, and these are the people who (with one exception) knew me then (Ali was among us, of course, but it's funnier to keep her under "Bald Links"). Early Adopter is actually a New Yorker now, but we knew each other back when we looked alike. And Early Adopter, let's not let our current greatness cause us to forget our humble beginnings, eh?

Current greatness. That's a good one.

Bridge, of the Brooklyn Sort

I've got a full-time job now. So I will no longer apologize for the lack of posting. I will instead internalize what I think the lack of posting says about me as a person, and concentrate on the feelings of insignificance and self-loathing.

Hello again, dear B&E readers!

I have a self-imposed rule that I won't write about my job. Not only do I like my job (and don't particularly feel like getting fired), but I don't want to become Dilbert.

I will, however, occasionally write about my commute. Commutes are infinitely interesting.

My commute takes me from Queens to Brooklyn every weekday. There's no quick way to make the trip. Even if my journey took me directly along the G train (and mine doesn't), it wouldn't be a quick trip. So instead I try to make it pleasant.

I walk the Brooklyn Bridge. Every day. In both directions. Only the rain keeps me from walking it. And even that I did once, which is why the rain now keeps me from walking it. Maybe - just maybe - in the summer I'll decide it's too hot for bridge walking. I have a slight penchant for sweating. But for now, I walk the Bridge.

It's easy to rave about the Brooklyn Bridge. But that's only because it's the coolest bridge in the world.

The morning sun lights up the bridge and the city just beautifully. I'm walking into the sun toward Brooklyn in the mornings, but I'm sure to turn around and check out the view at least once during my walk. Then on my way home, it's dark, and because it's winter(ish) and there's less haze, the view of city is crisp and clear.

The view of Manhattan itself is different than it was, of course. Until I was working in Brooklyn, I hadn't walked the Brooklyn Bridge since before 9/11. Downtown, from the bridge, doesn't look that interesting. It's impressive, yes. It's almost like one giant monolithic structure. The towers added a varied line to what is now just a lot of really tall buildings. From other angles (from the Staten Island Ferry, for example), downtown looks more varied than it does from the Brooklyn Bridge. But it's really the volume of large buildings downtown that seems impressive from the bridge.

Midtown at night looks like a theater set skyline. So quintessentially New York it's almost fake. The view of midtown from my 'hood in Queens features a prominently displayed Chrysler Building, and it's one of best the city has to offer. From the Brooklyn Bridge, though, the Chrysler Building looks tiny, and a little lonely, set off to the side. But midtown is full of color and flashing lights. And much better appreciated from a distance.

The view of Brooklyn is not uninteresting, but there's not as much to speak of (possibly because I'm not as familiar with Brooklyn). There's the Watchtower, of course, where the Jehovah's Witnesses live and print their magazines. But DUMBO (that's Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass for those of you not in the know) is mostly warehouse buildings and brand-spankin'-new condos. Brooklyn Heights looks like a neighborhood, which it is. The two-tiered BQE is a bit of a trip. And the ship-building in Red Hook offers a touch of the industrial.

My fellow pedestrians are mostly tourists. Those that aren't I see regularly. I tend to look at the faces of the people I pass on the street, and surprisingly few look back. The first month I was walking the bridge there was one woman that looked back every time. One morning she smiled at me. I smiled back. I haven't seen her since.

Boy, that sounded unnecessarily ominous.

Very few other people look back. There's the dude in the dark shades and Van Dyke with the unconnected mustache and goatee. There's the skinny chick with the fat face (only when you see it, do you realize how rare it is). There's the woman who looks like the older version of a college classmate. Come to think of it, maybe I'm an older version of her college classmate. Nah, I'm pretty sure it's not her. There's the middle-aged runner who wears pink shorts no matter how cold it is. If they looked at me, I'd probably be the bald guy who can sweat in any weather.

The cyclists go by a little quicker, but one guy rides by every morning with the child's attachment bike on the back. It's always empty. I've assumed he's a divorcee who keeps it there just in case he gets an unexpected day with his kid. Good luck, buddy.

The Brooklyn Bridge itself... Hell, it's the one thing a Norwegian will know about Brooklyn. It really is an impressive specimen. So much so, that I don't know what else to say about it. One morning, the NYPD was performing some sort of crazy-ass training exercise on the bridge. I've included a photo.

At night you can see through the planks in the pedestrian walkway down to the ground below (obviously, when you're above the water, it just looks like a dark abyss). If you're scared of heights that can be a bit disconcerting. But what the hell are you doing looking down, anyway, when you're surrounded by the most beautiful bridge in the most amazing city in the world?

Doing a Little Retooling

Blogger got all upgraded on my ass, and now I'm spending more time than I want to be spending making updates to B&E. Eventually, I assume, this will include updating some links.

I've already begun doing some labeling, with the idea that if you want to see all the Dickheads at once you'll be able to do so. Labeling more then 750 blog entries is fairly time-consuming, so you might have to wait for that process to be complete. The labels, though, aren't appearing on the actual site where it says the labels will be on the template, and I'm finding this to be very upsetting at the moment. The labels look stupid where they are right now, and they're supposed to be under the comments, which is what makes sense. I think I'll complain.

It's Saturday and I have to go to the post office. Some of you, then, will know why I'm feeling a bit cranky.

I'm Just So Sad All the Time

I don't know how much more I can take. The sadness is all-encompassing. The sorrow unrelenting.

How much longer must I mourn Gerald Ford?