Primarily Crap

I’ve been putting up Christmas lights outside the house for 3 years now. The first year I didn’t take them down until the spring, it was almost Easter and the running joke was, as long as I get them down before Easter, it’s okay. I mad a promise to myself that I would not let it go that long the next year.

Last year I did do a little better and managed to get them down around the end of February. Better, but still not good enough.

This year, when I put them up, I promised I would get them down in January, and I did, I got them down today. Good thing there are 31 days in January because I needed all of them to keep my promise.

Although I made the promise out loud in front of dad, Penny, and Kyla, I really only made it to myself, but a promise is a promise no matter who it’s made to, and if a man don’t keep his promise, then he ain’t worth nothin’.

I’m playing around with all the new blogger options. One of them is lists, I can make lists of whatever I want off to the side of my blog. Since music is such a big part of my life and I listen to it a lot, I thought it would be fun to make some lists of certain songs I’ve recently heard on my iPod that stood out.

I originally posted this last night as a list, but as I was making this entry to talk about it, I decided that these lists would be better off as blog entries for a few reasons.

1. When I update it, the old songs won’t go away.
2. I realized that I wanted to comment on some of the songs and I couldn’t do that in the list.
3. Everyone else can comment as well if they want.

This may or may not be a daily thing, but here’s the first entry:

Down Here (With the Rest of Us)- Social Distortion

Frim Fram Sauce- Diana Krall

Don’t know what that sauce is, and I’m not sure I want to know.

Giving It All Away- Hot House Flowers

Am I the only person I know that likes these guys?

Helena- My Chemical Romance

I admit it, I’m new to this band, but I’m quickly discovering how much I dig them.

Highway to Hell- AC/DC

Currently trying to learn it on guitar, coincidentally it played on my iPod yesterday.

I’m A Rocker- Bruce Springsteen

Intimate Secretary- The Raconteurs

I love Jack White, the stuff on this CD is just as good as everything he’s done with Meg.

Italian Leather Sofa- Cake

“She’s got a silk dress and healthy breasts, that bounce on his italian leather sofa”

Jump With Me Baby- Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Pressure- The Kinks

Simple Lessons- Candlebox

Soul Kitchen- The Doors

Struttin’ Blues- The Black Crowes

That’s Life- Frank Sinatra

The Famous Final Scene- Bob Seger

Woman Is The Nigger Of The World- John Lennon

Dude I totally get your message and I completely agree with it, but I have to admit that I was a little hesitant to post this song title here. You sure had a strange way of getting some of your points across; which of course, is why you were so controversial.

This morning I ordered myself one of these babies. There was nothing wrong with my old 30GB iPod, except for the fact that, at only 30GB it was filled up and I could not put anymore music on it.

When I first bought it about a year ago, I figured 30GB would be enough to last me for years. It turns out that years ended up being year, as in about 1 year, that’s how long it took me to fill it up. And that’s filled up with music that I like, almost 6,000 songs that I actually listen too. Each time I added a new album or artist to it, I would listen to it and weed out anything I didn’t like. There are probably a few stray songs on it that slipped through, but for the most part it is filled with almost 6,000 songs that I want to hear.

I recently took off about 70 Christmas songs just to make room for some other new stuff I wanted to put on it (I figured I had about 10 months to figure out how to get them back on for when I wanted them again), and I have an additional 400 or so songs on my computer that I want to add to it, but I no longer have the room. There is also some borderline stuff (songs that I wasn’t sure of) on my computer that I had to make some hard decisions on to make more room for new songs that I was sure of.

Yesterday I decided that I just couldn’t live like this anymore. I know, a year ago I was living just fine without an iPod at all, but things are different now. I can’t even imagine life without it.

It changed my music listening experience. Before when I wanted to hear something, I had to take out a CD and play it in whatever CD player was available, depending on where I was. Half the time I couldn’t decide what to listen to and I ended up not bothering to listen to anything. I would spend 5 minutes trying to decide what to bring with me for the 7 minute ride to work, or for the 10 minutes that it was going to take me to fold up some laundry in the bedroom.

Now I have speakers set up everywhere that I want to hear music and when I’m going to be in one of those places I just plug in the iPod and let it go. I don’t worry about what I’m going to hear, occasionally I want to hear a certain song or album, but mostly I just let it play through my 6,000 songs randomly. I love listening to music this way, it’s like having my own private radio station where there are no commercials, I’m always going to hear a song that I like, and if one comes on that I’m not in the mood for I just skip to the next one (which doesn’t happen all that often).

And it has to be ALL of my music, I know a lot of people love the Nano’s but for me that 8GB doesn’t cut it, hell the 30GB doesn’t cut it anymore. I need all of my music with me all of the time, I don’t want to have to try to decide what to put on it and what to take off. That would put me almost right back where I was when I was fumbling with CD’s and I don’t want to be there again.

Which brings me to where I am now, my trusty 30GB is full and I have nowhere to go but up, so that’s what I’ve done. I’ve ordered the new 80GB and I figure that should hold me for a while. It also has some nice new features, the main one being the search feature which allows me to find a song easier by actually using the click wheel to type in the name of the song, or artist, or album.

So that’s it, I’ve put in the order for the new iPod and now I’m patiently waiting for it to arrive so that I can start adding all of my new songs to it and get on with my life.

Emma Tillman died yesterday at age 114, four days after she took over the title of “World’s Oldest Living Person” from Emiliano del Torro who had died on January 24th at age 115. He had taken the title from Julie Bertrand just 5 days earlier when she died on 1/19/07 at age 115. At least she managed to hold onto it for a little over a month when she took it from Elizabeth Bolden who died on 12/12/06 at age 116.

And so it goes. It takes longer than an entire lifetime to achieve this distinctive title, and in most cases it’s lost within days.

When Emma Tillman died yesterday, she passed the title on to Yone Minagawa who is 114 and living in Japan. How long will she hold onto it?

Get your bets in now folks; it might already be too late.

I have recently concluded that this woman can not sing a song that I will not listen to.

That is all.

Wow, four posts in one day. I usually have trouble getting up four posts in one week, never mind one day.

Okay, I know this last post is kind of questionable because all it really is a post to note that I posted 4 times in one day, thereby creating the 4th post to get me to 4 posts in one day, but hey, it’s not like I’m posting about nothing, I’m posting about the fact that I posted 4 times in one day so I think that makes it a legitimate post.

Besides, even if you still want to argue that this post is about nothing, nothing is the same thing as crap and the name of this blog is Primarily Crap, therefore, any post in this blog about nothing is a legitimate post.

So there, it may or may not be a post about nothing, but either way it’s still a legitimate post and that makes four posts in one day.

Thank you.

I kind of dig Rena Sofer. Apparently she is best known for a couple of gigs on daytime soaps in the 90’s, but I know her from a short-lived series on the Sci-Fi channel called “The Chronicle”.

I hadn’t seen much of her after that show got cancelled in 2002 after only 22 episodes (it wasn’t all that great anyway and I admit that I was only watching it in the end because Penny was still watching it and I just wanted to keep looking at Rena), according to the Internet Movie Database, she’s had some parts in a few different TV shows that I didn’t watch. Recently she has shown up playing a recurring character in not one, but two of my favorite TV shows.

And what’s more these 2 shows, “Heroes” and “24” are now being shown opposite each other on different networks (thank the good lord for DVR’s).

She made her first appearance on “24” on the most recent episode this past Monday, playing the wife of a man with questionable motives and integrity. So far she has made 2 appearances on “Heroes”, although none recently, also playing the wife of a man with questionable motives and integrity (although that’s looking like it may change soon, both the questionable motives and integrity and the fact that she’s his wife).

I find it interesting that she is playing 2 seemingly similar roles on different TV shows at the same time that are also on at the same time. I wonder if this has ever happened. Also, it looks like she will at least be in next weeks episode of “24”, and possibly more (you just never know who will be killed next in that show), and although she has not been on “Heroes” recently I think I remember reading that she would be back; which begs the question, “will there be a time when she is actually on 2 shows at the same time, and has it ever happened before”?

Just wondering.

I try not to be too serious on this blog (or anywhere else for that matter). So, I was aghast when I noticed that I had posted 2 serious entries in a row. I assure you that it was entirely accidental, I apologize and I promise to make sure that it will never happen again.

In the meantime, in an attempt to try to compensate for the faux pas, here’s a little poem I just came up with:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who got his head stuck in a bucket
He tripped on a stone
Hit the ground with a groan
And said, “damn it, why couldn’t I just have a big dick like the other guy”

An internet acquaintance has started a new blog of political doodles. I really like the first two so far, but I have a problem with the desecration of the American flag in his first one.

The issue is not with the actual desecration of the flag, the first amendment preserves that right for everyone, so I have no problem with that.

The issue is that I believe in most cases the intention of the message is misguided. Most people who desecrate flags are doing so to express opposition to the government, and that’s where I have the problem.

The flag is not a symbol of the government; it is a symbol of the country; which in turn means that it is a symbol of the people. The country and the government are very different things. I have many issues with the government, particularly this administration, but I still love my country.

When I see a flag being desecrated I see it as an insult to this country. I think of the people who truly hate this country, such as terrorists and many foreigners who have been brainwashed into believing that this country is evil, and in some cases even fellow Americans. These people desecrate flags because they despise the American people, the United States of America, and everything that it is about, regardless of who is in power.

To me, flag and country are interchangeable. When you talk about your flag, you’re talking about your country and your people. If you ask the soldiers in Iraq what they’re fighting for, most of them will tell you that they’re fighting for their flag; or their country (because it means the same thing). They are not fighting for George W. or the United States Government; they are fighting for the United States of America.

If they see a flag being desecrated over there, they are going to take it personally. It’s been this way since the flag was first created during the American Revolution. Those soldiers were willing to, and did, fight and die for their country, same with every other war since then. And to them, the flag is the country and must not be desecrated or destroyed.

That’s why you always hear those stories about the flag-bearers going down and everyone scrambling to make sure that it gets picked up. The flag had to be protected at all costs because the flag represented the country and that’s what they were/are fighting for.

So, if you want to desecrate an American flag to make a statement that you hate America, then fine. Personally, I think you’re either an ass or an idiot for doing so, but that’s your prerogative (which; ironically is one of the reasons why you should “not hate this country”). But if you’re doing it with the intentions of making a statement to the United States Government, then you’re making the wrong statement, go burn an elephant or an ass.

What is it with teenagers nowadays? On my way to work this morning, I had to stop at a light. It’s one of those lights that exist solely for people to press the button and stop traffic so they can cross the street.

First of all, let me say that I’m annoyed by those things, or more specifically, I’m annoyed by the people who use them. They have their uses. They’re great to help elderly and handicapped people get across the street. There are times when others may need it, if you’ve got children with you, or you’re carrying bags of groceries or some other bundle that weighs you down or obstructs your view, and I’m sure there are some other circumstances, but most young, healthy people should be able to safely make it across the street without having to press that button and stop traffic. Of course, your opinion may differ, but for me, spending as much time as I do driving, I prefer to do my best to try not to obstruct traffic as a pedestrian, I’m willing to wait a few seconds for a break in the traffic so I can get across without having to stop it; which brings me back to this morning and the two teenagers who crossed the street.

It’s 6:50am; there is not a lot of traffic on the road in this area at this time of day. There are plenty of times that I could walk across the street and then back to the other side without a car passing by. However, this did not prevent these 2 kids from pressing the button to get across anyway. This isn’t even what bothered me. Whatever, that’s what it’s there for, even if I don’t think you need to use it, you are entitled to it and I’m not going to complain.

What bothered me was the speed at which they crossed. They used the entire time allotted to them. With the amount of time they had to get across, I probably could have made it 3 or 4 times. An elderly woman would have made it across the street quicker than they did. The “don’t walk” started flashing when they were only about halfway across and I didn’t think they were going to make it. They were just stepping onto the sidewalk as the light turned green again.

Watching this reminded me of how often I actually see this. At least these kids pushed the button, a lot of times they’re just meandering across the street randomly and don’t give a damn at all about how much traffic they’re stopping, or if all of the traffic is even going to stop, it’s almost like they’re challenging you. It’s always the worst near a school while it’s letting out for the day. All these kids come out at the same time and just start crossing the streets, taking their own damn time and seemingly oblivious to everything that’s going on around them.

And it’s not just crossing the street; it’s everything, so many of them seem to have complete disregard for their surroundings. I’ve been down the park with Kyla and there have been groups of teenagers down there swearing out loud with no regard for the fact that there are adults and young children around. Or I see them hanging around in the mall swearing, goofing around, causing general disruption and not giving a crap about the people around them who are just trying to do their business.

I don’t remember being like this as a teenager. Sure I was a bit rebellious, and there were certainly times when I did something stupid, but I think in general I showed respect for adults and just about everyone else. I may swear like a maniac now, and even did back then, but I know I didn’t do it around adults, and usually not around children, unless I was actually teaching them the swear words.

I remember hanging around in the mall and being an all around goof-ball, but I still did my best to be aware of who was around me and tried to make sure that I didn’t offend anyone.

When I crossed the street, or moved around anywhere, I always moved fast, if not walking fast then actually running, always being aware of who or what was around me and showing the proper respect. Hell, I was a kid; I was supposed to be running wasn’t I? I don’t think that there was ever a time in my life when I could possibly be moving as slow as those 2 kids I saw today (I don’t think when I’m 80 I will be able to move that slow).

And of all of it, it’s the attitude that’s the worst. These kids just seem to have the attitude of “fuck you” to everything. “Fuck you, I’m crossing the street and you’re gonna wait ‘til I’m done not matter how long it takes me”. “Fuck you; I don’t give a crap that I’m hanging around in a playground your 6 year old can hear me swearing”. “Fuck you, I’m hanging out in this mall and if me and my posse are in your way, too fucking bad”.

I know it’s not all of them, there are plenty of them out there who are good kids and usually do the right thing, but it sure seems to me that there are a lot more of them out there nowadays who just don’t give a crap about anything. I only hope that most of them smarten up and figure it out before it’s too late.