Lazy man's post

A: I really like this guy.
B: I've been busy!
C: I've been doing weaving stuff!
D: This is a cool song - I didn't recognize it...

One by one, down the dark road

I see that Sen. Ted Kennedy has been diagnosed with malignant brain cancer, and although his friends, colleagues and the various writers are on the "he's fighting this thing" bandwagon, I also see that surgery is apparently not in the cards, which makes me think he's at grade IV.

Having seen my uncle as well as the butterfly lady's die of high-grade glioma, which is what Kennedy apparently has, I say this: If you or someone you know is diagnosed with grade IV glioma (aka glioblastoma), your No. 1 priority should be to square away any un-squared away business you have first and save the talk of "fighting this thing" for later, because to mix some metaphors, the end of the line is at your door.

Is that a bit harsh? Maybe, but it's true, too. I suppose I just wish people could set aside their fear of death to leave time to better enjoy the remaining part of life. But I'm also not one to look back. The best day, for me, is today or tomorrow, not yesterday.

Newsworthy?

My RSS feed for USA Today shows the second headline as Man opens fire in Philippines, kills 8, wounds 6.

That's obviously terrible for the people involved, but why exactly is that one of the world's top stories? Am I watching Fox?

When the butterfly lady and I arrived in Belize about 10 years ago, I was taken aback at the scene and scenery because I had somehow imagined Central America to be different from what I saw. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I found when we got off the plane. I blame this partly on my own ignorance, but maybe a little bit more on my compatriots in the news business, who I relied on for my picture of the outside world.

Just look at Iraq: Is what you see in the mainstream press in accord with what you see when you find videos posted online by deployed soldiers, sailors and Marines? Well, no.

So, harumph in general and specific.

A favorite song

I like to hunt for covers (good, if possible) of songs I love. Here's another of Philadelphia, one of my top 10 (5, 15, 3? who knows):



This song has been stuck in my head lately.

More silliness

I find this comic exceedingly funny, as you may have guessed.

No sunshine?

Annoying new feature: Thanks, WaMu

Washington Mutual, like any bank, operates a toll-free line for people wanting to find out if the federales have bothered to deposit their "stimulus payments," etc.

I guess the bank has decided people who use its phone service to find out such things as balances, status of checks, etc., are a good captive audience for advertising.

Today, while doing routine balance checking, I got to listen to an ad for why I should sign up for a savings account with the bank, which while we're on the subject, also features the slowest ATM I've run into. I bitched about it once to a teller, who snottily told me that the ATM was a special, high-security model that was actually much better than the other thousand I've used. Sure.

OK, I know, I should just switch banks. But that's too much trouble, while griping is not.

Biggest tool in the Senate?

From an AP story by Matthew Daly about a plan by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would lead to universal health-care coverage:

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said his support for the bill made it “tripartisan” in the Senate. “This is a big day,” he said, calling the bill “a big step forward” to achieving private, universal health care.

Tripartisan, eh? So, independents are a party? Or Joe Lieberman is a party? If he's a party, I'm not going.

I don't want to dress up in polyester, drink Shirley Temples, eat miniature hot dogs and talk about how "we all thought the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was legitimate!"