What I Thoight of the BlackBerry Storm

... So much that I type this brief entry from my new BlackBerry Curve...

I'm sure the second generation will be much better...

Odd Usage of Very Old Footage

After attempting to watch Dexter for the very first time in my life (even though it's been recording on the DVR for months) I found myself bored and flipping through the stations. I stopped on my local Fox affiliate (and thus you may now understand the prelude) and found the news up to Gov. Patterson's new budget proposal. He is required by law to pass a balanced budget, apparently, and these difficult economic times are going to be solved with revenue generated from a tax on sugared soda beverages and an increase in public college tuition. "Fox 'News'" then moved onto a nonstory about a Queens councilman whose home which is still being constructed and how the project has accrued some building violations. The little I gather about New York City building codes suggests that there are lots of violations that can possibly be had, even by reputable people, similar to how the cleanest, best restaurant can still rack up a few health violations. The story taught me nothing, revealed the stupidity Fox News plays to, and was not entertaining, either.

What I really enjoyed, however, and even found myself rewinding more than twice to view again, was the stock footage rolling in the background of the Gov. Patterson sugary soda babble. (Like diet soda is a health drink? I heard that the organization that did the study about whether diet soda causes cancer won't even allow their vending machines to carry anything with NutraSweet (tm), Splenda (R), or saccharin.

First, there was a close up of a bodega glass soda case with a sliding door. My eyes went right to the Pepsi. It was Pepsi in the white can with the horizontal lettering and the red and blue broken yin yang thing sandwiching it! Is this 1981? I laughed and laughed and looked at S______.

Then, probbaly less amusing to the general public than to I, during the Fox babble about public college tuition potentially going up, the camera panned the campus of Brooklyn College--- from. The. Stairs. The. Stairs. From. The. Upper. Quad. Looking. Down. At. The. Lower. Quad. Yes, my friends. Brooklyn College has not had an upper quad since 2001, the same years those very stairs were demolished.

Why would Fox still have this footage in the "Use during the 10 o'clock new segments that have no real-time photo" file? Weird.

First Impressions of the BlackBerry Storm

1. A gloved hand will not activate the touch screen. I know that this is the case on "classic" iPods, but I do not know if this is so for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

2. The side of your face will hit the mute button during a conversation. No audible alert will inform you of this; the person to whom you are speaking will simply hang up on you.

3. The initial software update takes for effing ever to download.

I have no more initial impressions, as my software update is still downloading. More to follow.

Brick

It wasn't until just this second that I remembered how she used to turn the oven on when we didn't have enough heat. Cooking something would have produced the same effect.

Imprint

Our awesomely generous neighbor, M______ dogsat S______ while we were visiting J_____'s family in North Carolina over the long weekend vacation turned into an entire week off vacation of Thanksgiving. Naturally, she had her own Thanksgiving plans which turned out to involve returned S______ a full two days after we returned home. Faced with such a situation, I did not know what to do with myself on returning home from work today. I normally put my things down, taking extreme caution not to touch any surface in my apartment with clothing that also has touched any surface at my workplace-- I am not neurotic, in this regard, as I regularly touch MRSA and the entire family of antibiotic-resistant staphococcolus infections, and, more notably, all that causes the sensory aspect of hospital environs may have eeked out an existance on my fibers which I therefore all but wash separately in boiling water-- quickly skim 345 Facebook status updates, and take S______ out for her poop stroll.

Today, following the clothing ritual and a shower that started out pleasently hot but slowly cooled thanks to our boiler pilot that goes out at least twice a day (Does anyone know how to solve this issue?) I Murphy Oiled the wood furnitures, Swiffered the staging area (what J_____ and I call the uninsulated space between our two front doors where we throw and sometimes neatly file our shoes and bits of wet and dried leaves, and wiped down the kitchen counter. It was then only five minutes past the usual time I might find myself returning from a walk with S______, and so I stared at the wall for a few minutes. Tonight was improv night for J_____, so he would be of little help.

Awesome Neighbor M______ returned shortly with S______ and I was so joyously elated to see her that I didn't even offer to help M______ with her packages.

S______ and I just completed a two-hour love-fest on the couch. I watched a movie (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints) which we'd Netflixed and I super-highly recommend, and she nuzzled, fetal pig style, all over my neck and chest. If I were allergic, I'd be itchy. I gave her kisses. We are passionate about each other again, and I am glad she is home.

On Vacation

We're down in North Carolina, visiting J_____'s family for Thanksgiving. We have a fair bit of shopping to do while we are here, as well. I already got nifty, noise-canceling headphones at Super Target; the other electronic purchase we're dying to do involves certain touchscreen, Verizon-compatible phones. J_____ needs a winter coat to replace his Triple Phat Goose from 22 years ago, cool and short as it is.

Serious eating will occur. We will keep up the jogging, so maybe some cancellation of badness will occur as well.

Wedding Preparations

With seven months to go until the wedding, I can say with near certainty that we are pretty well ahead of where we need to be at this stage, preparation wise. I have this confidence because I signed up at some wedding planning website right when we first got engaged, but thus far it's been useless. Every Monday, I find an email from them that says something like, "There are 7 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days until your wedding, Joclyn!" The time bomb is always followed by "tips" and "advice" such as "Time to start thinking about where you would like to hold your ceremony" (did that months ago) and "Time to insure that engagement ring of yours!" (that was done before I knew there even was a ring.) "Suggestions" that encompass only things I have already done and forgotten about are just "annoyances." It seems that the webmasters behind this operation are not familiar with New York City, Long Island, or much of the rest of this region.

A New York-based wedding planning website would not even take new sign ups from couples whose wedding is sooner than two years away. The emails it would generate would begin something like, "There are 4 years, 9 months, 6 days, fourteen minutes and eleven seconds until your wedding, Witchy! What do you MEAN you haven't had your final fitting yet?"

My makeup artist told me I should get my eyebrows "threaded" before the wedding. What is that? It sounds Indian and henna-related. It would be funny if I went ahead and booked an eyebrow threading, only to find out that what I had really done was reserved a camel with fancy face jewelry to carry J_____ and I into the reception following the ceremony. ("Hold onto his eyebrows so you don't get bucked!" the trainer would warn.)

Yes, I had my "hair and makeup trial" last week at a salon on Jericho Turnpike. Charges were dropped, but were again reinstated following the graffitiing of my face with an airbrush. I was so painted, and it felt a little silly, considering the fact that I don't really wear very much makeup. My hair was made to be all up and fancy, with jangly curls and such, and the following morning, J_____ helped me remove 197 bobby pins from my hair. They are sitting on the dresser in case I need to bring them the day of the wedding.

We have a DJ, a photographer, a florist, my dress, the bridal party 'fits, the venue, and the hotel. We theoretically have a rabbi, but he's not really returning our enquiries. I won't panic about that yet, but if things really get desperate, we could have J_____'s Born Again pastor friend perform the ceremony. It would be meaningless, spiritually, but it would be better than just a blank space in front of us under the huppah.

Presidential Haiku

On His Name

Barack Obama
His middle name is Hussein
Whatchoo lookin' at?

On What He's Walked Into

First black president
He'll deal with Bush legacy
Glad it isn't me

On How Far We've Come

Close Guantanamo
America don't torture
Under the black man

On Taking Care of Himself

Already graying
Looking more like Bill Clinton
One-twenty-oh-nine

On the Loneliness of it All

No Blackberry Storm
For out new black president
Emails are secured

On His Family

Which ritzy prep school
Will his two daughters attend?
They're in the money

Is it Plagiarism of Me to Make a Post out of a Comment I Left on Bec's Blog?

Hello, I have a newborn with Down's Syndrome and a 17-year-old who is pregnant and threatening to marry the other teenager who happened to impregnate her. Maybe I should spend LESS time at home and force my underage child to marry him, potentially ruining her life, for the sake of my political career.
My family can fend for itself as I attempt to manage the families of America, starting right smack in the middle of the uterus and extending all the way out to the books they read. Hell, I attempted banning a long list of books from Alaskan libraries, especially that dastardly James and the Giant Peach and the despicable Death of a Salesman so don't think I won't. I also tried to fire librarians who disagreed with me. Watch out for those Alaskan librarians!

I am a firm believer in creationism, and my beliefs are so strong that I also want new books printed that don't mention evolution, because, of course, it's "just a theory," and I don't believe current science "education" that teaches that a scientific theory invokes the notion of "testability" and "retestability," nor can I comprehend that, in contrast, creationism is "just a hypothesis," meaning, tangibly, that it has no place being taught in public schools as unyielding fact not to be questioned under penalty of... of...

I know! People who don't support creationism only and abstinence only can feel free to take a walk on the scandalous Bridge to Nowhere! I don't have much experience with big budgets, but a popular theory is that project, for which I did originally support financing, brought more political ridicule than Charles Rangel and the Rent-Controlled Apartments!

I believe that the war in Iraq is a "task from God," which means to say that not only do I believe that God writes my "to do" list each day, I also believe that God delineates tasks that involve sending 18-year-olds to die and have their limbs mutilated by explosions involving rusty nails in the desert for no reason. Well, there is at least one reason: BP sponsored my inauguration to the Alaskan governorship!

I am ready to lead and manage. Hell, who am I kidding? I can't even manage my own family's abstinence-only policy.

The F Train

is, I'm absolutely sure, the product of a cruel joke. I ride home from work without air conditioning, daily. Today's ride home featured the expected swelter, and the added bonus of 35 solid minutes of inhaling what could only be described as homeless vagina odor. I didn't, of course, actually verify the source of said stench, and, interestingly, each time I thought I'd pinpointed the person responsible for the homeless vagina smell she (or he!) left the premises and the odor lingered at full strength.

I don't think that the odor emanated from a disembodied vagina without an owner, but rather from a person who has hygiene at the absolute bottom of their priority list, even below thinking about next winter's holiday season.

I threw up in my nose twice when I foolishly tested the air.