edshots

Today is the deadline for major league baseball trades that do not have to pass through waivers. After today, the wavier part means that a team can effectively block a trade from hapopeniung by threeatening to claim the player on waivers.

Not that it means anything, but I hadn't posted in a while so I thought that I should.

One of the advantages of living close to work, specially now with gas prices so high, is that I can walk to the office. This is extra nice on morings like this was, where it was warm, a little breezy, and a pleasant walk. Most of day was nice in fact. Until a little bit ago. Then the skies opened up and the water came down. it is now storming rather heavily and I am faced with a dilemma. Do I leave here anad go home, getting soaked to the bone in a period of a few minutes, or do I sit and wait out the storm, which looks like it might be a long one.
At least this will hopefully remind me to get that extra umbrella that I was thinking of to keep at the office.

...passed away yesterday. All the obits will talkk about how he was best known as Scotty on Star Trek. Many of them will talk about how he enlisted in the Canadian army (back before Canada was weird) and was injured on D-Day, having part of a finger shot off. I think that part of his story that I enjoyed most was that he was a talented actor and was one of the most versatile voices in Hollywood. I listened to book that he read once, and he did about six different voices and if you didn't know that they were all him, you wouldn't be able to tell.

It's also less well known that he invented the Klingon Language. K'Plaugh Engineer Scott. You shall be missed.

The federal government passed a bill last term making drivers' licenses meet certain minimum criteria to be used federally. These criteria include verification of the driver's citizenship and residency status. This will include certain biometric measured like finger prints. Certain governors, including our own "Fast Eddie" Rendell are bitching that it will drive up the cost of licenses and it's an unfunded mandate to the states. They belly ache that it will cause more problems with the driver's license process and so on.

The idea that you can get a license without proving that you are eligible to have one in this day and age is outrageous. If the process had begun a few years ago, this wouldn't be an issue now. If there was some enforcement of the immigration laws that are on the books this wouldn't be an issue. IF the federal and state governments did there job in the beginning, there wouldn't be this uproar now. To listen to Eddie Rendell complain about a cost to the state,-a legitimate, reasonable cost- after signing the budget that gave him and the state legislature a 16% pay raise for not doing their job, makes me sick.

Eddie- if your so damned concerned about the state not being able to afford the new license restrictions, give back the several thousand dollar raise that you and your cronies in the house and senate just stole from the state's tax-payers.

Last night I watched Kevin Spacey transform himself into Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea. The movie was a look at Bobby's life and career. I found the acting in it wonderful, the plotting and story grand and the music great. I've long been a fan of Bobby Darin, more for his big band sounding stuff than for Splish Splash, and Kevin Spacey did a good job of matching the style and intensity of Darin. I knew that Darin was married to Sandra Dee, but didn't realize what that relationship was like. The movie did a good job of depicting the relationship and the highs and lows that it entailed. I had never really known the back story of Bobby Darin and this gave me some insight into the character.

I recommend the film.

I first started collecting comics back when I went to Boy Scout summer camp almost thirty years ago. I picked up a couple to take along to pass time when I wouldn't be doing anything else. Years before my mom would be able to bring home the unsold issues from the 5&10 with the covers removed as unsold issues. But after the trip to camp I was hooked. I collected for the next many years, through college and didn't really stop collecting until I moved out here to Central PA. I didn't pick up the habit again until a comics shop moved into the building where I was living at the time. I went down on Free comic book day and like a junkie falling off the wagon, I was hooked again. When the shop closed down a few months later (I guess my comic buying wasn't enough to keep them afloat) I tried to get to the shop in Hanover, but other issues arose and it made it difficult. I drifted away once again.

I was going by the comic shop the other day and had some time to spare so I stopped in. I think I'm hooked again. I'm slipping in, only picked up a few Bat-titles. But I found myself checking out some others. I almost picked up a Star Wars and a Conan, but was able to stop myself. I'm just not sure if I'll be able to resist much longer. And I'm not sure I want to.

Hmm-haa. Comics.

It's Bike Week here this weekend. That's the chance for thousands of motorcycle riders to converge on our small hamlet and raise the level of discussion to a yell so you can be heard over the sounds of the bikes.

The picture of the motorcycle rider is that of the young Marlon Brando or Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. The outsider coming to town to disrupt the way of life and generally be bad. In reality, the average biker, specially a Harley rider, is probably well employed, slightly above average age and has no intention of upsetting the status quo that enables him to afford a vehicle that sells for several thousand dollars. Bike week allows that person to act the part of the rebel.

I had the chance to bartend out at the center of all the activities this weekend. While there were some there who probably fit the rebel without a clue category, most of the riders seemed to be letting loose like kids on spring break. It was time to let loose and raise hell because Monday they had to go back to the office. Walking around at the vending tents, I noticed that nothing was cheap except the sunglasses. And even those were going for $20. Not the kind of things that Fonda and Hopper would have been buying.

The good news is that Bike Week comes at a time when tourism is traditionally slow, the week after the Holiday. Although you couldn't tell that by the size of the group I had last night.

can be a dangerous thing. I had an interview the other day with somebody that thought that by over rationalizing and thinking about things that it made it better. The fact is that it just made him look more foolish than he probably would have otherwise. He tried to convince me of facts that I knew were different and quoted sections of law that didn't exist. For example, the law does not give parents permission to use corporal punishment. There is only a defense against an assault charge by staing that the physical punishment was reasonable and in the interests of child discipline (that's not the exact wording-I don't have the crimes code in front of me at the moment-but it gets the general point). That's why I often point out to parents that if they did the same thing to me as they did their child I could have them arrested. I would have had a lot more respect for the guy if he had owned up to what he didn't know and proceeded from there.

Of course too much thinking an be just as bad. One of my favorite scenes in the Winnie-the-Pooh series is a conversation between Pooh and Piglet:
"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes, " said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that's why he never understands anything."

Well said, Pooh. Sometimes too much Brain is just as dangerous, if not more so, than too little.

One interesting thing about getting older is that old becomes less clear but young gets more clear. Generally old is someone about ten to fifteen years your elder. When I was a kid, that meant someone who's the age I am now. Now I don't see old getting there until about 55, and even then it's questionable. But young stays that age forever. Even when I was in my twenties, a teen seemed so young. As I've moved through the years since then, a teen is still way too young. This wasn't a problem until even young started getting older. A young woman in her twenties now seems to be young to me. A few years ago that would be prime territory.

It's even getting to this point at work. In this business you get to see the fresh out of college kids coming into the job and chuckle about how fresh and young they are. Sometimes though it seems that even after they have been here for a while that they still seem young.

But alluding to the title of the post....
I was out this afternoon and ran into a young woman who appeared very attractive. She was built like a full figured model (not one the anorexic looking ones) and was reasonably attractive. I watched her walk down the street only to see her walk over to her father. I could tell because he said "Hey kid" and she said "Hey dad." The dad couldn't have been much older than me. That's annoying.

This has been an interesting week of work. The things that people do to others both never ceases to amaze and no longer surprises me. A case that is out there deals with a guy hitting a kid in the balls as punishment. That's something that buddies and I used to do as barely teens as we were going through puberty and realized that it hurt more that a shot to the arm or belly. For an adult to do that to a child is just wrong. I interviewed that alleged perp and of course he denied everything. He denied it so vehemently that I'm pretty sure that he was full of crap on at least 75% of his story. A suggestion to people being accused of things: The more you deny- the less believeable it is. ANd when somebody asks you why you be believed, you tell them that they should believe you because you're telling the truth.

Even if the guy didn't do what he is accused of, he's a jack-off.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. The birthday of the USA. Pretty neat. I hope that the country lasts another 229 years.