still around :) ... in... ARIZONA!!!

Damn, it's been awhile. Obama was my last post - and he's been in office long enough that I dislike him already. But that's another topic.

I lost my friggin' mind this afternoon and bought a pair of rollerblades. I'm traveling up to nor-Cal soon and my friend up text-messaged me a week ago as a followup to the voicemail he just left -"Oh, and bring your rollerblades!"

WHAT rollerblades, I was thinking... they got left in Uruguay with a whole hell of a lot of stuff when I moved out of there. Besides, the last pair was THOROUGHLY worn out - I think I'd been through five or six bearing replacements and at least three stoppers. I know for sure that along with the rollerblades I left behind a new-in-package stopper designed for those 'blades - I bought 'em in 1993.

Damn, I wrote several paragraphs about WHY I bought them in 1993. That's off topic ;)

Anyway, its been five years since I've been up on ANY kind of wheeled footwear. HOLY CRAP! I thought it would be very simple but um, not quite. First of all I had the dog with me. I had this idiot idea Shaggy would pull me and it would be sort of chill.

NO. First of all descending the stairs was not as easy as I'd remembered it being. I live on the second floor so I had no choice.

Shaggy didn't quite know what to make of me being four inches taller OR moving quite so randomly. Suddenly I was able to move MUCH faster or slower than normal. As such she held way back and it was more ME pulling HER. Note to self: do not try to walk dog and rollerblade at the same time. I walked her long enough that she did what every good dog should do THE HELL OUTSIDE :) and then cleaned it up.

I climbed the stairs again to let her back into the house and then it was ON - there had been little glimpses of the previous skill I'd had years ago but the dog was slowing me down.

Perhaps that was a good thing. (The slowdown)

I went around the block as fast as - indeed, faster - than I dared ;) "Faster" is relative, I suppose - but I didn't KNOW I was going faster than I wanted to be until I'd gotten there. I kept thinking, "OK, it's June 30th... you have two hours until you have full health coverage again - WHY DIDN'T YOU WAIT?!" But that thought only crossed my mind when I damn near fell.

(Yes, in 1 hour and 14 minutes from now I have what passes for healthcare coverage in this country. But that too is the topic of another post...)

Ah well, I can go out and practice one more time tomorrow night before the weekend. :)

H8 is Enough - actually hearing the idea of 2nd-class citizen out of someone else's mouth

I haven't attended any kind of political protest since the 90's. Oh sure, in 2000-2003 (what I thought would be my last years living in the USA) I was involved in my share of politics. Had more than enough of it actually. But today was different, today was raw.

Sure, Obama won. I was in my car when I heard the news and I literally had to pull over into a parking lot because I was so overcome with emotion.

But it was bittersweet. The voters of my current "home" (I say home with a bit of a contemptuous tone) state voted definitively to AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION to define marriage as being one man and one woman. It was a vote that absolutely snuffed out a possible right I might have in this state, because as a Gay man - I would never marry a woman.

The same thing happened in California. I think the GLBT community in California is kidding itself a bit with the lawsuits they have filed holding out hope of overturning pretty much the same thing in their state. I will be very surprised if judges overrule that vote based on a procedural nuance of California law - although it'll cost the Mor(m)on "Church" another $20 million if it happens.

Even as I was watching Obama's victory speech in Grant Park from Chicago I was distracting myself with various thoughts to keep myself on that cloud of victory. I just knew that either CA or AZ was going to have bad news to deal with.

It wound up being both. I told myself - you can't take this so personally. After all, as with most things in life I'd already done the gay marriage thing. And as with most things in life - I did it too fast and too young. But it absolutely seemed to be the right thing to do at the time. I don't regret it one little bit. I told myself - there's already a certificate on file in another state tying you to another person. Thank god we are still extremely close friends. But Vermont does not have a mechanism by which a civil union done by two non-residents can be dissolved.

So the constitutional amendments didn't really affect me - there was a much larger barrier. It's not like I have anyone special in my life. Quite the opposite - I'm very happy to have a dog as a companion.

But a couple of things today struck a chord. Getting up at 8am in the morning and rushing to buy posterboard, locating permanent markers and doing last-minute assembly of some kind of protest sign. The result is part of this post.

It took me right back to the early 90's when I protested with ACT-UP! At the time it was an important issue because it was so obvious to me that the US government was not going to take it seriously. I DEFINITELY had that 2nd-class-citizen feeling going on at that time - and for many good reasons. Hundreds of thousands of men and women died (and continue to die) because money wasn't spent on research or accessibility.

Life came full circle in 2003 when a close friend was diagnosed as HIV+. I really feel like in some very small way I'd made a difference because he was able to get access to medication - by that time advances in research had turned HIV from a death sentence into a living hell of pills with side effects but the promise of life. (I call it like I saw - and continue to see - it.)

So this morning as I was driving downtown Phoenix all of this was knocking around in my head. The current movement is not just about marriage - it's equal to the civil rights movement in the 1960's. That's how it seems to be evolving. I hope the momentum keeps up. But it was just something to do today until I heard the phrase "2nd class citizen" over the P.A. system. It re-awakened something.

I thought I left all that 2nd class citizen crap behind in December 2003 when I boarded a plane to emigrate from the USA to Uruguay. I thought it would become a new home. I wasn't so much running FROM anything - but definitely running TO the possibility of a new life. It has evolved into a new life - strangely, back in the USA - but not quite in the way I expected.

I have a lot on my plate right now and am hesitant to add more - but Monday night I will be at the organizing meeting for further protests and activism in Arizona.

I AM mad as hell. Now that Pandora's box has been opened with the magic words "2nd class citizen," the fight is ON. Goals:

Make the state and the people of Utah feel the financial squeeze above and beyond the current recession. To squeeze Utah to to squeeze the LDS cult.

Get the LDS cult's 501(c)3 tax exempt status revoked.

Work like hell to regain and demand equal rights. It may not happen in my lifetime but I think it will.

I've taken some initial steps. Most of my extended family in Southern California voted YES on this abomination. The idea of having Thanksgiving dinner with them is absolute anathema. This evening I called and said that odds were 90% against my making any appearance as well as explained why.

I don't know what future relationship, if any, I will have with many of them. The only words I would say to any of them directly are: "SHAME ON YOU! SHAME ON ALL OF YOU!"

I have several much-higher-priority issues in life. (To my last ex: if you think you're a priority, you're simply a matter that's been outsourced to my attorney.) But this issue of 2nd-class-citizenship in my own country will now be a priority.

Anne Rice is trying to become a "Christian author"

This bit of news was, to say the least - disturbing.

Years ago I was a member of her fan club. So was my troglodyte roommate from whom I was renting a room in his Chicago condo. (Location: right off Lake Shore Drive on the little bit of Sheridan Road that runs east-west before it becomes a north-south street.)

I'd abbreviate Lake Shore Drive but it would be misunderstood.

Anyway, me and the troglodyte rented theatrical costumes and in October 1995 went to an INCREDIBLE Halloween party Anne threw for her fan club. She'd bought the St. Elizabeth's orphanage and totally re-did it. 13 years and 75 kilos ago I made a kickass Lestat - would have gotten totally laid too had the troglodyte not stuck to me like a big cancerous blob all night.

Now fast forward ten years later and she's telling CNN...

"To be able to take the tools, the apprenticeship, whatever I learned from being a vampire writer, or whatever I was -- to be able to take those tools now and put them in the service of God is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful opportunity," she said. "And I hope I can redeem myself in that way. I hope that the Lord will accept the books I am writing now."

VOMIT. Oh well, she's made her fortune off the vampire series. The Christian books will NOT fly off the shelves. The Lord may accept the books but I don't think he buys many, nor will the public. Dammit, dammit, dammit - another lost to that awful dogma.

Uniquely Arizona humor

There is a disclaimer posted below this joke to appease the easily-offended.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is inspecting his tent city jail one afternoon and notices that there are LOTS of pigeons flying about all the time. The tents are covered in pigeon shit and worse yet one of them shit on his Lexus. He's gotta do something. So of course he implements a temporary fix for the problem and puts the prisoners to work cleaning the roofs of the tents. It's a little extra laundry expense for their pink clothes but so what, it's only 112 degrees that day so it won't kill 'em. He's a great guy so everyone who volunteers gets an extra nearly-expired-bologna-product sandwich with their tray that night. Everybody wins right? But it doesn't solve the problem.

He gets on his county-paid-cell-phone with one of his biggest contributors. The buddy is in Honduras working on Joe's retirement program, er, anti-gang liason with the Honduran police. No matter, Maricopa County can pick up the tab for the international call. After they chat a couple ten minutes Joe finally asks for a recommendation about a pigeon exterminator. He gets the number, talks a few minutes more since hey, it's on the county's dime and then calls the exterminator.

The exterminator is a good guy, he's contributed a lot to Joe's campaigns. He says, "Joe, Maricopa County and its people have been really good to me over the 21 years I've lived here. My business has been better than I could ever imagine. So I'll tell you what - make you a deal. I will take care of your problem for FREE. HOWEVER this is an important part of the deal. You must NOT ask me any questions about my method or the price will be one million dollars."

Joe figures, hmm... FREE! When it's over I can issue a national press release about how I go to great lengths to save taxpayer dollars!

A couple days later Joe gets a call from one of his deputies at the jail. "JOE! You ain't gonna believe this but the pigeons are GONE! Oh, and by the way he sent a white guy to do the job so we didn't check immigration papers."

Joe says, "Oh, that's immaterial. You know this guy's on that list of businesses we don't check too much but -- hey, you are on your special cellphone the liberal media can't listen in on right?"

"Of course boss! It's one of these new phones from that high-tech Israeli company - is it true the FBI can't even hear us? Oh and can we get some new ones that don't have these... I don't know what the hell it is kinda lettering on the keys. It's impossible to text my girlfriend!"

"Uhm, I think its called hebrew or something. But you're asking me too many goddamn questions on the phone - get to the point. What happened?!"

"Well we didn't know what to think of it. He brought this ONE BRIGHT BLUE PIGEON in a cage. We weren't sure how to check up the bird's ass for drugs so we had him set up outside the perimeter fence. It scared away all those guys who are always running up to the fence and throwing those little packets over that the prisoners run like hell to grab and hide."

"Goddamn it," Joe said. "Well at least it was probably a few of the guys who don't donate to our Deputies for Kids program that got scared away but you gotta be careful about that so we don't lose money. But you're talking too goddamn much. What the fuck happened next?"

"Well, he opened the cage and the blue pigeon flew out. ALL OF THE OTHER PIGEONS SAW IT and they all flew in a big flock straight south. One of the deputies down south in Gila Bend saw the whole flock still headed south!"

"I'll be damned. And all the fuckin' pigeons are gone?"

"Yes SIR!"

"Ok thanks."

Joe grabs his regular phone and gets the exterminator on the line. "Buddy, I gotta tell you, we're amazed at the pigeon job. My deputies report they're 100% gone! But I have just one question..."

The guy cuts him off and says, "Joe! remember our deal! If I answer a question you're committing that Maricopa County is going to get a bill for a million bucks! Channel 15 and that goddamn weekly newspaper will be all over you and this is an election year!"

"Fuck it, " Joe says. "If you can help with this other problem I got, I will win re-election again by a landslide! I GOTTA KNOW! DO YOU HAVE ANY BLUE MEXICANS?"


Disclaimer:
I posted this with some hesitation because it could be misconstrued in several ways.

I've altered the joke (which I heard from a conservative person) so its not quite so local or so anti-democrat. It'll be just as funny (un-PC) and it's a real BIG local issue on both sides of the political fence. If you live in Phoenix for any length of time and drive a car any distance you will eventually be in an accident where it's hit and run. Might be hit and drive away, might be the driver abandons the car and runs away. This is due to our progressive laws (<--- sarcasm) that do not provide for undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses or register vehicles or get insurance, but they pay cash for cars and risk it for everyone.

I have had one of these accidents and it cost me $300 out of pocket to fix - could have claimed part of it against my insurance but y'all know how THAT works. God forbid you should file a claim. So that's (one of the) reasons the joke is funny - but it's also more than a bit racist especially told in its original version. I have kept the punch line and the main element of the joke but I've otherwise edited it so much as to be unrecognizable, it'll just make it nationally recognizable and turn it around as anti-republican. I am NOT racist against anyone and I make no snap judgements about a person's status in a country based on their perceived nationality.

There may be other issues in here that don't appear to be funny -
#1, Why is the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office spending ANY money or time IN HONDURAS? It's been in the media... How is this a county sheriff's function? Wouldn't this be something done at an international level?

#2, it's an open secret that it's easy to stay high the whole time you're in tent city, you just gotta have a buddy run up to the fence and toss you the drugs while the too-few deputies aren't looking (or more likely paid to go on break).

Lastly, the bit about hebrew on cell phone buttons is entirely literary license and should not be construed as anti-semitic. Some of the highest quality and most secure microelectronics are created in Israel at offices of a company called NDS. If you subscribe to a satellite service branded DirecTV or SKY, you have Israeli technology attached to your TV: the smartcard in the receiver (which in plain language can both de- or re-activate your service for non-payment, controls which channels you receive and authorizes pay-per-view purchases) is made by NDS. At present (and for really the past few years) DirecTV and SKY branded services have not had the gigantic problems with signal theft that other encryption schemes continue to suffer.

Lastly, to my knowledge I am not making any credible accusations of illegality against Mr. Arpaio and his staff. Mr. Arpaio has chosen to make himself an internationally-known public figure and thus is fair game to poke some fun at.

I bought back into the market

I won't say what stocks, what prices, mum's the word. I treated my newly-minted investment account like a trip to Vegas and put a similar spending limit on it.

I have to train myself not to watch it every day - which would be easy if one of the stocks wasn't in merger talks. But nonetheless, I'm in for the near-to-long term.

It's like the great depression all over again - the press says "buy 'em while they're so low!"

The crash has not been like Argentina 2002. One bank I use got bought out by a bigger one - but no major changes yet. I'm already moving assets away. The only fallout is that I used that bank to pay my monthly Sky Mexico bill. I'd let my balance drop below the $USD equivalent of the MX peso debt I have with Sky. It just happened - I wanted my balance at that bank to be pretty damn LOW.

(BACKGROUND: I use Sky as Spanish-on-demand lessons on my TV. Sky legally cannot sell into the USA but it's a don't ask-don't tell situation because they want the US revenue. However, if I use a random debit card to pay Sky and then do a transaction in Phoenix a few minutes/hours later - both get flagged as fraud. It takes a half hour on the phone - at minimum - to straighten it all out! So last night - as my Sky bill was due - I called another CREDIT card provider and said - look, you're going to get a charge for a card-not-present transaction for 1,000 MX pesos but you might also see card-present transactions here in Phoenix tonight. They asked me more than ten questions to verify I was who I said I was - smooth sailing. The Mexican payment via Visa went thru and so did three other local transactions made an hour later.)

I'm setting up with yet a 3rd bank and make sure they know that one card-not-present transaction in MX pesos per month is "kosher."

Indians visit the moon....

I can see it now.

They will get there. They will return unharmed. I definitely can imagine a red dot being pressed to launch it, and another to return it to earth. ;)

:)

Palin on Saturday Night Live - no surprise on the west coast

Because the Central and Eastern time zones get a differently timed feed (2 hours ahead of us) pretty much all of the Palin woman's appearance on SNL was leaked on the web. I watched anyway just to see it - it was the first time I'd been home near my HD set to really see the difference between Tina Fey and Caribou Barbie. DAMN CLOSE.

I watched the other bits on either YouTube or NBC.com - there is no substitute for the local over the air broadcast (uncompressed by cable or satellite) in 1080i.

I'll keep watching SNL until the end just in case anything got held back on the web.

It is STUPID that even though the New York City local television station signals are landing on my satellite dish, I can't pay for them to be displayed due to a stupid federal law.

Crossing from Mexico to the USA - a moving target

The rules keep changing. I was thinking about going to Rocky Point with my dog. Last I'd read, all one needed was current proof of rabies vaccination.

Nope. Now its added expense: one has to get a health certificate signed by a vet. My particular vet costs $65.00 for this. Looks like just boarding her during any trip makes more sense.

That's the bad news. I got an envelope in the mail yesterday from the Border Patrol. I'm wondering, what in the heck is this... then I recall that they told me at the CBP office where I registered that I'd get an updated card in the mail that's a passport-equivalent.

That's what it was.

Here's their "SAMPLE" (public) images of the old and new cards. What, are you kidding, I'm going to put a picture of one of my ID documents on the internet? I will say I don't have the stupid mustache like the dude on the left. The card on the right is like the one I got in the mail. It was an internet-based activation process. The card is a complicated little beast made of at least three parts fused together. The documentation that came along with it made it very clear that there is an RFID chip inside it. It came with a sleeve that was lined with gold foil and the instructions are quite clear that the card should be kept in your wallet in that sleeve to prevent it being read by 3rd parties without one's knowledge.



It means no need to carry the paper passport on road trips south.

Saturday, October 11th - my voting day

My early voting ballot is here. Tomorrow I'm going to sit down and (most likely) vote a straight Democratic ticket - with the exception that no incumbent in the City of Scottsdale is going to get my vote. By Monday morning I will have mailed it.

Joe Arpaio again as Sheriff? You've got to be kidding. That guy shouldn't be running *anything* much less a law-enforcement agency. His ads on local cable (which thankfully I only see at the gym) show him receiving the Arizona Republic and then throwing it in the trash immediately - referring to it as the LIBERAL MEDIA?

WTF? The AZ Republic(an) is LIBERAL? He must be smoking something he seized to have that idea.

He may well get re-elected but it won't be because of me.

The economy is just... well, crap. I sold all my retirement funds and stock positions in 2003 when I moved to Uruguay and I have to say - right now I'm feeling pretty OK with that decision. A greedy American Express financial adviser had already lost 1/3 of the value so why not?

I may buy back into the market just before the election - I think that will be the all-time-low for a lot of stocks.

The negativity of the McSame campaign shocks me (but only a little). When you don't have anything to be FOR, or its so volatile how much the candidate is erratically changing his mind - he really doesn't have much option but to go negative. If TJ Maxx in Seattle (I doubt they have locations in Juneau, AK or Anchorage, AK) sold Prada - Palin would have bought it there. (On the other hand anyone who shopped TJ Maxx has had their credit card details stolen due to the abject stupidity of the management of that retail chain!)

Palin - OMFG what a self-righteous bitch. Her silly pentecostal religion is going to bite her in the ass (two words about Pentecostals in high places: 'John Ashcroft') - along with the outcome of the investigation into her interference as governor w/r/t/ the job of that state trooper who divorced a family member. If McCain was smart (not really possible due to the pre-embalming process he appears to have undergone, VERY visible on HDTV) he'd quietly dump Palin and get Tina Fey from Saturday Night Live as his running mate. Looks the same and would do far less harm.

At the root of it - neither candidate will do a damn thing. It's not in their personal or party best interests. Since 1988, again in 1992, again in 1996, again in 2000 and again in 2004 - we heard a bunch of crap from both sides about how healthcare and social security would be fixed. Not going to happen in my lifetime. Hell, I was at my doctor's office this morning and they had their usual posting up about whether lunch would be catered by one of the Big Pharmaceutical companies. Apparently today - YES, it would be. Seems to be the case everytime I'm there.

America 2008 is a very fucked up place. Will it get "fixed"? I don't know. The Roman Empire eventually collapsed and "fixed" a lot of its problems. It's the only "fix" I see in sight. Meanwhile out of fear I continue to pay taxes and look forward to retiring offshore.

Shaggy goes to the beach

I took Shaggy to the beach this afternoon. This beach is one of the few that allows dogs and between labor day and memorial day they can be off leash.

Just one little problem. Shaggy is in heat. Had I let her off leash it would have been a Discovery Channel moment (or several). Since I don't want my cute little dog knocked up - we had to cut the visit short. But I got a few pictures first.



This is the view from the beach:

Uverse - not ready for prime time

I'm experiencing the joy of AT 'n T's U-Verse service. I'm underwhelmed.

With only ONE television turned on and no multiple DVR recordings happening - i.e. one standard def video stream - the picture froze about once every half hour.

The 2WIRE brand box that's the center of the system is the size of (remember telephone directories?) one of the volumes of the Manhattan yellow pages. I haven't figured out the network topology - I think it's all IP over co-ax.

The neat thing about it is it's a distributed digital video recording system. If you record the show on the main box - it's available for playback on the other boxes in the house. However it's impossible to delete a recorded show from one of the other boxes, it has to be done from the "main" set.

It seems to do firmware upgrades (or something) at odd times. 4:30 pm this afternoon, right in the middle of prime football watching - the main 2WIRE box went offline for five minutes. It's hard to tell if this is just a bad install or what - but it seems that many other u-verse users have similar issues.

The pluses - channel change is pretty well instantaneous, no delay like on digital cable or satellite. The picture quality is crystal clear (even when it's frozen for that 1 second or so every half hour).

I hate to say it but if they can fix the freeze-ups and I lived in an area where u-Verse was available - I might end my longstanding boycott of the deathstar.

HDTV is a bitch

Palin is tan from the top hairline down to the chin.

Pasty-white and freckles below.

Biden - Palin debate comments -----

First of all - Gwen Ifill hosting this is all good but... Much better to have Whoopi Goldberg. No disrespect to Gwen but Whoopi would have been better.

All well and good to talk about healthcare, job creation, etc...

Both are 100% full of shit.

None of it will ever happen.

Neighbors

Oh my. My downstairs neighbor gets more offensive by the day. I was on the phone with my mom talking about something really heavy - and he was good for some levity.

Out of the blue he starts screaming... "You little (ethnic slur) M-F'ers (except he says the whole word good and loud because he's half-deaf) on your skateboards make so much goddamn noise...."

The tirade was so loud I could hardly hear myself think. Mom could hear him crystal clear through the phone. She knew who it was too - I'd warned her to A-V-O-I-D him when she was visiting here.

Jokingly I said to my mom, "Of course I won't do this - he'd shoot me - but I really want to go dump water over the side of the balcony on him to shut him up. Besides, it'll give the kids something to laugh at."

But... must control such impulses. He *really* would shoot me, too!

Just once, as big around as my arm from my elbow to my wrist.

Ok, enough doom and gloom. This one had me laughing the whole (2 minute) drive home.

I go to the supermarket daily. I've said it over and over on here - it's a habit formed living in Uruguay. Besides, it's a great way of not seeing just how much money a month I'm spending on food when its spread over 28 transactions vs. 3 or 4 :)

My local supermarket just started carrying Yakult.

The name is off-putting to the American-english speaking ear. It evokes images of some strange religion practiced by Ren and Stimpy or worse yet, it sounds vaguely Russian. Then when you pick up the bottle it says "fermented milk product."

The latina cashiers are all surprised. "I didn't know we sold that! My mom made me drink one of these every day growing up in Mexico!"

The cashier tonight asked me - "What IS this stuff? I've never seen it."

I'm trying to be diplomatic. "It's like Dan-Activ (an active culture yogurt) but cheaper and more effective. It just appeared in the store here and I always bought it when I lived in South America. I drank one every morning and then it wasn't a problem if I slipped up and drank the well water."

Yes its a cop-out but it's quicker than having the "Where is Uruguay?" conversation.

Oh my god, the responses you get... "Huh. My husband is never regular. He always tells me, JUST ONCE I'D LIKE TO PUSH ONE OUT AS BIG AROUND AS MY ARM FROM MY ELBOW TO MY WRIST all in one piece."

I started laughing and was like, "Don't take me there!"

I nodded over at the latina cashier a few lanes away and said, "Oh, it works. She knows what it is too, she was surprised to see it here and even more surprised to see a gringo buying it." (American girls don't know the proper word they really call us, which is gabacho."

I figured, I really don't want to know more about this unknown man's bowel movements.

So the woman asks me - "How long does it take to work?"

Hell, I don't know. But I answer anyway because I was hitting enter on the debit card machine and knew I'd escape shortly... "Three or four days." I'm trying to change the subject a little... "Don't let the description on the bottle put you off - where it says 'fermented milk product'. It tastes better than it sounds."

"Huh, how 'bout that. I'll have to have him try it. If I see him again I'll let you know."

"Well you have a great night - but I mean no disrespect - I'd rather not know OK? Take care..." and with that I'm the HELL out of there!

from APPROVED to DECLINED - the message loud and clear from the House of Representatives

After today's news out of Washington, I was originally speechless. Then I got mad and started writing. My writing style is rather, well, blunt.

My biggest wonder is about getting paid by my clients. But this is a cyclical wonder that happens every 15 days. Either it continues or it stops, right? I work as hard as I can. I don't have a 401(k), I'm not invested in the market - but this stuff worries me. I have aging family about to retire and the value of their 401(k) may put that off - but they may have no choice but to start traveling that road due to lack of employment.

I'm also not sure if globalization is about to be redefined. To the average joe six pack globalization means "Gee, wow, ya mean there's a TGI Fridays in Buenos Aires? Cool!" To the economist - they start to lose me at "intertwined" - not because I don't understand it but because it's SO OBVIOUS. Intertwined? No fuckin' kidding. And then the first time they say "probable" - well then I've really tuned out now haven't I?

What I'm wondering is more along the lines of - are we finally seeing a scripted-in-English slow motion (but picking up speed) localized for our country version of a Latin American collapse? Argentina in 2002? Brazil's hyperinflation in the 1970's? Will the US dollar drop so much in the coming weeks that the Zimbabwe dollar (currently at trillions of them to buy USD$1) actually gain ground, with no intervention of the Zimbabwe government?

I haven't been this freaked out about the economy since I was ten years old, living in Kenosha, WI. Unemployment peaked in Kenosha at about ... 33% if I recall correctly? It was exactly tied with Flint, Michigan. Kenosha sort of recovered, Flint not so much. That was all about the auto industry. It was an impending sea change in the economy and no one knew what was coming out the other end, or when it would end or in what form.

We found out. It was - would you like fries with that OR would you like to get real tech-savvy real fast? There wasn't much in between. And oh did we get addicted. No, not to drugs or alcohol (well... nevermind). We got addicted to the word APPROVED. Better than a food pellet. Some of the machines still show it in blue LED letters in that speak-and-spell font. Some show it completely drawn in, on a black-on-grey LCD. And you damn right well gave that machine the once-over before you shared your card with it, we wised up about tossing those reciepts willy-nilly so that someone else did not assume our APPROVal.

The bankers figured it out although we have to keep kicking 'em in the balls to protect privacy - but they kept those approvals coming because they knew we were hooked. Nobody cared HOW the approvals happened but oh we wanted more. We were ENTITLED at varying levels due to the magic of a thing called a FICO score. Step right up and get approved! You'll probably get approved even with a low score but just skip over that fine print with the boring "legal" disclosures (they'd usually trail off into some fast hard to catch mumbling at that point) and then perk back up with "BUT JUST SIGN HERE, YOU'RE APPROVED!"

And now it's the money shot. We set ourselves up to have that 110-pound 6'1" naked hooker pop out of the cake - except there was a surprise. She used to weigh 510 pounds and hasn't had the skin removal surgery yet, she hasn't quite figured out not to eat much if any fatty food with her Alli tablets so she came out of the cake leaving an oily $4.50 a gallon trail. (Oh, except in Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and parts 'round there... they line up for a tank of that oily $4.50 a gallon trail!) And oh baby - she's got some medical debt. Her FICO score is more fucked up than the skin on her thighs! By god that cost and that risk is going to get spread across all the users of the system - willing and unwilling.

So we come back to - what is globalization? Just maybe it's not that bright shiny future the marketers pitch. What if, just maybe, it bears NO resemblance to a Cisco commercial? And as approvals are slowing down - snowballing even - what's going to happen now? It's like being ten years old all over again and the biggest industry of your small town just evaporated, never to return - except on a national level.

Oh, it'll rebound somehow in some form - but at what level? The standard of living expected in the mid-70's took quite a bit more effort in the mid-80's and even more in the mid-90's. There are only 24 hours in a day. I hear that in some households there are two parents that both make a real good wage - but that's an ever-smaller demographic. Used to be maybe 20% of the pie chart looked like that. But there's just a sliver left. Your chances of getting a taste aren't high.

So what form could globalization take? A lot of empty unkempt buildings all over urban America - just like major urban areas abroad (and in Detroit)? Evidence that there had once been pavement and road maintenance with odd brief perfectly paved stretches near houses with high walls and electric fences? Four generations under one roof as the norm with as many bars on the windows as one can have but still let light in? Armed private security playing a higher role than police. Could be much of urban America in the near future.

And today the news out of Washington was DECLINED. Oh yeah, the president with the 27-ish percent approval rating (no, the other kind of approval - it has nothing to do with his black Amex co-signed by the Saudis) went on TV to back some legislation HE WROTE HIMSELF, to hear him tell it. His own party and its supporters freaked out. The opposition party called bullshit (as well they should) - everytime that slick fucker in the White House goes on TV several months later it comes out that part or all of it was some preposterous lie to benefit his own agenda.

Could this be where all that APPROVED led us? We pay our elected officials and their employees untold sums of money in salaries, pensions, entitlements - and the result was DECLINED, in the form of no action?

Both sides pointed fingers. Because there's a new synonym for bipartisanship - it's 'bullshit'. Politics has degenerated to, quite simply, having to be RIGHT. That doesn't mean right-wing or left-wing, it means that we have to vote our position because it's the morally superior groupthink correct thing to do among our peer group (political party). After all, it doesn't matter if they get a goddamn thing done because they still get the big salary and the perks. They just have to do their time.

I predict that these highly paid politicians are going to start leaving Washington as if the session is over. Why the hell not? Most of their constituents would be furious about a big hand-out to these same friendly Wall Street bankers - but wouldn't it be a shame if suddenly - there just wasn't a quorum for doing business? As a slick politician who's more concerned about being RIGHT which are you going to pick?

Meanwhile there's heated activity going on inside the huge remaining banks. Most of the mortgage paper is worth just as much as if it were used as toilet paper. Now lets go after the credit cards. There's a trend picking up steam to look at every member of John Q Public and review his avaible credit vs. his FICO score. The new marching orders are to slow down all those APPROVED's.

I hate that any tax money be spent to bail out these wall-street wonks - but at least it CONTROLs it IF our pompous politicians can get past being morally right and actually do something QUITE FORIEGN to any of them: compromise. Because if we don't, wall street is going to implode in an uncontrolled way that will see a lot of golden-parachute deployments over posh Caribbean islands named Saint-Something-or-Other. It'll leave the American people having to kick the APPROVED "drug" cold-turkey but why should they care? It would be a win for the Wall Street slime who shoveled out the approvals. It will be a win for the politicians who have to be morally right. The "Joe Six-Pack demographic" will perceive "they stuck it to the bastards," - and they will realize too late the bastards stuck it to THEM.

The outcome of today's DECLINED message out of the House of Representatives has already reverbrated once around the world. It's going to keep spiraling downwards with every 24-hour cycle. No one knows how far down that will be.

These overpaid out-of-control elected officials need to hear loud and clear: stay in Washington and pass an acceptable compromise that stops the spiral. The historical precedents are there. It may seem impossible in an election year but the two sides have to put aside their differences.

Going to Fry's on Black Monday '08 - or re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic

EVERY other experience I have had with Fry's is that you will wait 20 or 30 minutes to find a sales rep who's not tied up - this time it was under FIVE. Perhaps under FOUR! The checkout line took an equal amount of time.

It took more time at the supermarket!

Bloody Monday

Or maybe it's good news? Nah, it has nothing to do with the stock market, it's much closer to home than that.

I paid no attention to the stock market today or the bailout vote. When your expectations of elected officials are that low, why bother?

Better to stay out of the way of the little parts of the government that *do* function - started the day by getting a smashed-out headlight repaired so now I can drive at night without worry! And of course, use GPS to drive everywhere so I *know* my arrival time - thus no need to risk passing a random speed camera going too fast.

How did the headlight get smashed out? Debris on the freeway. When I pulled over to get insurance information from the guys who dropped it - they drove off FAST! No point calling the cops, hit and run accidents happen statistically more often in Phoenix because of the huge population of people who can't get driver's licenses - i.e. undocumented immigrants.

Speed cameras? Run by a for-profit corporation with a cut to the state - the owners win, the state wins, the insurance companies win - but you can't fight that ticket.

(Well some of 'em can be fought but only those taken at a certain location for a few hours... turned out the camera operator isn't even a cop and the guy got nailed for "extreme DUI" IN THE PHOTO RADAR VAN when he went off shift.)

Oh but I digress.

It turns out that Shaggy is in heat. When I picked her up from the dog groomer she told me, "You know your dog is ... (she was embarrassed to have to, you know, tell me, paused and lowered her voice...) having her period? We sell diapers for it, you know?"

"Do you see how hyper that dog is? I don't see a diaper staying on that animal for longer than five minutes out of my sight! But thanks..." (And I'm thinking... I *am* aware that I own an animal that happens to be female so why on earth should this be embarrassing?)

Ah well, it'll be three weeks of erratic behavior and then back to normal. It was better news than from the TV!

Arson, 100 yards away from home

The management office of my apartment complex was gutted by fire last night. Fortunately it's a standalone building with no one living adjacent to the structure.

Unreal. Obviously either someone who applied for a place got denied -or- didn't handle getting evicted very well.

The word on the street is that at 4am somebody broke one of the windows of the office and threw some kind of fuel in there and lit it up. I sleep with an air conditioner next to me so I didn't hear anything. The fire had to have gotten put out pretty quickly.

I've vaguely been considering moving. Now the idea is a bit more appealing. I'll feel a little better when I hear that someone's been arrested for the crime.

the WRONG time to join a gym (but it was a good idea anyway)

Ok, so I need to do lots of cardio each week. The buzz from a good workout lasts into the next day and OH BOY do I need that.

Of course - what's wrong with being at a gym every night - the TV's that face the cardio machines. I.E. it's all politics all the time.

I can't believe how far the right wing's standards have fallen. Ok, we're going to put a woman on the ticket. No matter her fifteen-year-old daughter is knocked-up and her eighteen year old son's scheduled for a shotgun wedding. UNREAL.

McSame's campaign then proceeds to insult the nation's intelligence with that B.S. demand for an apology about a lipstick on a pig metaphor. In reality polls show that most every sighted heterosexual male watching her speech at the convention was thinking "I could hit that."

(For those [few] readers who are still hung up on the lipstick on a pig thing -
(a) just stop reading and
(b) 'hit that' is not about domestic violence - ask a non-home-schooled 15 year old if you've never heard the term)

A friend commented to me that this election has to be extra-confusing for Mormons. From their point of view: On the one side you have a black man (apologies to Seinfeld) - not that there's anything wrong with that (since 1978 that is). On the other side you have a woman with a family who is *away* from her family most of the time and not currently pregnant (although she could be). Incredible. Which to choose?!

On the flip side of it - hell, by default I'll vote for Obama. Hillary Clinton just is too toxic to be on the democrat ticket - just too unpopular. But I'm not thrilled about Joe Biden either - he's been in Washington since 1973.

So both sides have a big dose of "more of the same" and someone really new to the whole scene. Both sides are promising the same bullshit I've heard during every presidential election in my adult life - we're finally going to fix healthcare, we're finally going to fix social security, it goes on and on.

Meanwhile, it's government by and for the corporation. I'll go through the motions and vote but I really don't believe either side will change much of anything. It's not in the best interest of the lobbyists.

For *sure* I'll be making more use of my smartphone and slingbox to avoid the "news" channels until after yet another "no good choice" US presidential election is finally over.