Ephemera

Two things on my mind today. The first is Princess Diana. It was one year ago today that she died and nobody can seem to keep from talking about it today. I'm sorry, she was a wonderful person, her death was a terrible tragedy, but all the hand wringing in the world won't bring her back. Let's move on. Let her family grieve in peace.

On a more tragic note: I went to see the movie "54" yesterday. Simply put it had the absolute worst quality you can find in a movie: it was boring, and the one thing that kept running through my mind every time Mike Meyers appeared on the screen was, "They couldn't afford John Lovitz?"

Posted by Hitch at 03:03 PM | Permalink

A bit of explanation about Thursday now that the pain has mostly gone away. I was working on my car (more radiator problems), when I did something very stupid. I opened the radiator cap while the radiator was still too hot. Near boiling water splashed out of the radiator and I didn't duck quite fast enough. I got some first degree burns on my right hip. I'm fine but it wasn't very comfortable that night and I wasn't feeling my best. Some people knew something (but not what) was wrong, and some others knew what happened and I wanted to let them know I'm okay now.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

I heard this morning that there was a Three Stooges convention in Los Angeles recently. One of the featured events was a bus tour of famous Stooge sites. Along the way they had a Three Stooges trivia contest which was won by a gentleman wearing a veil. He won a T-shirt. They're saying that this Stooge fan was none other than Michael Jackson. I've just never pictured him as a Three Stooges fan, but then again this is the person who got an Oscar nomination for a love song written about a rat.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

I did something incredibly stupid tonight. I don't feel very good, and I don't feel like writing anything for this. Maybe tomorrow.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

I really need to stop reading this stuff:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -"The Commission on Judicial Performance announced Wednesday that Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani of the Long Beach Municipal Court was being investigated for the June 30, 1998, incident in which she ordered a bailiff to activate the electronic security belt worn by Ronald Hawkins."

Hawkins crime that he was on trial for? Stealing a bottle of aspirin. The offence for which the judge had the belt activated to deliver an 8 second 50,000 volt shock to the prisoner? Talking too much in court.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

There was the kid in New York who was shot for waving a squirt gun at police. You read the reports on that and it sounded really bad. The reports made it sound like a typical over-reaction on the part of the police. Then I saw a press conference with somebody from the Mayor's office. Turns out the "kid" was 17 and the squirt gun, which they showed on camera, was very realistic looking. He was told repeatedly to put it down, but continued to brandish it as if it were a real weapon. In this case eugenics worked. The stupid one was culled from the ranks.

Then there's the woman in California who decided to get revenge on all the people (mostly health-care workers) who had wronged her and left her with terminal cancer. She was caught trying to mail nearly 100 packets of sodium cyanide to her enemies list disguised as nutritional supplements. They're saying that by stopping her they prevented mass murder. I have to wonder how many of her intended victims would have actually ingested the poison had she succeeded in mailing it out.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

With hurricane Bonnie off the eastern coast, surfers are having a field day. Apparently impending ecological disasters create ideal conditions for surfing fun. Until the thing actually hits the shore and causes massive amounts of property damage and personal injury. But, hey! Let's party while we can.

A man in London has turned over cell sample of his dearly departed pet dog to be cloned. Along with a check worth five million dollars. Hey, for ten percent of that I'll find him a not quite exact duplicate of the dog that's just as good.

Just when you thought every goofy candy idea had been marketed. (At least I did when I saw the Godzilla Monster Mouth Candy) Hasbro is planning to come out with lollipops that talk or play music to you when you bite them. You can only hear the sounds the candies make while your teeth are clamped on them.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Yesterday seemed to go well. ;-)

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

I'm writing this very early today. I didn't write an entry yesterday, and most likely won't be back to write one tonight. It's a big day for me, could be major changes in my life. Spent a lot of time getting mentally prepared for today. I have a lot of confidence that today is going to be very good. Hopefully, I'll have some good news to share with you all very soon.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

I was amused by the power of the media this morning. It's August and that means it's time for the Perseid meteor showers. Every year when this happens it gets reported as "news". Well this year they had to add a line to the standard article about the event. Basically they said, "Don't worry this isn't like the movie Armageddon." Heh heh.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

The shoe lace obsession continues. I finally found a pair that would work, but they were outrageously expensive. (For shoe laces, that is.) I really like the shoes, so I broke down and bought them. :-/

I came up with a plan that could make somebody with the right kind of technical know-how very rich. Someone should devise a simple to operate, compact aglet setting device. (Aglets are the little plastic ends on shoe laces.) You put this device in a store with a few spools of various types of lace material and you solve the big lace shopping problem. I couldn't find the right kind of laces in the length I needed, or the right length in the right color/diameter. With this the store could provide exactly the laces a customer needs without having to stock an incredible variety of pre-packaged laces. Anybody who's been through what I've been through would make a store with this capability very popular.

Also, today I saw the movie Snake Eyes. I was disappointed. I really like Nicholas Cage and Gary Sinise. I have been disappointed in Brian DePalma's work in the past, but really hoped that the performances of the two actors would make this movie work. Unfortunately the writing and direction were not there. The story could have been so much more and the direction seemed to undercut several good scenes. Neither actor was really pushed to give the kind of outstanding performance they're capable of.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Eating lunch at a fast food place today, I noticed the drink cup advertizing them as "cool," and the fry box calling them "hot." These terms are used so much any more that I wonder if consumers aren't a little jaded by now. I think people would rather have something presented as relaxed, comfortable, and familiar. Toward that end, I don't want this site listed on anyone's Hot Links or Cool Site of the X. I just want people to think of this a your basic lukewarm website. ;-)

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Never break a shoe lace. If you do, you'll just have to throw away the shoes and buy a new pair. They don't sell replacement shoe laces anymore. Oh, they sell shoe laces -- just not for any shoes you own. It's like the HTML card trick. The two sets -- shoes and laces -- don't overlap. There's one set of styles and lengths that you actually find in the shoes you buy, and a completely different set hanging on the rack for sale. It's just good marketing. How are they going to get you to buy a new pair of shoes if you can keep wearing the ones you like for the cost of a 99 cent pair of laces. Conspiracies everywhere.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

I think there's a message in this story.

A co-worker of mine was telling me about her birthday. Her 20 year old son was a little short on cash, so he borrowed some money from her to get her a birthday present. She'd told him she could use some new shoes, so he went to a shoe store. He couldn't find any that he was sure she'd like, so he used the money to get her a gift certificate. She went to the store and didn't see anything she really like and everything was more expensive than the gift certificate. Meanwhile the son found some shoes he liked for himself and asked if he could use the gift certificate towards the purchase of them. She decided to go ahead and buy a pocketbook with the gift certificate. When she got home her 3 year old granddaughter decided she liked the pocketbook and hid it from her grandmother.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Sometimes things are just a little to surreal for me. Case in point: the new candy I saw today. I guess it's probably been out most of the summer, since the movie came out. It's called Godzilla Monster Mouth Candy. It's a plastic Godzilla head with a plunger on the back. When you press that plunger the mouth opens and a red candy tongue comes out. This just strikes me as more than a little bit weird. "Hey kids! Suck on Godzilla's tongue!"

One more thing I just noticed. "Godzilla" is in the dictionary of the spell-checker I use on this.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink

If it's not about you -- don't try to make it about you. Life ain't fair -- deal with it. Nobody cares if you were wronged if you're a jerk. This is my site, I'll talk about me. If you don't understand this, don't worry -- it wasn't meant for you. Just needed to state the obvious.

Posted by khitch at 10:10 AM | Permalink