2nd Edition

It's time for another edition of Friday Feelings. This time I won't poisen the thread with my own feelings. So feel free to get this thing going this week with your own thoughts and feelings about anything you like.

Homer: Lisa, would you like a donut?
Lisa: No thanks. Do you have any fruit?
Homer: This has purple in it. Purple is a fruit.

Cat Profile #1

Spitfire

aka: Spit, Spitzy, Spitz, Kitty, Cat, Kitty Cat, Spitz E. Fire..Super Geneous, Garfield, Mr. Spit, Spitzers, Kitten, Little Ball 'O Fluff, Orange, The Damn Cat, and many many more...
Birthday: July 22, 1990
Age: If you couldn't do the math from the birthday...14 (but 15 is coming up quick)
Weight: 15 lbs...uff-da
Breed: Red Tabby
Origin Story: My dad's friend's neighbor had a litter of kittens and wanted to get rid of some. We went over(I was 9 years old) and were planning on taking the grey cat, but when we got there I fell in love with the little orange one that was playing with my hand and biting me...so we took him home. He slept in the back window of the car on the way home, then whined all night but eventually fell asleep on the back of a chair near a light. In a few days he was fine and annoying the family...as he still does today.
Favorite Toy: That red catnip toy that Jay and Denise gave him when they were cat-sitting...he loves that thing and still plays with it everyday. Where did you guys get that thing..?
Favorite Sleeping Spot: My bed...I can never move my legs or turn over during the night without annoying the cat.
Favoite Activity: Eating, no wait...sleeping..no eating
Favorite Human: Andy...duh. I'm everyone's.
Favoite Snack: Matt's plants...yum, vomit enducing
Most Annoying Attribute: Excessive and recurrent vomiting that not only leaves me with clean-up duties and puts stains in the carpet, but also requires many very costly vet visits that produce no diagnosis....just more vomiting.
Cutest Moment: Way to many to think of, let alone write about, but I'll describe the latest...Recently attempted to jump from the floor into an open window, but failed to get his back legs up and clug to the window cill with just his front paws, hanging there on the wall for at least 15 seconds before I came over and supported his hind legs so he could get into the window...awe, it was so cute and pathetic. The old man can't jump as high as he used to...

Cuteness: A
Cuddliness: B
Sleeping: A+
Eating: A
Whining: A+ (he uses his whining effectively as feeding time approaches)
Companionship: A+

Overall Grade: A

Marge: Homer, the plant called. They said if you don't show up tomorrow don't bother showing up on Monday.
Homer: Woo-hoo. Four-day weekend.

Film Review: 'The Assassination of Richard Nixon'

I watched 'tAoRN' last night...and I loved it! It was one of the best movies of 2004. Sean Penn was, as usual, brilliant. (He does well playing the mentally ill.)

The first half of the movie was excellent. It focuses on Sam Bicke's failures and frustrations that lead him to criticisms of the system that denies people respect and economic security. The observations the film makes about the failures of American capitalism are well done, and led me to strongly identify with the character. After the first 45 minutes I was thinking this was the best movie I've ever seen. The scene where Bicke walks into the local Black Panther office is enough to make the movie worth seeing.

The second half, however, could not live up to the first. This was not really the fault of the filmmakers, since it was based on a true story, and the film had to follow Bicke's descent into madness in the last 45 minutes. This was another problem of the film...it was too short(only 95 minutes). I felt there was a lot more the film could have done with the backstory and charcter development(which was lacking also).

Overall though, a great movie that I would highly recommend.

MarxistGopher's Rating: ********* (9 of 10 Stars)

Lionel Hutz: Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Minimum Wage Increase

Oh boy, the fascists in Minnesota have found it in their hearts to agree to raise the State's minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 an hr. Wow! Now people living in severe poverty will be able to live in moderate poverty! Thanks Republican House, you really helped a lot of people....now they can supersize at McDonalds. Maybe they'll even take that extra money and spend it on a new pair of shoes. 'Ohhhhhh...Ahhhhhh...those are nice pair of K-Mart brand.' Everyone that's really happy about this can kiss my ass! It's like throwing a life preserver to a drowning man at sea, and then turning your boat around and heading for shore without him.

Making A Summer Work Schedule...why is it so hard?!

I've been sitting here this morning trying to figure out a new work schedule for the summer, and have found it much harder than I had anticipated. Do I want to work 4 long days, 5 8hr days, 7 short days, or more likely some combination of long and short days. It's also quite sad because I'm trying to figure out what times my friends 'might' want to get together and work my schedule around those 'mights.' This is the only catch in my schedule, as I have absolutely nothing going on all summer...well except basketball on Tuesday nights at 5:30, but that's easy enough to work around. And since I only see me friends maybe once every 2 weeks or so I really have nothing preventing me from working any schedule I want.

So my idea was to do something crazy...like a crazy split schedule(8-11am and 8-11pm). Why not? What's stopping me? ....or an even crazier split schedule(7-9am, 11-am-1pm, 3-5pm, 7-9pm) Why Not? It would be different and interesting, and would certainly break up my day! ...of course I could just stay with something conventional(6-2:30 M-F) or a later start (10-6 M-F), or a nice spread out (7-12:30 7 days a week.) I really have to life so I can do whatever the hell I want. Hell, I should just get a second job and earn some extra cash but way too lazy to do that. I hate work!

The other thing I'm taking into consideration is that I might want to build in a 2 hr. lunch 1 day a week so I can go out to lunch with my friend Squinty who'll be working here full time in the summer. (that is assuming of course that Squinty will want to have lunch with me once a week) So that adds another level of complexity to my decision making. This just reminds me how much I hate have a 30 min unpaid lunch! What a waste! It's not enough time to go out to lunch and barely enough time to heat up something in the lunchroom and choke it down before I have to get back to my desk) ...and believe me I've tried stretching my lunch out to do what I want for food and then just stay late at the end of the day to make up the time, but I got in trouble for that. Can you tell that I'm disgruntled today!

It's nice to have the luxury to set my own schedule, but I feel I'm screwing myself somehow no matter how a schedule my time at the acid mines... I think the problem is that I just really don't want to be here at all, so no matter what time of the day and week I'm here I'm going to be unhappy....but I guess I'm unhappy when I'm at home too so what’s the difference. Well, maybe I'll just keep the same schedule I have now.

Alright, enough bitching for now. Lets get on with another long meaningless day...

SNL Conspiracy Theory Rock

Check out this old SNL skit from 1998...(it was cut from the show after it aired once)

http://www.milkandcookies.com/links/29719/

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

My Love for Quantum Leap. "Oh, boy!"

The subject of this blog came to me today as I read Paul Shirley's blog(he mentioned Quantum Leap therein). I apologize if you were looking for something more political, but I felt the urge to talk about my love for Quantum Leap today. It was a strange coincidence(seeing the show mentioned on Shirley's blog), as I had just added the first three seasons of Quantum Leap to my Netflix queue not 2 minutes earlier. It seems like no one I know will admit to liking this show, but someone had too....it was on for 5 seasons! And most of the people I know are history people. Come on, the guy is traveling around in history(Civil War, Watts Riot, Vietnam, Kennedy Assassination)! I actually didn't see the show when it was originally on NBC from 89-93. I picked it up in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel(maybe this is why people are afraid of the show...'I'm not a nerd. I don't watch the sci-fi channel') in the mid 90's and watched it every weeknight at 11:00, trying desperately to stay awake until midnight on a school night to see the end of the episode...ahh memories.

"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and Vanished...He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home."

I will agree, though, with what many of my friends have argued, that much of the show is too conservative...he leaps into Lee Harvey Oswald but is unable to control many of his actions and leaps out before the assassination(which the show claims Oswald does alone, arguing that people only believe in a conspiracy because they cannot come to grips with that fact that "if one man can kill the president, then what hope is there for the rest of us." This is, of course, ignoring that opposite argument that 'what hope is there for the rest of us if our government can kill the president and cover it up.')...he also is 'poor angry black man' in Watts and tries to convince his friends that violence is not the answer. ...But anyway, in spite of all this the show is actually incredibly addictive and entertaining. You never knew what kind of hilarious and compromising situation Dr. Sam Beckett was going to leap into next...and better yet what time in history? Although I must say the show would have been far more interesting if he would have been able to leap outside of his own lifetime...the possibilities would have been endless...The American Revolution, A French fur trader, how about the Lincoln assassination!

In spite of the missed opportunities of time travel and the political problems I alluded to earlier, this show was a television milestone that is totally underappreciated by the masses and deserves to be heralded as one of the greatest shows of the 80's and 90's...if not all time(partial sarcasm here). I was also happy to see today on Project Quantum Leap (a geeky Quantum Leap fan page) that series creator Bellesario is planning a spin-off show on the sci-fi channel that would feature Sam Beckett's daughter(you'd have to have seen the original series to know who she is) as the new leaper that is traveling through time looking for her father...with Scott Bakula making guest appearances from time to time. I sincerely hope it comes to fruition...I need a new Quantum Leap fix...even if the Leap-haters will scoff at me.

Happy May Day Everyone!

Kind of makes you wish you lived in a country with a real labor movement doesn't it. Oh well, I guess I don't have anything else to say about it. Enjoy work this week!

Homer: Yeah, Moe, that team sure did suck last night. They just plain sucked! I've seen teams suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked!
Marge: HOMER!
Homer: I gotta go Moe my damn weiner kids are listening.