Observations From My Weekend Trip To The Glory Of Rome Casino And Hotel

1.  A long male mullet in the everything-is-$10 gift store
2.  A Caesar's employee carrying a pineapple to the elevator
3.  Man in the hotel room next to mine puking all night long (the walls were very thin)
4.  A painting of Marily Monroe in Legends restaurant that made her look more like Eva Gabor
5.  More oxygen tanks than are found in most hospitals
6.  The moving sidewalks were not moving, but Caesar still cautioned everyone that the moving sidewalk was ending
7.  Fanny packs worn on 1 out of every 3 women over the age of 50
8.  Handtowels on the bathroom vanity in my hotel room were folded in the shape of a shirt and tie
9.  The cups for the free soft drinks on the casino boat were the size of the small bathroom Dixie cups
10. Standing behind a woman as she won $10,000 on a slot machine
11. Cleopatra looking exactly like local lounge singer Karen Kraft

Link Of The Week

I like to think I'm a diverse person, hip person; I think my friends would agree.  But I guess I'm not as diverse as I thought I was -- I don't know very many people from foreign countries.  I have a friend in Colombia, South America and another friend in Cambridge, England but that's it for foreign friends.  And both of them speak fluent English, so there's no translation to worry about.  But if I ever become friends with someone from another country who doesn't speak/write in English, I'll be ready thanks to Babel Fish Translation.  Just go to http://babel.altavista.com/translate.dyn and type in a word, phrase or paragraph you want to translate, and then chose the langauges you're translating from and to and you're set.  You can even cut and paste if you've got an email or something from a website you want to translate.

While we're on the subject of world diversity, on this day in music history, "We Are The World" was recorded.

Sponge Bob's Hidden Agenda?

Christians issue gay warning on SpongeBob video Conservative groups criticize maker's 'tolerance pledge'

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Conservative Christian groups accuse the makers of a video starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon characters of promoting homosexuality to children.

The wacky square yellow SpongeBob is one of the stars of a music video due to be sent to 61,000 U.S. schools in March. The makers -- the nonprofit We Are Family Foundation -- say the video is designed to encourage tolerance and diversity.

But at least two Christian activist groups say the innocent cartoon characters are being exploited to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.

"A short step beneath the surface reveals that one of the differences being celebrated is homosexuality," wrote Ed Vitagliano in an article for the American Family Association.

The video is a remake of the 1979 hit song "We Are Family" using the voices and images of SpongeBob, Barney, Winnie the Pooh, Bob the Builder, the Rugrats and other TV cartoon characters. It was made by a foundation set up by songwriter Nile Rodgers after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in an effort to promote healing.

Christian groups however have taken exception to the tolerance pledge on the foundation's Web site, which asks people to respect the sexual identity of others along with their abilities, beliefs, culture and race.

"Their inclusion of the reference to 'sexual identity" within their 'tolerance pledge' is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line," James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement released Thursday.

Rodgers said he was astounded by the attack.

"That is so myopic and harsh," he told Reuters. "You have really got to look hard to find anything in this that is offensive to anyone. The last thing I am going to do is taint these characters."

Dobson was quoted by the New York Times on Thursday as having singled out the wildly popular SpongeBob during remarks about the video at dinner this week in Washington, D.C.

SpongeBob, who lives in a pineapple under the sea, was "outed" by the U.S. media in 2002 after reports that the TV show and its merchandise are popular with gays. His creator, Stephen Hillenburg, said at the time that though SpongeBob was an oddball, he thought of all the characters in the show as asexual.

It is not the first time that children's TV favorites have come under the critical spotlight of the Christian right. In 1999, the Rev. Jerry Falwell described Tinky Winky, the purse-toting purple Teletubbie, as a gay role model.

 

I first read this article last week when it came out in the news (no pun intended) and I purposefully waited a week to post about it, just to see what the public reaction would be.  I was pleasantly surprised.  I asked friends, relatives and co-workers in varrying stages of conservatism what they thought about it and they all said pretty much the same thing: ridiculous.

First of all, I would like an honest show of hands from the so-called Christian conservative groups - please raise your hand if you've ever sat your kid down in front of the tv and put in a Barney or Bob the Builder video to 'babysit' your kids so you could get some work done around the house?  That's what I thought.

Second, this vide was designed to encourage tolerance and diversity.  I can't speak for these conservative groups, but in the Bible that I read, Jesus said "Love one another as I have loved you" and "judge not lest you be judged."  That's good enough for me.  I think this video is wonderful idea; not just because the song is one of the best songs from the disco era - the kids today need to learn that everyone in this world is not just like them, and they need to be more tolerant and accepting of people that they deem as "different": the chubby kid that gets picked last on the playground ball team, the Muslim kid who gets called a terrorist by the other kids, or the kid in a wheelchair that gets called "cripple" or "retard".  Shouldn't this be a more important lesson to teach the kids than saying that the Purple Teletubbie is gay because he's purple and carries a bag?  I guess that means Barney is gay, too. 

I asked my parents what they thought about this.  They rolled their eyes in unison.  My Mom said "Those conservative groups are just like the Pharisees in the Bible that they supposedly read. They just wait like vultures for something like this to happen so they can pour through it and pick out one tiny part of it and blow it all out of proportion, when they should be concerned with how they are living their own lives."  My Dad, sometimes a man of few but powerful words, said it best: "narrow minded." 

 

Woman Gives Birth To Giant Baby

For the past couple of weeks at work, all we've heard about is baby news; co-workers have had babies, co-workers' kids have had babies, and two co-workers are in various stages of pregnancy. I heard some more baby news last week that has intrigued and fascinated me: a woman in Brazil gave birth to 16.7 pound baby boy.  The doctors weren't kidding when they called it "a giant baby."  The doctors said the baby was healthy, and mother and baby were doing fine.  This was the largest baby born at this hospital in 12 years.  In an official statement to the press, the hospital director said "Obviously the baby was born by Caesarean section."  No joke.  That would be the equivalent of the poor mother delivering a 6-month old. That woman would have been ripped to shreds. The woman has 4 other children, who were born weighing between 7.7 and 11 pounds, so all of them have been above the average for that part of the world.  The hospital said that the woman, her husband and the staff at the hospital were caught by surprise.  I think that's an understatement. 

I told this story to a friend of ours, and she told me that her son weighed 11 pounds and 3 ounces.  She said that he was the biggest baby born at the old Norton's hospital when it was over on 3rd Street.  I see now why he's an only child. 

I don't know why this has fascinated me so much this week; maybe because all of the baby news going on here at work.  I was talking to my Mom about this, and she said "That would have been equal to the woman delivering four of you."  This might come as a surprise to you, but I was just a tad over 4 pounds when I was born.  I was a month early, and was a breach baby.  My Mom has always said "You came out butt first, and have been bass-acwards ever since."  Gee, thanks, Mom. 

Five Easy Clicks, My A$$

Even though it's my birthday, I feel terrible.  Not sick-terrible, just guilty-terrible.  For the second time in one week, I've caused our friend Bob to lose his religion.  The poor man spent two and a half hours last night trying to get my new laptop configured to the wireless router. 

I'll preface by saying the evening started out on a very positive note.  I'm proud to say that I successfully installed an ethernet card and a USB port card into the computer with no problems at all.  Actually the only difficulty that we encountered was trying to pop out the little covers for the card slots.  But the cards popped right into place, and as soon as I booted up the computer, thanks to the wonderful plug-and-play feature, the drivers were installed and we were good to go. 
Then it was time to hook up the wireless router and attempt to get the laptop connected.  Our friend Bob had told me to call him when I was ready and he would come down and do it for me. I didn't think this would be a major ordeal; the wording on the router box said "you can be networking in just 5 clicks."  Riiiiiiight.  So I called and he was there in 5 minutes.  He checked the way I had the router connected to the modem and computer, and said it was set up properly.  Then he went to work on the laptop.  Boy, did he work. 

The first snag of the evening was the fact that there was no manual with the laptop.  The only thing similar to instructions was a 5 x 7 card that had "Quick start" instructions on it, like how to plug the battery in and turn in on.  So we were on our on with the laptop.  But the "set-up" wizard kept saying "turn on the wireless internet switch" and we couldn't find it on the laptop.  After about an hour of trying to configure and connect with no luck, Bob finally found the switch.  He said "Maybe I should have worn my glasses."  Maybe so.  Then he went back to the configuring.  Let me say again, that Bob is a religious man.  To me, his character and integrity ranks up there with Billy Graham or the Pope in my book.  But during many many unsuccessful attempts last night, I was witness to hearing Bob cuss for only the 2nd time in the 20+ years that we've known him; the first time was last week.  I felt terrible - I've caused this man to backslide.

Persistance paid off, and two and a half hours after he started, he finally had the laptop configured and connected to the router and cable modem wirelessly.  We were both amazed.  He even took the laptop out to the front porch and turned it off and back on just to test it out, and it connected just as fast as if he'd been using the desktop with the broadband connection.  Isn't technology wonderful?

Thanks again for all of your help, Bob.  You rock. 

It's Fun To Stay At The Y.M.C.A.

I was reading the news at the MSNBC site the nother night when this headline caught my attention: "Village Person Donates 'Y.M.C.A.' Record To Indian Museum."  Of course, I was intrigued and had to read all about it.  True to the headling, Felipe Rose, bettern known as the Indian from The Village People, donated his gold record of "Y.M.C.A." to the National Museum Of The American Indian."  Felipe is part Lakota Sioux.

Felipe couldn't attend the opening of the museum last September because the Village People were on tour with Cher, but he wanted to contribute.  So he called the museum and asked if they wanted his gold record.  At the ceremony at the museum last week, a Lakota prayer was sung and then everyone did the "Y.M.C.A." dance. 

I'm guessing the muesum accepted the gold record in case they might need an artifact of bygone era, perhaps to create an exhibit on the disco era, and the Native American responses to it.  It makese sense to me - there are only so many clay pots, arrowheads, headdresses and Kachina dolls that people can stand to look at.  So when the day comes that someone asks, "Hey, what about the Indian from the Village People?" the Smithsonian will be ready.

"Y.M.C.A." was the Village People's biggest hit.  But I don't think they had a clue how big the song would become after the disco had died down.  In the early 90s, DJs started playing "Y.M.C.A." again, and people were dancing to it at wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs, and sports events all across the country.  The song itself is folklore.  People set their drinks down when the song is played at bars, so they can spell out "YMCA" without spilling their drinks.  Senior citizens spell out "YMCA." as part of their exercise programs. Stadiums full of tens of thousands of game watchers enthusiastically wave their arms as they spell out "YMCA" as it's played during a break over the loudspeakers.

See? It Wasn't So Bad, Was It?

For the past few days, when I would log on to my computer at work and the MSN homepage would come up, I saw the same story headline, "Monday January 24 called the worst day of the year."  It seems that a British psychologist has calculated that January 24 is the most depressing day of the year.  While I don't go along with January 24 being the worst day of the year, I will say that the psychologist's theory makes perfect sense to me.  The doctor's formula takes into account numerous feelings to devise people's lowest point.  The equation was broken down into six factors: weather, debt, monthly salary, time since Christmas, time since failed quit attempt, low motivational levels and the need to take action.  If you were to figure this equation for the marjority of the people I work with, we would all be deemed clinically depressed, especially given the monthly salary and low motivational levels. 

Like I said, it makes sense to me.  Even though the days technically get longer after December 21, we usually have cold blustery days in January.  Meanwhile the majority of people break their New Year's resolutions to lose weight or exercise just a week or two into the new year.  And by the third week, the rest have most likely fallen off the wagon, torn off the nicotine patches and eaten the fridge empty by the third week.  As December's bills start arriving and workers receive their sad W-2 forms, there is no holiday cheer left by the last week of the month.

The psychologist devised the formula to help a travel company analyze when people book vacations.  It seems that people are most likely to buy a ticket to paradise when they feel like hell. 

Welcome, J.T.

With all of the sadness and gloom going around ZCO the past few weeks, we'd like to now turn out attention to something very happy.  TWIT would like to welcome a new future faithful reader.  Please meet J.T.  - he arrived last Monday the 17th, and weighed 8 pounds 7 ounces, and was 21 inches long.  J.T.'s proud father is Jamie, a friend of mine from our Engineering department.  I have to honestly say that out of all of the new fathers I've met, I've never seen one beam as bright as Jamie did today when he was telling us about the baby.  I'm sure he'll have J.T. out on the hiking trail with him soon.  

Farewell, Johnny Carson

I was very shokced yesterday when I heard that Johnny Carson had died. Just last week on "Entertainment Tonight" and other shows, they were talking about how even though he retired from show business, he was still writing jokes and giving them to David Letterman. He was only 79, and had suffered from emphysema.  I feel confident that even people living under a rock knew who Johnny Carson was.  "Heeeeeere's Johnny" will be heard in our minds forever.

Johnny Carson had been married four times, and was divorced three times.  He was almost the male version of Elizabeth Taylor or Zsa Zsa Gabor.  But his multiple divorces amde for many jokes furing his thirty years as hose of "The Tonight Show."

Grandma and Grandpa were big "Tonight Show" fans.  They loved Johnny Carson.  They stayed up late during the week waiting for Mom and Dad to get home from their second-shift jobs at B&W, and they would faithfully watch the first half hour of "The Tonight Show."  As a kid, it was a special treat if I got to stay up late and watch it with them.  On occasion, if I'd behaved during the week and took a nap when I got home from school, Grandma would let me stay up and watch it with her and Grandpa on a Friday night.  My favorite part of of "The Tonight Show" was when Johnny would be "The Great Carnac."  As a little kid, I didn't understand half of the jokes Johnny Carson told, but when I heard Grandma and Grandpa laughing, I knew it had to be funny, so I laughed too. 

In addition to his legacy with "The Tonight Show", Johnny Carson will also be remembered as a star who helped out the young, unknown comics.  If it weren't for him, we wouldn't be laughing at Joan Rivers, Jay Leno, Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld, George Carling and David Brenner, just a few of the many he helped during his career.  I think Johnny was simply giving back what he'd been given; comic legend Red Skelton hired a young, unknown comic named Johnny Carson as a writer for his show, and even let Johnny host his live show when he was injured during a rehearsal. 

I was a faithful watcher of "The Tonight Show' until Johnny retired in 1992.  Since then, I bet I haven't watched it twenty times.  It wasn't the same without Johnny Carson; it never will be.

Link Of The Week

Hardly a week goes by that we don't get an email from our IT department at work telling us about some new virus that is making the rounds.  Our anti-virus software will flash a window on the screen as it gets updates, informing us about some new worm or trojan virus, and will go into specifics on what the file that contains the virus is named.  Last week, our alert had to do with a virus that was in an email that allegedly contained a list of passwords to use in online porn sites.  A lot of computer users are very trusting and will still download anything sent from someone that they know, not knowing that the email could have been sent as a result of a worm or trojan virus.  If you don't have any anti-virus software loaded on your computer, please finish reading this post and and go to http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5 and download the free AVG anti-virus software.  In my opinion, it's the best anti-virus software out there.  I would use it even if I had to pay for it; it's that good.  Our company uses the paid version of it, but I've been running the free version here on my pc at home and it's caught alot of viruses that were sent to me in emails.  Once you download it, run a thorough check on your computer.  After that, a window will pop up when log on to your computer, telling you that new viruses have been discovered and that you need to go and download updates.  It's that simple.  The first thing I did when I got my new laptop this week was go and download AVG.  I urge you to do the same.  Be safe.  Practice safe computing. 

Just A Cold, Sad Saturday

I usually try to keep things upbeat and funny here in TWIT, but occasionally life happens and causes me to reflect on sad and gloomy things.  Unfortunately, this is such a day. 

The weather turned cold again, and this morning the temps were in the 20s with 30 mph winds all morning long. I ran a few errands this morning, and as I was pulling out of the grocery store parking lot, I noticed someone walking down the sidewalk.  They stood out for the simple fact that they were the only person I saw walking other than shoppers going to/from the store.  They had on a big coat, with a hood, and had on a scarf and gloves, so I wasn't too worried about them getting hypothermia.  I was able to get a closer look at their face, and the walker was a black woman in her early 40s.  She was holding something dark red in her hand, and from a distance, it appeared to be a scarf.  It bothered me that someone had to walk on a cold, windy day like this.  All sorts of things ran through my mind - Was she poor and couldn't afford a car?  Was she not able to drive?  Was she homeless?

I ran a couple more errands and stopped by the post office on my way home, and as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I spotted the woman once again.  There were a few cars ahead of me waiting to turn onto the street, so I had a minute to sit there and watch her.  This time, she was just a few feet from me when she passed by and I was able to get a clear view of what she was holding in her hand -- it was a dark red Telletubbie doll.  She had a death grip on it as she was walking down the sidewalk.  I could see her mouth moving so I guess she was either talking to herself or to the doll.  I hope she made it home safe. 

I came back home and was fixing something to eat, when the phone rang.  It was an old friend of the family letting us know that a mutual friend had died late last night.  It wasn't a total shock; Julie had fought a long hard battle with leukemia for the past 5 years, and she had gotten worse in just the past week.  We were expecting it, but not just this soon.  Julie was only 34.  She and her family attended our old church - I grew up with her and her brother, and our families have been friends for over 40 years.  Since we leftour other church in 1998, we hadn't seen Julie very much, but each time we saw her she was the same Julie - always a big smile on her face.  She was without a doubt the sweetest 'kid' from our other church.  When she would come to our home with some of the other kids in the church youth group to visit Grandma, she was the only kid that would take the time to sit by Grandma and talk with her. She was clearly Grandma's favorite from the church.  That one small act of kindness really made an impression on me.  

Her husband works in the factory at ZCO, and he would give us reports of how she was doing.  This Christmas, everybody in the factory wanted to do something for them, but they didn't know what.  They'd originally wanted to send Julie, her husband and little daugther to Disney World, but after speaking to Julie's parents, they  found out that physically she wouldn't be able to stand a trip like that.  The guy that was in charge of collecting the money told me about it, and I told him I would handle the collection from the office; once they heard about Julie and Tommy, I knew they would want to help out, too.  I'm very proud of all of my co-workers - even at a time like Christmas when people are usually strapped for cash, we collected almost $2000 for them.  We paid $1500 of it directly to LG&E, so their electric and gas bill will be paid for probably over a year, and the rest was put on a Krogers gift card for groceries and prescriptions.  

Even though Julie wasn't with us very long, she left a mark on every life she touched for her attitude, faith, and her smile. 
 

 

Inauguration Observations

One of my friends/faithful readers expressed slight disappointment to me this morning - she looked at TWIT and expected to see a post about the inauguration. She also commented on how I really don't delve too much into the politics subject.  I've read alot of blogs where the posts are nothing but the author's opinion on politics; that's not what I wanted my blog to be about.  For those of you that know me well, you are well are that I am a Democrat, but I try to keep my posts in TWIT as bipartisan as I can. Not wanting to let down my faithful readers, here are my thoughts on yesterday's inauguration.

First of all, let me express my disappointment that they preempted the afternoon soap operas (especially All My Children) to show the post-inauguration festivities.  Yes, I understand that the inauguration of the President of the United States of America is an important event, but from what my reliable sources (my Mother and Father) tell me, all they showed from 1:00 on was recapping the actual ceremony - they said that the channel they watched didn't even show any of the big parade.  If they're going to preempt television coverage for this, then show us everything - if there's nothing else for us to watch on our local channels, they by golly show it all. 

Second, let me express my disgust over the increase in gas prices last night.  You can't tell me that there is not a connection between the inauguration and a 15 cent per gallon increase yesterday. I read that the inauguration cost over $40 million.  Another friend/faithful reader summed it best when she said "I guess we've got to pay for the inauguration somehow."  I know what you're thinking - that there's no direct connection between rising gas prices and paying for the inauguation, but it seems kinda fishy to me. Oil companies are getting more money, and they in turn can use the extra profits to contribute to political campaigns or to pay off lobbyists.  So see? It's all connected, and you don't even need six degrees of separation to make the connection, either.  If a President is elected for a second term, I say let's not have a second big hoopla - I don't care if the President is Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian.  He's already President, and they've already been through the pomp and circumstance four years ago, so I don't see a need for a repeat. 

Glory of Rome Update

The flood waters are going down and Caesar's Glory of Rome casino boat has re-opened.  Now all of us ZCO employees can go over there and piss away our bonus checks. 

Congratulations Gillian and Julian

TWIT would like to extend our warmest wishes to newlyweds Gilliand Anderson and her new husband Julian Ozanna.  This is the second marriage for the X-Files star.  The couple was married on December 29 on an island off of Kenya's Indian Coast.  Reports say the ceremony included hymns sung by a Kenyan choir in Swahili.  There was no mention of any aliens being in attendance.

This explains why we saw Gillian Anderson looking anorexic a month ago - I guess she was trying to fit into her wedding dress.  Now that she's caught the guy and married him, maybe she won't be so concerned with looking like Maria Shriver and she'll put some meat on her bones. 

And does anyone else think their names "Gillian and Julian" are a bit funny for a married couple?  They sound like one of the Canadian figure skating pairs. 

Get Well Soon, Cojo

TWIT would like to report that Steven Cojocaru, better known as Cojo, has undergone a successful kidney transplant, and is on the road to a expected full recovery.  Coco has polycystic kidney disease, a hereditary disorder which causes the growth of cysts on the kidneys.  The disease reduces kidney function and eventually causes kidney failure.  Coco received the kidney from a friend.  How cool is that - to have a friend who would give you one of their vital organs?

In case you might be wondering "Who in the world is Coco?", he's one of the correspondants on "Entertainment Tonight."  In keeping with the typical queen style, Coco can usually be found diss-cussing celebrity fashions and diss-pensing celebrity gossip.  His celebrity fashion reports from the awards shows are way funnier than Joan and Melissa Rivers. 

Hurry back to ET, Coco - we miss you. 

DSL Customer Service Update

My entire evening has been just pissed away messing with the BellSouth DSL.  True to their word, the missing parts did arrive today as promised.  That was the only positive part of this DSL experience. After getting the missing parts and getting things hooked back up (which took me about a half an hour) I tried to download the installation software again.  It froze up again, just like it did a dozen times Monday night. I called our dear friend Bosley, who is the family's personal computer/electric/plumbing/heating & a/c guru to help me out.  He was down here in a flash, and set to work.  Please let me preface by saying this man is a saint, and in the 20 years we've known him, tonight was the first time I've heard him cuss.  He worked for about an hour, and finally got the computer to recognize the DSL modem.  All of the lights were on on the modem, so we considered that a plus. But we still couldn't get the installation software to download.  So as a last resort we called back BellSouth.  After being put on hold for 4 times, "Joanie" finally reported back that I couldn't use the USB connection for my Windows 98, and would have to use the ethernet connection.  Which would require a $50+ ethernet card.  Bosley hung up from them, and started unhooking all of the DSL crap and tossed it back in the box for me to mail back to them tomorrow. As soon as I had the stuff boxed up, I called Insight, our local cable people, and ordered their broadband service.  Please keep your fingers crossed that it will work for me.  I'm not sure Bosley and I can handle too many more nights like this.

At Your Service?

This has been one hell of a week for customer service issues.  Please sit back and let me tell you a few sordid tales from the past few days.

The first horror story was told to me by a co-worker.  She had a doctor's appointment Monday morning.  She got to the doctor's office, only to find that the doctor wasn't in.  And would not be in all day.  The nurses all looked at her like she had three heads. They told her that the doctor never scheduled any appointments for Mondays.  She proceded to pull out the appointment card out of her purse, and showed that that one of them had in deed made the appointment for Monday the 17th.  She said that the nurse looked at the card, which plainly said 1-17-5 for her appointment date, and still said "I'm sorry, the doctor does not see any patients on Mondays."  By this point, my friend was mad enough to bite nails, so she grabbed the card out of the nurse's hand and left.  When she got back to work, she tried to call the doctor's office all day long to reschedule the appointment, but since the doctor wasn't seeing patients that day, we guessed that the nurses and the receptionist weren't answering the phone, either.  We wish her much luck in rescheduling. 

The second horror story happened to me last night.  Last week, I called BellSouth and ordered DSL service, and yesterday the kit arrived via UPS.  I opened the box, saw the DSL modem, some cords, and the wireless internet card for my laptop.  Silly me - I was excited about being able to get this hooked up and didn't pay much attention to the fact that according to the booklet they sent, a couple of critical components were missing.  After supper, I tried to get it all hooked up, but after having a meltdown because I couldn't find one single flashlight in the house that had good batteries, I quickly became frustrated and called their BellSouth's customer service department.  After explaining the the problems I was having getting it all hooked up, the man on the phone, Hiawatha (I swear to Hannah that was his name) determined that yes in deed, I was shorted two critical components.  He went on to apologize profusely (one thing I hate when a company is clearly in the wrong - don't apologize, just tell me how you're going to fix the problem) and then said "As a courtesy will be sending out the signalsplitter and the filters to you at no charge. There will also be no charge for the expedited shipping."  Ohhhhhkay.  I calmly said "So, let me get this straight.  You're not going to charge me for parts that I already paid for, but did not receive because they weren't packed in the box that you all shipped?"  He paused for a second or two and then repeated his mantra "As a courtesy, we will be shipping.....")   By this time, I was already hacked off because I couldn't connect my DSL modem, and even if I could have there wasn't a working flashlight to be found, so I would have had to light a candle and use it as I crawled under the computer desk to reach the phone jack. I'll keep you posted on when the missing parts arrive.

The last story comes from a good friend up in Springfield, IL, who told of her encounter with PATs when she attempted to get a new cell phone.  The story was too good for me to paraphrase, so here it is, in the words of my friend Gini:
"I changed from Cellular One......the damn phone wouldn't work in my house.....it would only work on the interstate.....I called it my "interstate plan." (Author's note:  when Gini would make a call on her cell phone from her house, she would have to sit in the rocking chair in her living room - that was the only room in the entire house where she could get good signal reception to make/receive a cell phone call.) Everyone that worked at the store was 12 yrs. or under and no one would do anything about my complaints......FINALLY I hit a day when there was "adult supervision" in the store and I got a different phone....no charge....it worked a little better, but not much.  I'm liking this new little phone.....got another flip phone.....I really missed my Star-tac....that's still my favorite one.  We'll see how this plan goes......I'm stuck with it for 2 years......lol.......They are stuck with me too so they'd better hope I'm satisfied."

It Was So Cold . . . . .

It was so cold this morning that all of the dials on the BMW's dashboard were frozen.  Yes, you heard me right - all of the dials on the dashboard were frozen.  When I went outside at 7:30 to start the car and let the heater [attempt] to warm up, it was 8 degrees on our back porch.  That's insanely cold for the Ohio Valley area.  I came back out about 10 minutes later (yes, I know I my big 12 cylinder engine was just wasting gas, but at least it had warmed up), and when I was turing around in the driveway, something caught my eye - the gas gauge was on empty. I had just filled the 26-gallon tank up yesterday during lunch, so I knew that I had plenty of gas; even the 10 minutes of idling in the driveway couldn't have wasted an entire tank of gas.  Then as I pulled out of the drive I looked at the spedometer - it was still on 0, as was the tachometer and every other dial that should have been registering something. 

I didn't think too much more about it, and continued the drive to work.  The car was running fine, so I didn't worry.  Then after about 3 minutes of driving my normal speed, the gauges returned to where they normally should have been.  I guess it was so cold that they just froze up.   In that few minutes when everything was frozen and not moving, all I could think of was $$$$$ to get the problem fixed.  I didn't have an anxiety attack, however; I just kept driving and drinking my morning coffee.  But I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the dashboard went back to normal. 

Thank You, Tom Brady

Yesterday was a wonderful day.  First of all, it was a day off from work; that's always good.  Second, I had Krispy Kremes for breakfast.  Could the day get any better?  Thirdy, it finally got cold again.  I love winter, and it was bumming me out the past couple of weeks with January temps in the upper 60s and even low 70s.  It snowed yesterday, too.  Not enough to use our new snowblower, but it snowed enough to say " it snowed."  I also got to take a nice hour-long nap, with no phone calls nor interruptions.  But the best part of the day came in the evening, when the New England Patriots pummelled the Indianapolis Colts into the ground. 

I'm not a huge NFL fa, but I follow it enough to have a favorite team, the Tennessee Titans, and a least favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts.  When people ask what team I root for, I tell them "The Titans and whoever is playing the Colts."  I can't stand Payton Manning, or his little brother, Eli, either.  We had Payton Manning crammed down out throats the four years he was at UT, and now the NFL continues to cram him down our throats.  Yesterday, Tom Brady and his fellow Patriots brought the Colts hype to a screeching halt with their 20-3 romp over the Colts.  Way to go, Pats. 

Even before yesterday's game, the Patriots were already my second favorite team.  I like them even more now.  I hope the Pats will walk all over Pittsburgh next week and go on to the Super Bowl.  I'd love to see them win it again.  Yesterday's playoff game was the best game I've watched all season.  I considerate that an early birthday present. 

Link Of The Week

I was one of the millions that jumped on the Napster bandwagon during its heyday. I had been online for only about a year, so the internet was still new to me.  I thought things couldn't get easier - downloading music for free.  One evening, I tried to get to the Napster site and it was shut down.  No problem here; someone at work told me about another site that had just opened a few weeks earlier called Kazaa.  Once again, downloading music for free.  I used Kazaa and downloaded probably 300 songs, which I put the majority of on cd and deleted the mp3 files from my harddrive.  There was talk on the news everywhere you looked about the internet and copyright infringement. I had to do a research paper for my graduate school business law class, so I picked copyright infringement, since it was a timely subject.  But I still continued to download the songs until one day last year when I read about a plain, middle class woman down in Hart County, an hour south of Louisville, who got socked with a big lawsuit from record companies for copyright infringement.  Since then, I never downloaded any more songs unless they were from AOL's music site. 

I was looking at the Wal-Mart site the other day, comparing prices on TVs, when something caught my eye on their home page - music downloads.  I clicked on it, and was surprised to find that you can buy and download music.  Not crappy music that nobody's heard of - current, popular songs, plus tons of oldies.  They only charge 88 cent a song.  That's a bargain for peace of mind, knowing that I paid for a song that noone will sue me over months from now.  You can pay for the music with your Visa or Mastercard, or use your Sam's or Wal-Mart credit card, or you can do like I did - on a trip to Wal-Mart this weekend, I bought a $10 Wal-Mart card to use.  Just go to www.walmart.com and look in the lower right side of the home page for "Wal-Mart Music Downloads" and click on that.  You will have a small download and then you'll be ready to go. 

Some people will still argue that once a person buys a cd, it's theirs and they can do what they want to with it, even if that means making the songs available for others to download online.  Others will argue that the artists are getting ripped off because people are getting their music for free instead of buying it.  I'm somewhere in the middle of these two camps; I think that the songwriters are the ones getting ripped off.  They don't make nearly as much as the artists that record their songs, and when we download a song illegally, it's taking money from their pockets.  I've written a couple of songs, and have them copyrighted, plus I have the honor of knowing a few bigtime songwriters from Nashville who've written songs that have been big hits.  So let's help out the songwriters - buy the songs, where at the Wal-Mart site or on the new Napster site where you pay a monthly fee or other pay sites.  Just don't call me to recommend a lawyer if you get caught for copyright infringement. 

Pass The Little Debbies, Please

Want to live longer? Then drop the fitness regime and put your feet up
(Filed: 12/01/2005)

It is the news that all sloths have been waiting for. Scientists in Germany have found that too much exercise is bad for you and that doing less could lengthen your life.

In a new book called The Joy of Laziness: How to slow down and live longer, Dr Peter Axt, retired professor of health science at Fulda University near Frankfurt, and his daughter, Dr Michaela Axt-Gadermann, a GP, say that everybody has a limited amount of "life energy" and that the speed with which it is consumed determines their life span.  They argue that high-energy activities, such as pounding the treadmill at the gym, accelerates the ageing process and makes the body more susceptible to illness. "A more relaxed way of life is important for your health," said Dr Axt-Gadermann. "If you lead a stressful life and exercise excessively, your body produces hormones which lead to high blood pressure and can damage your heart and arteries."

Dr Axt-Gadermann said that one key difference between the lazy and those who exercise was that the more active body produces more "free radicals" - unstable oxygen molecules that are believed to speed the ageing process. She added: "Laziness is also important for a healthy immune system because special immune-cells are stronger in times of relaxation than stress. During relaxation or `down time,' your metabolism is less active, which means the body produces fewer free radicals." "If you do a lot of sport or are permanently stressed, then your body will produce more free radicals and that is one reason why your life could be shortened."Dr Axt-Gadermann, 37, and her 65-year-old father, who are both reformed long-distance runners, also say that laughing is healthier than running. "When you laugh, your body produces the hormone serotonin which makes you feel happy and relaxed," said Dr Axt-Gadermann.  "The heartbeat races and blood pressure is raised for a short while, without activating your metabolism and producing the free radicals which spend your life energy. Basically, laughing is a good training session without the negative side-effects."

The book also says that laziness is good for the brain. It says that exercise and stress can cause the body to produce the hormone cortisol, which can damage cells in the brain and lead to memory loss and premature senility.

To illustrate the theory that laziness equals longevity, The Joy of Laziness also suggests that early risers are more prone to stress and that late sleepers live longer because they conserve their energy. "People who would rather laze in a hammock instead of running a marathon, or who take a nap instead of playing squash, have a better chance of living into old age."

Dr Axt and his daughter advise readers that gentle walking, their own preferred form of exercise, is sufficient to keep people in shape if combined with a sensible dietthat is low in carbohydrates and high in protein. "We try to put our own ideas into practice but this does not mean that we do nothing all day," said Dr Axt-Gadermann. "Laziness should not be to the extreme and work is an important part of life, but recreation and relaxation should not be underestimated."

The Joy of Laziness, which is published tomorrow, will be essential reading for Dan Kieran, the 29-year-old deputy editor of The Idler, a literary magazine. "This book definitely makes sense to me," said Mr Kieran, who lives in south London. "I spend one day a week in the office and the rest of my time involved in a lot of relaxation. Having the right amount of laziness in your life is a vital component to being happy. We live in a culture of guilt, where laziness is scorned. However, I firmly believe that we do not need to do half as much exercise as people think and it is very important to just lie down and do nothing sometimes," he said.

The medical establishment, however, is sceptical. Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association, said that moderate exercise should not be set aside in favour of lazing around."It is a very tempting theory as so often, many of us feel that we cannot be bothered with exercise," she said. "However, I would not agree that people have a set amount of expendable energy during a lifetime and that exercise is bad for you. In fact, done sensibly, exercise lowers the blood pressure, improves your metabolic state and can improve health and contribute to a longer life."

Dr Graham Archard, the vice- chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: "I can understand why the book might sell well as it is always nice to be told that you can sit on your backside and do nothing. However, 20 to 40 minutes of exercise, three times a week, is the best way to improve cardiovascular health, the immune system and general physical well-being," he said.

A spokesman for the Keep Fit Association, an organisation that promotes fitness through exercise and dance, said: "This is a most unusual idea for a book. Exercising and building up fitness actually improves your mental state and helps you keep pace with the demands of modern life."

"If you neglect exercising and laze around too much, you will not be doing much for your mind or body."

Can things get any better for us all?  There's no need to worry about global warming and terrorists - let's all concentrate on doing less and not exercising.  If these doctors are right, then we no longer have to feel guilty in the evenings when we come home from a hard day at work and sit on our butts on the couch or in front of the computer.  We can just sit there on our asses with the assurance that we're saving up our limited supply of energy. 

It makes perfect sense to me.  Their theory about energy is just like those cans of compressed air that we use to clean our computer keyboards - the cans hold only so much air, and once that air is used up, that's all folks; you have to just throw away the empty can.  If you use the air sparingly, the can will last longer.  How simpler could they have made this for us to understand? 

Let me go on record as saying that even after reading this interesting study, I will continue to take my daily 2 mile walk after work each day.  NOT because it's exercise, mind you, but because it gives me 45 minutes of "me time" to clear my head from work and not go home like the Tasmanian Devil.   I won't urge anyone to not do something simple like walking every day - the benefits from walking are awesome: it makes me sleep better and it keeps my jeans from getting too tight.  But after reading this, I won't give the TWIT stamp of approval to working out 3 hours a day; as Mammy said in "Gone With The Wind", it just ain't fittin'. 

So everyone go out and cancel your memberships to the gym, or better yet, don't even get one, and just do nothing and live longer. 

Happy Pongal

I was at one of my favorite online greeting card sites yesterday looking for a birthday card to send to one of my peeps here at work, and had a deja vu moment.  On the home page for this site, they have listed all of the holidays and significant dates for the current month, and I saw that today, January 14, is Pongal.  This site even had a section where you can send out Pongal cards. I thought "WTF?"  This was Diwali revisited.  I looked at my wall calendar, and didn't see anything on there about Pongal, and then consulted my big leather planner book (aka my bible) and there was no mention of Pongal, either.  I looked back at the greeting card site and clicked on some of the Pongal cards just to see what they said; maybe I could find out more about the holiday by reading what the cards said.  Nothing.  They were generic "Happy Pongal" cards.  So I looked it up online and here's what I found:

Pongal is a popular harvest festival in South India. It's similar to our Thanksgiving.  Named after a sweet rice dish,  Pongal starts on January 14 of each year.  The celebration lasts for three days.   On the first day, Pongal is offered to Bhogi or Indran (the rain gods) for providing rain for the harvest (We'd really be celebrating, with all of the rain we've had in the past few weeks.). On the second day, pongal is offered to the sun (Surya).  On the third day,  the family's cattle (mattu) are cleaned and dressed up with flowers, bells, and color powder. This is the day to honor the cattle's hard work for plowing the fields. (I would love to see some pictures of this.)There is much excitement and preparation. New clothes are made or bought.(As much as I hate to do laundry, I could go along with this.) The homes and yards are cleaned days ahead. (Nope - wouldn't happen here.) Tasty aromas of Palakaram (sweet snacks) fill the air for days ahead. On the day of Pongal, early in the morning, everyone bathes and wears new clothes. (I don't want to assume falsely, but somehow I'm getting the vibe that they normally don't bathe as frequently as us.)

 

Bring It On

Holiday Storm 2004 is just a memory, but we're all feeling the after affects of it right now with all of the flooding in this area.  The snow was more than a memory - it was a bad memory.  As my Dad and I were out in our long driveway shovelling and chipping away ice chunks the day before Christmas Eve, I vowed that this would not happen again.  In my best Scarlet O'Hara imitation, I picked up a handful of snow and said "As God is my witness, we will never shovel snow again."  It's still nothing shy of a miracle that my father and I didn't keel over from heart attacks that day as we were shovelling. 

As soon as the holidays were over, we started researching and shopping for a snowblower. We've always been a Troy-Bilt family for all of our lawn and garden needs, so that's what we looked at first.  My only requirement was that it be self-propelling;  I want the snow removal to be almost as easy as paying someone else to do it.  After a week of researching online and making calls, we found the perfect model; a Troy-Bilt, self-propelled and best of all, in my price range.  We picked it up last night, and today, it will be placed in an empty corner of our back porch. We also have a new extension cord to use for the wonderful electric start feature.  Now when the snow comes, all we will have to do is roll it down the back porch ramp, plug it in and start it up.  Now all I can say about snow is bring it on. 

P.S.  The next major purchase at the Compound will be a gas powered generator.  I've GOT to be able to keep the cell phone and laptop going during a power outage.  I can't let something like no electricity keep me from publishing TWIT. 

Road Rage Rears Its Ugly Head

A weird thing happened to me yesterday evening -- I was almost involved in an act of road rage.  No, a crazed motorist didn't come over and bang on my window and flip me off;  I'm sorry to say that I was on the verge of becoming the crazed motorist. 

I went downtown after work, and instead of taking my usual downtown route on I-64 that runs somewhat parallel to the river, I drove through the hood and decided to go up 2nd Street into downtown.  In retrospect, this was an idiotic thing to do in rush hour traffic.  I was going to Market Street, and I-64 would have taken me right to Market.  But I had 15 minutes to kill before time to meet a friend so I thought it wouldn't hurt to take the long way.  Boy was I naive.  To sum all of this up and get on with the good part of the story, let me say that it took me 40 minutes to travel 5 blocks on 2nd Street.  Traffic moves faster than that out of downtown after Thunder Over Louisville.  After inching my way within one block of where I would turn onto Market and repeatedly pounding on the steering wheel and yelling "WTF?" I saw what the problem was.  No, it wasn't a wreck nor a stalled car.  The massive traffic jam was caused by inconsiderate drivers stopped in the intersection. 

When the cars travelling west bound on Jefferson Street would get to the intersection of Jefferson and 2nd, instead of doing the considerate thing like waiting till they could have room enough to pull through the intersection and leave 2nd Street free for those travelling on 2nd, they would go out into the middle of the intersection in their line of traffic, and then be stuck.  So when our light on 2nd Street would change, we couldn't move because they were blocking us.  I made it to the front of the line of traffic, and sat through 4 light changes before the idiots on Jefferson would move on through so I could go.  I watched one lady in particular.  The light for Jefferson had just turned yellow as traffic moved on through, so I thought "finally, we can get through." But the lady in the white car gunned it and came on through, and blocked the intersection once again for all of us on 2nd Street.  I actually had my hand on the door of the Blazer, almost ready to get out and run over to her car and beat on her window, but I thought that since she probably works in downtown, she might have been packing.  So I kept on glaring at her, just a few feet away from me, and when she was looking in my direction, I flipped her off.  It felt good. 

Let's Go To The Movies, Part II

Yesterday, we discussed how I don't go to the movies nor watch many on tv.  Today, I have a surprise for you, my faithful readers.  You'll be happy to know that so far in the new year 2005 I've seen 3, count 'em 3, quasi first run movies.  See - there's hope for me yet.   A friend got 25 movies on DVD for Christmas from her sister (yes, her sister copied them to DVD, but their copywrite infringement matters not to me) and she invited me and some other friends of ours from the university over on the past two Saturday evenings to watch movies.

One of the movies we watched last weekend was "White Chicks."  I'll go on record and say that I thought it was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.  You're probably thinking "Well, she hasn't seen that many movies, so . . ." Wrong.  While I don't go to the theaters nor rent many movies, I've seen my fair share of comedies over the years.  I thought this movie was just hilarious.  My favorite, and funniest, scene of the movie is depicted in the picture above - the White Chicks and their friends are having a dance-off against their rivals.  The White Chicks show the club some old school moves and when they were breakdancing and spinning on the floor, I thought I was going to fall off of the couch I was laughing so hard.  I went out the next day and bought the movie just so I can watch that scene when I need a good laugh.

I know you  might be hesitant to take movie advice from a non-movie goer, but if you haven't seen "White Chicks," I recommend it. 

Let's Go To The Movies

My good friend PJ enjoys razzing me over the [astonishing] fact that I'm not a movie watcher.  I go to the movie theater on the average of once a year.  Even though I have every movie channel available on our digital cable, I still don't watch many movies at home.  It's just that there's other things I'd rather be doing than giving up 2-3 hours at a time.  Today, I can blame the internet, especially the Pogo game site.  I can also blame "All My Children", because I spend an hour each night watching the day's episode.  But even as a teenager and young adult, I still wasn't all that into movies.  Back in the day, I had my music and would rather spend the time listening to the good old vinyl records or tapes, or playing the guitar. 

The conversations during lunchtime at work are usually about movies.  A few of my co-workers that I eat lunch with go to the movies all the time.  They're always talking about "I saw '_____' last night" or "I saw '______' over the weekend.'  I just sit and take it all in.  I'm vaguely familiar with the movies they talk about from reading the newspaper or seeing it on Entertianment Tonight.  But I can't chime in and give my opinion of the flick because I haven't seen it.  And the majority of the time, I just didn't want to see it.  Such is the case with "Titanic."  Yes, it was one of the biggest movie hits in the history of motion pictures, but I simply had no desire to go sit through a few hours of watching Leonardo DiCaprio with Celine Dion singing in the background.  I couldn't tell you anything about all of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, either.  Just not my thing.  I don't diss movie goers, nor all of the people that are borderline obsessed with LOTR - it's just not something I would enjoy. 

By now you're probably thinking I'm one strange cookie for not going to the movies, so I'll go one further and admit that when I do watch movies, they're ones that I've seen dozens of times. I'll refer to them as "classics" - you know, Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, Wizard of Oz, Grease, Saturday Night Fever, to name some of my favorites.  Out of all of these, Gone With The Wind is my favorite.  I've seen it so many times I can recite the actors' lines, just like I know some of my friends can do with the Star Wars trilogy or some of those Adam Sandler movies. 

Link Of The Week

I've always loved to play Scrabble.  I still have Grandma and Grandpa's old Scrabble game.  Through a miracle, I'm proud to say that it has all of its tiles.  I also still have Grandpa's old Webster dictionary.  It's worn and falling apart, but it served its purpose over the years: settling arguments over words that someone swore were not real words.

Now that we have the internet we hardly use an old-time dictionary. It's easier to look up a word instead of finding the dictionary on the bookshelf.  If you play Scrabble, this is the site for you: www.a2zwordfinder.com/scrabble.html.  It's awesome if you play Scrabble or other word games online.  You just enter the letters you have and it will bring up all of the words made up from those letters - even two letter words for when you're really stumped.  This site is especially handy if you play Word Whomp or other word games at Pogo.com.  I'm not ashamed to admit I use it to play Word Whomp.  There's also links on the page for crossword puzzle help, too.

Say It Isn't So

I went to the office for a few hours this morning to catch up on some work, and when my PC booted up, the MSN home page came up as it does every morning.  I could not believe my eyes when I read the shocking headline: Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have separated.  There it was - amid countless stories of the tsunami relief efforts and about the crazy weather in the United States - Brad and Jenn are not only separated, they have "formally" separated. Oh dear heaven - can this week possibly get any worse?  First we make it through the frozen tundra-filled holidays and then go straight into the monsoon season, and now that the rain has quit for one day, we wake up to read this dreadful news.

The news said that rumors have been flying for a few weeks now about the state Brad and Jennifer's marriage - the news reported last week that she had been seen without the insanely expensive wedding ring [that was big enough to choke a horse].  When I read that the other week, I thought "Well, that's no all that earth-shattering.  My mother has taken her wedding ring off a few times, to clean it or when she was she was having a bad arthritis day and her knuckles were swollen.  So I thought maybe Jenn might have been having the big rock cleaned or something.  I never dreamed it was the precursor to the formal separation.

So what exactly is a "formal" separation?  I would think either you're separated or you're together - no formality about it. Maybe the "formal" part meant that they both paid an exorbitant fee to their publicists who made the "official" announcement.  Whatever.  Let'e take bets on how long before he shows up with some Hollywood hottie hanging all over him.  My guess is that it won't be very long.

Hail, Caesar

(BRIDGEPORT, Ind., January 7th, 2005, 1 p.m.) -- Because of rising Ohio river waters, officials of Caesars Indiana are completely closing their operation immediately and will remain closed until the river recedes below the established floor level. This decision is in accordance with the stipulations set forth in the Army Corps of Engineers Permit granted to Caesars. "The safety of our guests and employees is everyone's primary concern," stated Ed Garruto, General Manager of Caesars Indiana.

Every aspect of the operation will cease by 7:30 p.m. today. Closed will be the casino, the hotel, the conference center and all of the restaurants. No new guests will be allowed on the property after noon today.

All guests and Team Members will be gone by 7:30 p.m. Only essential personnel are permitted on the property and no guests or employees will have access until further notice.

Caesar, Cleopatra and all of the other Roman gods must be looking out for ZCO employees.  We got out bonus checks yesterday, and now we can't be tempted to go to the boat and piss some of our money away.  I sure am glad we went last week.

Special Request Thursday

A friend and I were having our morning chat by the coffee maker in our lunchroom this morning when she told me about a show she watched on the Food Network last night.  The hostess of the show was in Las Vegas and visited a hookah lounge.  THE Hookah Lounge, to be exact.  When she watched it last night, I'm sure her first reaction was "WTF?"  Then knowing I would find the answer for her, she came to me. I'd heard of how hookah lounges are becoming the trendy place to visit if you're a smoker.  I knew that it involved a bong-type device, but after doing a bit of research I found a plethora of information.

First of all, a hookah is a pipe with long, flexible tubes connected to an urn of water, which cool the tobacco smoke as it is drawn through.  The tobacco comes in a variety of flavors. Traditionally, it is long pieces of tobacco mixed with a sugar-based syrup mixture and fruit bits or extract. The fruit flavors are strongly tasted in the smoke, and the cooling action of the hookah provides added smoothness. Usually hookah lounges add ice to the hookah water. Flavors include apple, peach, raspberry, mixed fruit, orange; just like Skittles candies. The tobacco isn't burned to complete ash, but rather it is cooked by the coals that sit on top of the hookah.

It is said that the water pipe originated in India where it was made from coconut shells and then spread to Iran and into different parts of the Arab world before moving onto Turkey. One of the oldest and deep rooted traditions in Turkey is smoking the Nargile (Hookah).  Turkey revolutionized Hookah smoking and today it's a very important part of the coffee shop culture. For centuries, even around the time of Murat the IV in the 1600's, Hookah smoking was popular. During the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century, hookah smoking was very fashionable with elite ladies and many wished to be photographed smoking one. Around the world, this smoking device is known by many different names. Some call it a hookah, hooka, huka, shisha, sheesha, shishah, nargile, narghile, and Hubbly Bubbly just to mention some.

Traditionally in many parts of the world, smoking a hookah with someone expressed a gesture of trust and bonding. The ceremonial gesture has translated to our society in that the elevated status of smoking a hookah has been preserved, and that people who smoke one are above and beyond the norm of society.  If this is the case, I'm sure that Louisville's first hookah lounge will be in the East end of town.  I'm sure you've probably figured out what a hookah lounge is. It's simply a bar or coffee shop with hookahs.  They cater mostly to Middle Eastern clientele, but as stated earlier, the popularity is spreading to this side of the world.  The lounges have workers to will tend to the coals, and all you have to do is make sure the bowl of the urn is full of shisha, the hookah term for tobacco.  Hookah lounges are exotic - most have huge velvet pillows for you to sit on while you smoke.  I'm envisioning a very Ali Baba-ish experience. 

I did some more checking, and unfortunately for us here in Louisville, the closest hookah lounge is down in Nashville on 21st Avenue, called Mediterranean Cuisine.  I don't smoke, and don't plan on picking up the habit now, but on my next trip to Nashville I will definitely stop in and check this place out. 

One more thing - if you're wondering why the word "hookah" seems familiar, you probably heard it in a couple of places.  If you'll remember, Alice while in Wonderland came across a hookah smoking caterpillar.  And for those of you old enough to remember the Woodstock era, "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane was a an awesome song about Alice In Wonderland and had drug references.  One line in the song said:

 "And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice when she was just small"

Props To The Pachyderms

I know we've all been moved by the pictures of the devastation from the tsunami and earthquake. The pictures and the heinous number of deaths are enough to make us sick.  Governments, non-profit organizations and now celebrities are donating millions of dollars to help in the relief efforts.  But there are some unsung heroes helping out that you might not hear alot of news about - elephants.

The elephants are performing a gruesome task - retreiving and transporting the dead bodies.  Until now, rescue workers had been using shovels and even their hands to dig through the rubble.  But now the pachyderms are able to move the debris and rubble and go places where heavy earthmoving equipment couldn't go. 

Just a year ago In Bang Nieng, Thailand, they were filming battle scenes for the movie "Alexander."  Co-starring alongside Collin Farrell and Angelina Jolie were elephants from the Wang Chang elephant farm.  Now these elephants have forgotten all about being movie stars and are doing their part to help out. 

I'm surprised that we haven't heard anything from PETA about this - they are always protesting because they say that circus elephants are exploited and aren't treated fairly, so I'm sure they'll protest these gentle giants helping out. 

Props To My Peeps

For fear of excluding people or causing hurt feelings, I normally don't name a lot of names here in TWIT.  But I'd like to give public props this afternoon to two of my favorite people here at work.  They deserve a bit of recognition, if from nobody else, from me. 

To Bob - for buying Annie's Pizza for our private pizza party during lunch today.  The pizza was awesome. 

To Mark - for being concerned about my physical well-being.  He was worried last night when heard about the fatal wreck about a half mile from my house.  The victim was a young (extra thanks, Mark) woman who was driving an SUV.  He said he started to call my house just to make sure it wasn't me. 

I know you two have always had my back over the years here.  It's greatly appreciated. 

Bullies Be Damned

There was an interesting article in our rag yesterday about bullies.  The lengthy article talked about how kids face a different breed of bully today.  It's not the stereotypical bullies who take your lunch money, but the bullies who call other kids names, tease them about their appearance or exclude them from social groups.  The experts say that the emotional abuse is far worse than any type of tangible abuse, such as getting beat up on the school bus or having to fork over your lunch money so you don't get beat up on the school bus.  The article went on to say that the kids getting bullied get so fed up with their situation, and feel so deparate that it often causes them to hurt themselves or others.  Bullying has always gone on, but the issue is receiving more attention because of the many school shootings in recent years.  The shooters in these incidents turned to violence after years of being ostricized and teased.  Other students have instead resorted to suicide. I was bullied only once during my school years.  The day that I stood up to Angela Darnell will live in infamy at Conway Middle School. 

I was in the 6th grade, and the school bully Angela Darnell was unfortunately in most of my classes that year.  She had bright read hair and freckles, and she was mean.  It's odd how today, I think red hair is one the most attractive features a person could have - I love read hair.  Back to the story.  Angela Darnell bullied everybody - girls, boys, it made no difference.  She was always pulling pranks on people - I remember how she gave some ExLax to a group of unsuspecting kids one afternoon in the lunchroom, and my gullable schoolmates thought it was harmless chocolate. I was not on the receiving end of this prank, thank goodness, but I saw my little friends spend all afternoon in the bathrooms and it hacked me off that she got away with it. 

Angela picked on the other kids mercilessly, but the day that she somehow broke into my locker and stole my faux denim and red bandanna Trapper Keeper was the day she stepped over the line.  I knew she had it because I saw it in the bottom of her locker one day when I was passing by. I knew she had to be stopped.  A day or two later, our class was lined up in the hallway, getting ready to go to the gym for a pep rally or meeting or something.  As my luck would have it, I was behind Angela Darnell in the line.  She stood there, and started swinging her arms back, like she was doing some Pilates exercise.  And in doing so, she hit me a couple of times.  I'd taken all I could take, so I calmly told her "if you do that one more time I'm going to hit you."  Well, she did it one more time, and true to my word, I hit her.  Laid her right out in the middle of the floor, I did.  You could have heard a pin drop as all of my classmates looked at her on the floor, mouths gaped open in awe.  Then the silence was broken as they all cheered for me.  The teacher, Miss Russell, had witnessed the whole event, and knew I was acting in self defense.  She walked over and put her hands on her hips, and said "Angela, are you going to go with us to the gym or are you going to stay there in the floor the rest of the day?"  Never again did I, nor any of my classmates, have any more trouble out of Angela Darnell. 

File Under: WTF?

I was bored yesterday evening, and decided to run out to Wal-Mart just to get out of the house for a bit.  It seems the rest of Jefferson county had the same idea, because the parking lot was full.  After almost getting hit 4 times, I finally found a parking spot and started my trek to the store.  As always, I was people watching - observing the mass exodus to and from the store.  I saw something that almost made me stop in my tracks: people were wearing shorts - some even had on sandals with their shorts.  Let me repeat for emphasis:  it was January 2, and people were wearing shorts.

I saw my first pair of shorts earlier in the day at Logan's steakhouse while we were having Sunday dinner.  I didn't think too much of it, as the shorts were being worn by a PAT who didn't have good sense and wanted to wear the long baggy basketball shorts he got for Christmas.  But at Wal-Mart, there were shorts of all types - khakis, bluejean cut-offs, basketball, sweatpants cut-offs - you name it, I saw it.  And the majority of the people I saw wearing the shorts were adults who appeared to be my age and older; people that should know better.  Yes, we've had our warm-up this past week, and the temperature was about 60 last night when I was out. Plus it had been raining all day, and the weather was very damp.  But in my opinion, it was no reason to act like it's July and wear shorts.  If I go hang out by the clinics and immediate care centers later this week, I'm sure I'll see these same people going there to be treated for URIs and bronchitis. 

Link of the Week

We've had a week to sort through our Christmas presents; we've tried on clothes to make sure they fit, and now that the snow is gone we can finally gt out to return items that don't fit, or (heaven forbid) we don't want.  I wish you much waiting in the line for returns.  If you received gift cards for Christmas, you don't have to worry about returning anything, because hopefully you bought what you wanted.  That's the best part about getting a gift card - buying exactly what you want. 

Now that gift crads are one of the most popular Christmas gifts, chances are you got 2 or 3.  This brings us to a new holiday problem: getting a gift card to a store that we don't patronize.  Someone that can't stand to read might have gotten a Barnes and Noble gift card, or someone who's never hammered  a nail in their life might end up with a Home Depot gift card.  If you find yourself with a gift card you'll never use, never fear - there's a place you can go for help. Just go to www.cardavenue.com .  You can sell or trade your unwanted gift card, and at the same time you can buy a gift card for a store you like, at less than the face value. You probably won't get full face value of the card you sell, but hey - anything is better than nothing, right?

A side note for gift card owners:  be sure to check the cards for expiration dates.  A lot of cards also depreciate in value if they go unused. 

A side note for my faithful readers: your beloved author's birthday is just 25 short days away, and I love Home Depot and Barnes and Noble.

Happy New Year

It's hard to believe today is the start of another new year. In keeping with my optimistic theme, I like to think of it as starting the new year with the slate wiped clean - letting go of all of the not-so-good things that happened last year and looking forward to a year filled with opportunities, happiness and adventures. 

We ended the year on a very dark note - with the eyes of the world focussed on the devastating earthquake and tsunami.  But at the same time, we can be thankful - thankful that it didn't happen to us or our family and friends.  I'm a firm believer that there's no such thing as coincidence; I think things happen to get our attention and to make us appreciate how great we have it. We all had troubles, disappointments, sadness and drama this past year; some experienced more than others; it wasn't all a year-long picnic for any of us.  Yet we made it through the illnesses, deaths, finanical strains, job troubles, and good ole family drama.  And we'll face the same obstacles this year - hopefully, we've learned from the past and we'll be able to weather the storms of 2005. 

I normally don't make New Year's resolutions, but this year I broke tradition and made one.  Actually, I made it back in the early fall.  I don't refer to it as a 'resolution' - I just call it a 'promise to myself.'  This year, I've promised myself that I will be completely debt free by June 1.  It's not like I've got a dozen credit cards all maxed out and have debtors calling me at work and home all day long; but I have a few bills that have been the albatross around my neck, and I'm on my way to getting rid of them.  I  might be able to move up my deadline to Derby Day, thanks to some good luck yesterday - my Blazer repairs ended up being about 1/4 of what we'd originally thought. The repairs were "only" $400, a bargain by today's car repair standards. 

I wish you, my faithful readers, love, health, success, and happiness in the new year ahead. Just remember one thing this year when trouble comes knocking at our doors this year- we can handle whatever happens, and be thankful we weren't in the tsunami.