Ponderings and Musings

Looking out the window, it’s a beautiful day. The sky is a brilliant blue and there’s just a hint of wispy clouds floating about. It’s near picture perfect.

Except that it’s cold. Very cold. Last check it was 19.

With February wrapping up this week, I’m feeling a bit of cabin fever. I’m ready for the warmer weather and all the outdoor activities that come along with it. I’m ready to awake to the sounds of birds singing a sweet little tune. It looks like spring wants to make an appearance today with all her bright sunshine, but it doesn’t feel it right now. But it’s comforting to know she’s lurking just around the corner.

Oh well, I can always stand by the window and soak in the sunshine that way. Even if I have to give the thermostat a little spin.

Last week a bunch of employees at a Nebraska meat packing plant (I’m sorry, but that sounds like such a depressing job) won the largest PowerBall jackpot ever, clocking in at around $315 million dollars. That’s a lot of dough.

New York doesn’t participate in PowerBall, but we do have the “Mega Millions” lottery here, which is basically the same thing, only different, kind of like Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

By the way, if I’m drinking soda, I prefer Pepsi.

Earl and I, being the gamblers that we tend to be, actively play Mega Millions when it gets up into the three digit million numbers. We figure that if the universe is going to have us win, we’re going to win big so we might as well save our bucks up and go for the gusto.

We go to extremes like that in almost all facets of our life together.

I also play in the shared tickets at work. I hate to see what happens to the company the day after we hit it big on a shared ticket, especially since our entire division is playing!

Anyways, like most folks I’ve often daydreamed about what we’d do with our winnings. Earl and I have signed a contract to the universe stating that 10 percent of the winning amount, before taxes, would go to a charity, most likely Rosie O’Donnell’s For All Kids Foundation. We’d also go out of our way to make sure all of our family members were well taken care of and able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

But what to do with the rest?

I’d like to take a portion of the remaining money and invest it in quality children’s programming. I’d like to resurrect non-violent Saturday morning shows. I’ve mentioned numerous times that I’m a huge fan of “Shazam!” and “The Secrets of Isis”. I’d like to see programming like that, perhaps with a bigger budget than they had the first time around, updated and brought back to the living rooms across the country. There would have to be some tweaking to hold today’s kid’s attention in this rapidly paced world, but I think with the right elements, it can be done.

On the flip side, we’d probably use a portion of our winnings to further gay and lesbian causes, especially for those rural gay teens that think they’re freaks and not worthy of a quality life, simply because they’re gay.

The world is a scary place these days. If I had a million dollars, I’d like to make it a little less scarier.

It’s snowing like crazy outside. Earl has gone to the local casino to play in a poker tournament. He just called me to tell me he hit a straight flush at three-card poker while waiting for the tournament to start.

Looks like we’re going out to dinner tonight!

I’m thinking I’m going to have to run the snowblower today. I was hoping to not have to do that again this winter. As usual, Mother Nature wins.

I was doing some random search on Google for something in Syracuse when I stumbled across a website dedicated to the children’s show I watched as a young lad. Now off the air,The Magic Toy Shop holds the record for the longest running locally produced children’s television program.

It’s a shame that wholesome kids shows like this have sort of fallen out of favor with families.

Like many, many people in the U.S., last night Earl and I watched “American Idol”, where 12 guys did their best to earn a spot in the final dozen contestants (six girls and six guys). Going into last night’s episode, I wasn’t really sure what to expect of the guys and while there were some really bad performances (Bobby Bennett’s rendition of “Copacabana” was absolutely dreadful), I was thoroughly impressed by four performances. They would be Ace Young’s “Father Figure” (he makes Earl swoon), Chris Daughtry’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” (he gets a “woof”), Elliott Yamin’s “If You Really Love Me” (excellent performance) and my absolute favorite, Taylor Hicks’s “Levon”. While this was not Taylor’s best performance of the show thus far, it was an excellent, entertaining and memorable rendition of the Elton John classic. What I especially enjoyed was Taylor’s banter with the ever-present Ryan Seacrest after the performance. Taylor is absolutely consumed by his passion for music. It is a mighty rare thing to see someone so engulfed by what they love. His body is ever-moving to his own rhythm. He feels joy while he sings and he conveys that to those that he’s performing for. It’s obvious that he loves being in front of an audience. And he’s great at it.

I don’t know if Taylor is going to be the next American Idol. In many ways, he doesn’t fit the image painted by today’s pop music demands. He’s all real, there’s no façade and he’s extremely talented. I would hate to see the pop music machine get it’s hooks into him and try to cookie cutter him into something he’s not.

He’s too good for that.

Last month, Gillette released the latest in shaving technology to the consumer masses. Introducing the Gillette Fusion, five blades packed really close together with a sixth blade on the back so you can trim under your nose or around your stylish goatee.

It clocks in at $11.99 for just the razor. As a plus, the razor is powered to vibrate so that you can really get in close.

Five blades. Wow. Isn’t that a bit much?

When the Mach III came out a number of years ago, I was hesitant to pick one up. After all, my trusty Sensor (without the Excel part) had done wonders for me for a number of years and why did I need an extra blade? Then I started shaving my head and admittedly the Mach III made the task a little bit easier. I’ve been content for the most part with the Mach III ever since. The price does throw one into slight sticker shock, but once you grow a beard so that you use the blades as little as possible, it’s not too bad on the budget. For the most part I’m happy with the Mach III.

But five blades? I don’t think my head could take it. Refills for the new Fusion are $13.29 for four blades. They say a blade lasts three or four shaves, so that’s over $100.00 a month for a clean, close shave. Not including shaving cream. One has to wonder if the money would be better spent by going to a barbershop with a really hot barber doing the honors.

In an effort to make this marketing campaign successful, Gillette has also released a new line of shaving gels, foams and other accessories with the “Fusion” name. Has shaving gel or shaving foam changed that much over the years that there needs to be more and more versions of it? I mean, it’s either a foam, or a shaving gel that turns to foam when rubbed. How hard can it be? As a teenager I borrowed my father’s Barbasol and found that to be more than sufficient. I was a diehard Barbasol user for many years and still use it on occasion. I must admit that as I’ve grown older I’ve expanded to an environmentally safe shaving cream for my head. Have you ever looked at the ingredients in a can of shaving cream? Small wonder my face always felt like it was on fire after shaving.

I think I’ll keep the beard.

Sweetheart Corner.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

This sign has stood at the corner of Route 11 and Taft Rd. in North Syracuse, N.Y. for at least 60 years. At this location was a locally owned grocery store, Sweetheart Market, that closed in 2003 due to competition from the big, corporate owned supermarkets. If you listen to the traffic reports on the radio, it’s Sweetheart Corner. If you’re going to one of the area businesses, you’re going to Sweetheart Corner. It’s a landmark of the Syracuse area.

Shortly after the closing of Sweetheart Market, the building was demolished and Eckerd built a brand new store on the site. I believe Eckerd had a store next to the original Sweetheart Market, most likely it was a Carl’s Drugs that became a Fays Drugs that was bought by Eckerd in the 1990s. I was happy to see that they decided to let the landmark live and they kept the original sign from the grocery store.

It shall always be “Sweetheart Corner.”

I’m making like a real internet café junkie today and hanging out at a local Barnes and Noble, enjoying a Tazo Chai and a granola bar. The internet connection is acceptably fast.

One of the things that I love about hanging out in a café like this is the people watching. I’m fascinated, and often frustrated by the general public. The folks seem rather tame in this Barnes and Noble though, there obnoxiousness level is at a minimum.

Three tables ahead of me there are two women, which I would describe as “two old broads” because that’s what I do, who are wearing a lot of hairspray, a week’s worth of makeup and those fancy coats that look like floor length ponchos. They carry an air of “old money”. Not the regal type, but the “we just dragged those old two dollar bills out from under the mattress” type old money. They’ve rearranged their chairs twice, moved the table east and west a couple of times, knocking their neighbor, who was content reading his book entitled “The Emperors’ New Mind”, and now they’re cackling more than the hens I heard at last year’s State Fair. The blonde (not really) woman is reading a book called “The Jell-O Collection”. I bet tonight she is going to make one of those jello concoctions where they put lettuce salad in clear jello. Just like in high school. You know the type of salad, it’s a few shreds of lettuce, a hunk of carrot and radish, all engulfed in a clear or green colored jello, suspended right there in mid-air, suspending your belief that anything like that could taste good.

They just turned their table counter-clockwise 90 degrees. Ponchos are swaying and the Emperor guy just gave them a nasty look. They’ve now left the building and have mounted their brooms parallel parked outside, ready for take-off.

Meow. I’m vicious.

To my right is a very good looking bearded young man. He’s very intellectual looking. I would upgrade his “very good” to an “exceptional” if it wasn’t for his floor length pony tail hanging behind him. Oh well, there’s always scissors.

Straight ahead is a young student banging on his laptop keyboard in a seemingly frustrated way. Let me check again, yep, it’s a Dell running Windows.

Gosh, I love my PowerBook. Have I mentioned that recently?

I see another woman in the far corner using an IBM ThinkPad. I don’t think I’ve seen one of those in use for a while. Every PC-centric person in this area seems hell bent on owning a Dell.

Sip check. Tazo Chai made with soy milk, not as sexy as whole milk. But a whole lot healthier.

A group of four older women have installed themselves in the back corner and have set up a Scrabble game. They look to be having a good time. I hope to be able to retire someday to do the same. I’m pretty good at Scrabble.

Jones The Owl.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

While we were visiting Rick and Helen today, getting ready for our trip to Atlantic City, our nephew Jones decided to entertain his Uncle J.P. by doing animal impersonations.

“But Jones, you are an animal”, I said to him, feeling the need to point out the obvious.

“But Uncle J.P., actually we are all animals”, he responded.

Since he felt so wise (and I agreed with him after thinking about it), he decided to do an impersonation of an owl.

One of my biggest pet peeves is being pigeon holed. I don’t like to be perceived as predictable. When I move on from this life, I want to be remembered as spontaneous. “I wanna be impulse. Reckless.” (When’s the last time someone quoted a Wilson Phillips song in a blog?) “That J.P., he was zany. Zany, I say.”

As I’m sitting here eating lunch, I’m realizing that I’ve adopted a routine that may border on mundane. I come home, lunch pail in tow and lay out my lunch. I pet the cat on the top of the head and then let him out the back door. I then eat my lunch and surf the same pages, every day, in the same order. I have a handful of blogs that I read, and I always read them in order, regardless of who has posted the latest entry. I check a few usenet discussions and then I read a few message boards about various, often entertainment, interests. Then I write in my blog. As I letting Tom out before settling down to eat, I realized he was waiting by the door because he knew what was to happen next.

I think this routine is a product of the time of year. I imagine once the weather breaks and really means it this time that I’ll walk or sit on the back deck or run around the house with my hands in the air going “Let the sunshine, let the sunshine, let the sunshine in!” I don’t think the neighbors would mind, they often do the same thing. Except crazy cat lady. She just calls neighborhood cats by banging an iron skillet on a cow bell. She’s whacky like that.

Long ago I was told by an ex-fling that I was very predictable and I worked in a three-week cycle. I had my high points, I had my low points and you could set a calendar by the schedule. “J.P.’s giddy, time to pay the electric bill!” Unpredictably, I hung up the phone while he was telling me what my problem was and predictably I dumped him in a curt, yet colorfully worded e-mail. Mind you, back in 1989, dumping people over e-mail was rare so maybe that wasn’t so predictable after all.

I think I’m going to do something very spontaneous this weekend. On purpose. I don’t know what it’ll be, I don’t know when it’ll be. I have a five day weekend ahead, this is the perfect opportunity to be zany.

I have to think about the details.