If you want to view paradise,
Simply look around and view it,
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world?
There’s nothing to it.
As performed by Ford on the dance track “Pure Imagination” and cranked up on Route 5S today.
Me. Me.
Michael at Manhattan Chowder has tagged me for a meme so now I get to write about Me. Me. Shocking!
So here are the rule of the tag:
* Post a similar post like this one and add a linkback to the person who tagged you.
* List down 5 reasons why you blog about the things you blog on your blog.
* Choose your 5 tag ‘victim’ and tag them nicely 🙂
* Write a comment on their blog letting them know that you tagged them. Voila!
And away we go:
5. I think it’s important to give the world the opportunity to see into the lives of your normal, everyday, low drama gay couple.
4. I like writing. I ain’t so good at it sometimes but nonetheless I love throwing words on a computer screen, arranging them in a sensible manner and making them stick.
3. I like the geek aspects of blogging, making everything look nice, arguing with my webspace provider on what I want to accomplish, keeping the software running.
2. People in my real life have grown bored of my bitching, now I can just bitch out loud to anyone that will spend a few moments on my blog. I have an opinion on anything and everything and it’s good to be able to share that.
1. I love making people laugh, giggle or at least chuckle. Hopefully some of my blog entries do that for the reader.
So now I get to tag someone else. As we spin the wheel of bloggers, we land on:
Sean at Idle Eyes and a Dormy
Séan at pretinama
Karl at Adventures in Gastronomy
Pete at It’s Just Nothing
Jeffrey at Allogenes
I’m not a big fan of leaving comments tagging people, as I feel like I’m trying to push viagara or something when I’m doing it, so don’t be surprised if I don’t mention it. Does that make me a bad meme-er? Gosh, I always feel so dirty with the tagging part, like I’m passing a chain letter or something. If this is a chain letter then I wish nothing but happiness for those that receive it, regardless of what they do with the meme.
Now I won’t feel as guilty.
Landscape Hunting.
Earl and I went on a ride through the snobby sections of town looking for landscaping ideas. The topsoil arrives next week!
Such excitement.
The View.
As a huge Rosie O’Donnell fan, I was delighted when Rosie joined the cast of “The View” in September and have watched the show this entire season. I knew that sooner or later she was going to really bump heads with Elisabeth since they have such opposite views on politics and today they stepped their arguments up a notch. Today they went full tilt.
First of all, I have always found Elisabeth’s way of arguing, by spewing out the same facts over and over again while another person is talking, excessively grating. She doesn’t shut up. She doesn’t let Joy talk. Rosie is also loud but she knows when to ramp it back and let someone else speak. Elisabeth just chatters on and on and Earl has to stop me from yelling “SHUT UP” at the television screen.
I found it odd that the producers went to a “split screen” for the first time this season making me wonder if this was somehow planned, at least on the part of Elisabeth, as today is the last day of sweeps. But that’s just the cynic in me.
There were two delightful moments later in the show that I did enjoy: Alicia Silverstone came out for her interview and completely ignored Elisabeth when she greeted the other hosts and at the end Rosie, with Joey Fantone and Laila Ali, asked if the two guests would consider going on a celebrity version of “Dancing With The Stars”, “you know like celebrity Survivor where they ask all the good ones to come back” (Elisabeth wasn’t on celebrity Survivor, perhaps she turned it down, but I thought it was a nice jab.)
Rosie is on vacation tomorrow (it was pre-planned as it’s her partner Kelli’s birthday) so everyone will be up in arms about that but I can guarantee that I will once again have no interest in “The View” once Rosie is gone.
I can’t take Elisabeth’s constant chattering.
New.
When I was a youngster, like most kids I thought that the older generation really wasn’t “with it”. They loved their rotary phones and wondered why Ma Bell had to be broken up. They had no idea how to get a calculator to display “BOOBLESS” or “SHELLOIL” and they didn’t get the concept of a two-liter bottle of pop in a plastic bottle (instead of a two-quart bottle of pop in a glass bottle). Being one to analyze everything to death, I wondered if anyone would have the same opinion of me one day, when would I become obsolete?
I think I reached obsolescence mid 30s. It was then that I started feeling less and less in pace with society. Now I’ve never been one to follow the norm, but there are some things that I just don’t get.
For example I don’t understand why young kids start smoking. With the volumes of analysis and millions of case studies around the world regarding the effect smoking has on one’s health, I don’t understand how anyone could start smoking today. I usually forgive long-time smokers over the age of 35 or so because there wasn’t as much emphasis on all the health detriments back in the day but today there is just no excuse. I’ve seen too many people die from the effects of smoking so I say that if you start smoking these days you’re a moron and not worth my time. It sounds callous and it probably is very callous but that’s the way I am.
I still don’t get the cell phone craze. Now I still have my cell phone and have been asked by Earl and several relatives not to get rid of it, but I rarely use it outside of sending Earl love notes and texting my sister once in a while. There are people that are constantly on their cell phone. How did we survive in the past with a phone on the kitchen wall with an occasional extension in the living room? I still trip people up in the supermarket if they’re pushing a cart and yapping on their cell phone. Sometimes they spill their mocca chocca la la latte in the process in which I then earn two points.
I don’t get the coffee fad either. Everyone is running around with all this flavored crud that barely resembles coffee in all manner of places. The supermarket. The movie theatre. The mall. I heard a woman remark that Lowe’s should put a coffee bar in. Are you kidding me? It’s a lumber yard, not a café. By the way, it’s obvious that I am not a coffee drinker, having only had the stuff once in my life. That one cup did put the appropriate amount of hair on my chest so I guess there was some benefit, but otherwise I find the stuff gross. Before a couple of years ago, people survived on a cup or two in the morning, now people practically want it intraveneously.
I don’t get the Hollywood way of “re-imagining” shows today. I understand taking an old premise and making it new (even though they could come up with an original idea), but I don’t understand why this automatically makes the original version of the show bad. Of course I’m talking about NBC’s “Bionic Woman” in which I submitted a suggestion on one of the boards at the network to change the name of the main character to something original and was blasted by a bunch of zit faced, over-masturbated freakboys for suggesting such a travesty. “The original show sucked, you should be glad they’re saving it.” Heck a lot of people liked the old show back in the day but I guess if it’s old it’s “bad” and if it’s new, it’s “good”.
I guess I’m feeling old and cranky today.
Dab of CNY: Dairy Goodness.
Earl and I made the first run of the season to a very popular ice cream stand. We bundled ourselves up (it’s still chilly at night in these parts) and made the trek to the Ice Cream Factory, located in the little town of Chadwicks, New York, just southeast of Utica.
The Ice Cream Factory is one of the more popular ice cream stands in the area with a 1/2 hour wait or more on hot summer nights. Tonight there were just a few in line before us and only one window was open, but at 52 degrees it’s really not full-tilt ice cream weather yet.
Tonight’s selection was Adirondack Brownie Ice Cream from Mercer’s, which is vanilla ice cream with a fudge swirl and chunks of chocolate brownie strewn through it.
It’s yummy.
If you’re in the area, The Ice Cream Factory is definitely worth a visit for a summer treat. You can e-mail me for directions.
Inspired by Joe. My. God.’s “Morning View” blog entries, I’ve decided to try something similar and share little bits and pieces of Central New York from time to time.
GB:NYC4
Picture from Joe.My.God. blog
Earl and I have decided to join the festivities for GB:NYC4 – Gay Bloggers in New York City 4 (links to JMG’s blog entry about this) this weekend. We’re going for the day on Saturday. For more details, follow that link to Joe.My.God or this link to Zeitzeuge Mark’s entry on the subject. Actually, Mark is the one that’s organizing this.
I’ve wanted to get to one of these events since I first heard about them well, four years ago, and I’m excited that we finally have the opportunity. I have to admit I’m a little nervous about meeting up with other bloggers for the first time; I’ve only met a couple to date, including Thom, Pete and Karl.
I think this is the first time I’ve ever considered loading up Sprite bottles with white wine spritzy stuff. Such challenges lie ahead.
Group Effort.
So last night was the season finale for “Heroes”, bringing a close to this volume of the series. Be forewarned that I may mention spoilers if you haven’t seen the episode yet.
Earl and I were in his hotel room in Schenectady last night so we had to watch the episode in “real time” versus tape delay via TiVo. I don’t know how normal viewers tolerate the huge number of commercials in the show! It’s a little bit out of control. I highly recommend that those with access to iTunes download the episode if they can’t watch it without the ads via a TiVo or something.
It looks like I’m running contrary to the fans on the 9th Wonders message board (one of the many sites devoted to the show). Most of the fanboys felt this episode was a let down but I have to say that I truly enjoyed it. The writers would be fools to bring complete closure to the series with this episode, so we were left with some lingering questions that will undoubtedly be addressed in Volume 2.
This was the first episode where I actually cheered for Niki when she whacked Sylar across the face with the parking meter and when she knocked out that increasingly irritating Candace. One little nitpick: previous episodes alluded to the fact that Candace never appears as her true self because she’s heavy, and when she was knocked unconscious (or dead) by Niki she went back to the pretty version of Candace. Should she have reverted to some person we’ve never seen before?
I thought the teaser of Volume 2, with Hiro in 17th century Japan, looked interesting but it didn’t engage me as a viewer. I’m not sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for next season.
On the whole, though, I appreciated the fact that the Heroes were all working together at the end of the episode and I was pleased with the manner and amount of resolution we were presented with.
The only downside to the showing was the preview of “Bionic Woman”. That looks like it could be a good show but it is definitely NOT the Bionic Woman we know. They should have come up with a new Bionic Woman and then got all Buffy or Alias on us. I wish they would change the name of the lead character to something other than Jaime Sommers.
Impromptu.
Earl is in the Capital District tonight on business and invited me to join him for dinner. I love these last minute road trips. We’re just getting back to his room in downtown Schenectady. We’re going to watch the season finale of “Heroes” and then I’m going to jump on the Thruway and head home.
Here’s a picture of the arcade at Proctor’s Theatre. I find these older buildings to be fascinating. We don’t build them like this anymore.
I love these last minute trips.
Nuked.
I just finished my lunch. On the menu today were two pieces of leftover pizza from the weekend. It was yummy.
Lately I’ve been against using the radarange (o.k., microwave) for anything. Earl came home one night last week and noticed that I was heating the brussel sprouts by steaming them on the stove instead of nuking the heck out of them. When I make popcorn I use the latest version of the old-fashioned motorized West Bend popcorn popper, complete with canola oil and dripping butter goodness. Even when I boil water these days I use the stove instead of the radarange.
When I was a kid I thought my grandmother’s radarange was the coolest thing. It was so heavy it took two people to carry it. You needed to lock the door shut before you could turn it on (the rumor about needing lead gloves proved to be unsubstantiated). If you used one of the fancy plates sparks flew around inside while the food cooked. You weren’t suppose to use the fancy plate in the radarange.
While these devices appeal to the geek, today I can’t help but think that using microwaves to cook food is somehow not normal. It’s not that I’m afraid of a microwave oven or think that my head is going to explode by standing near one but with all the radio waves, television signals, satellite signals and cellular chatter in the air today, I feel like I’m contributing to Mother Earth and the welfare of her children a little bit by not adding to the technological mix while I melt butter. So for lunch I heated my two slices of pizza in the oven on our pizza stone. It came out crisp and tasty. If I had used the radarange it probably would have been a mixture of soggy at one end and chewy on the other.
