Straight Up.

I am going to come absolutely clean right here in front of the world. I never thought I would ever say this to my partner Earl, let alone everyone that reads my blog or stumbles across this on a Google tangent, but the time has come and I must announce it.

I am totally infatuated with Paula Abdul with this season of American Idol.

There, I’ve said it.

She has entered the realm of diva-dom. And that’s a good thing.

Last year, Paula seemed a little bit off kilter. Well, let’s face facts, she seemed downright drugged and it was like she was in her own little euphoric haze and she didn’t share any with anyone else. Then the whole Corey what’s his name scandal started to bubble and she came out of the fog and into reality and it all eventually settled down. This season, it seems like Paula has pulled herself together and I think she is doing a great job on this seemingly mean run of American Idol auditions.

One thing about this season that is making me a little crazy is all this hoopla about Randy and Simon’s “anti-gay” comments, for example, that one guy that was named something like Brandy that looked and acted and sounded like a girl, which is perfectly fine, but Randy couldn’t tell what gender he was. I don’t know about you, but if I went out of my way to go to the hair salon and ask for my hair to be cut into a Dorothy Hammill haircut and had my eyebrows tweezed slimmer than the ladies’ from Abba’s, I wouldn’t be offended if someone made that mistake either. And now that I think about it, I’d probably still have a beard through all this, which wouldn’t help differentiate me from women in some parts of the country, so you can see the reason for some of the confusion. I mean come on, if you’re going to go out of your way to be as androgynous as possible, then don’t be upset if people guess ‘wrong’. I’m just saying.

But back to Paula. I found it very charming when the policeman last night wanted to dance with her and she responded with an “I’m not allowed” (I snickered). She was gratious and fully rooted into this dimension and reality. Eventually Randy and Simon dragged her up to the guy so she would dance but she was such a good sport about the whole thing.

She has gone out of her way to find something positive from some absolutely hideous auditions and I think that’s wonderful. She even tried to coach the boy with no teeth but he wasn’t having any.

Paula baby, you’re back on my playlist and cocked (no pun intended), locked and ready to rock in my CD player. I’m feeling the Vibology.

25 January 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 1

Lunch.

As I sit here and eat a relatively healthy lunch whilst I blog, for some reason I’m thinking about the kids that are in school today. Perhaps it’s because a school bus tried to run me off the road on my way home. Whatever the reason, I got to thinking that most likely the kids in school today are not eating a healthy lunch. They are eating junk food in their school cafeteria. This is sad.

Back when I was in school, a monthly lunch menu was handed out at the beginning of the month. (As an aside, in my school district it was my mother who typed the menu and she would filch a few advance copies for my sister and I. We were like gods with this knowledge.) Listed were all the meals that were to be served for lunch that month. There were few choices. A typical day would be like “Tomato or Chicken Noodle Soup, half of a PB&J or turkey salad sandwich, milk, choice of cookie.” During the Carter administration, peanuts accompanied at least two meals per week. Said lunch was made by a dedicated staff of cafeteria workers who actually cared about the food they were serving up. They were basically cooking the same stuff they cooked at home, just for a really big family. If you didn’t like what was on the menu that day, you brought your own lunch.

Nowadays, soda and snack vending machines populate school cafeterias and kids are bypassing the traditional lunch line and heading for a bag of Doritos and a bottle of pop. Still hungry? Have a candy bar. And if you do go through the cafeteria line, there’s a really good chance that you’re eating an over-processed, pre-cooked, preservative laden ‘meal’ that was nuked especially for you. There’s a wild assortment of food including tacos, burritos, pizza, pre-made submarine sandwiches, chicken nuggets, french fries; the list goes on and on. Small wonder we have hyper, unfocused, belligerent children in our society today.

What is sad is that funding to our schools has been cut back so much that they have to resort to corporate sponsored food in order to keep the school going! “The band doesn’t need the money for the all-star trip, they can boost their income with the loot from the Sugar-Pop machine.” Boo! “We can’t afford to send the football team to the dome for the playoffs, maybe they can get some money from the Cavity Candy machine.” How horrid is that?

What happened to the days of a “home cooked meal” at school? Is it really too expensive? Too time consuming? No one cares but me? I find that last one hard to believe.

All I know is that when I eat junk food, I get an excellent energy rush for about an hour and then I feel tired and lethargic for the rest of the day. I don’t feel like learning. I don’t feel like being productive. I don’t even feel like moving. How can we expect a child to sit up and learn the history of the world after eating a generic Big Mac?

I don’t know why I’m thinking about this today. We don’t have kids. My mother doesn’t type the menu anymore. I’m not bucking for a spot on the Board of Education. Maybe I just wish that the kids in school today could have the same quality lunch that I had at Pulaski Academy and Central School.

24 January 2006 by Why. 1

Simulate.

The geek in me is shining through this week as I jump back into “Sim City 4”. For those not familiar with the game, you basically build your own city, your own little country actually, with residents called Sims and money called Simoleons. Being the “road geek” that I am, I have the “Traffic Jam” add-on pack which allows you to build more complex highway networks in your city.

I can never get the budget to balance correctly (small surprise there), so I unashamedly use cheat codes to give myself free money. Sort of like the current administration at the White House. I figure if Bush Lite can do it than so can I.

Anyways, in the past when I’ve played Sim City until all hours of the night I’ve had odd dreams afterwards in that I would dream that I was actually living in the city that I had built. I’d hear the music in the background. I’d wander aimlessly around the streets that I had built to nowhere or to the airport that was bigger than the city itself.

Even though I thoroughly enjoy the game, I do have a problem with my “Sims”. For example, I put two male Sims in the same house and I can’t get them to hook up with each other. There never seems to be an interest, despite the flowers and candy. It’s not as bad in Sim City 4 as it is in the game “The Sims” where attention is paid mostly to the residents (Sim City focuses on the city itself); I never remember to give my Sims in that game a toilet and then they bounce around and eventually poop on the living room table. Then I feel bad.

Nevertheless, as winter has finally arrived and I deal with trouble calls this week, I’ll probably pass some time playing “Sim City 4”. It’s a good way to exercise my inner geek.

23 January 2006 by Geek 2

Uh Oh.

I just awoke about a half hour ago with one thought screaming through my head.

“I don’t want to go to work.”

It’s Monday. It’s snowing. I’m in a very calm, relaxed, kicked-back mood from doing very little this past weekend. This morning I have to jump into it with both feet and endure a week of on-call.

I’ll go to work this morning. I’ll even smile when I get there. But I can’t wait for it to be over.

23 January 2006 by Why. 0

Nothing.

Earl and I have played it very low key today. We’ve basically done nothing, save for eating, getting laundry done and picking up the house. I’ve messed around with my computer, Earl has watched football and is now off to his weekly poker game. I haven’t even showered. I don’t think I smell bad.

Despite our laziness, we’re both in a great mood and ready for the work week. Sometimes you just need some down time.

22 January 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 0

Nightlife.

Earl and I decided to continue our relaxing trend this weekend and go out for a couple of drinks tonight. There’s only one gay bar in town, the one I used to DJ at a very long time ago, so that’s the place we went. Not much has changed. First Earl is still bartending, we recognize some of the guys from the days I worked there and the number of people in attendance has dwindled.

There were a bunch of the younger crowd there and I tried my best not to feel obsolete.

We did dance a little bit to Kelly Osbourne’s “One Word”. I still think it’s a great song and it seemed like the others on the dance floor seemed shocked that two bears were out there dancing to a somewhat current dance track.

Earl and I did strike up a conversation with a guy that was standing by himself in the corner. We made a quick friend in Ryan who lives way out in the country and rarely goes out. Turns out he grew up just down the street from where I grew up, he just did it 10 years later. Like everyone that grew up there, he’s pretty fine to look at. 🙂

After we said our good nights at the bar we stopped at the diner right around the corner from our house which is now, thank goodness, open 24 hours on the weekend. French toast with blueberry syrup is oh so bad for the healthy eating but oh so good at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night.

22 January 2006 by Fun and Games Dept 0

Vibe.




The Niagara Mohawk Building.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

To kick off the weekend in style, Earl and I journeyed to downtown Syracuse for some real, good ol’ honky-tonk food at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. A local landmark, the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is famous for their great food, blues music and eclectic crowd. It’s always a good time and Earl and I try to take out of town family and friends there whenever we the opportunity presents itself. Hint, hint to Tim and Steve.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que is located on the edge of the downtown area, so after supper Earl and I decided to embrace the low 50s and clear weather Mother Nature has given us again this January and go for a walk. We walked over to Clinton Square and watched the skaters do their thing a la Rockefeller Center and then walked around a few blocks of the general area.

The City of Syracuse is making an effort to bring more residential space to downtown by converting old warehouses and office buildings into lofts and other living space and this is something appeals very much to both Earl and myself. Somewhat a native of Syracuse (half my family lives there), the Salt City is the the place that I feel most comfortable in and I could live there the rest of my life without thinking about it twice. Living in a bigger city also appeals to Earl so we took great interest in a building we walked by that was being converted to apartments and townhouses and jotted down the phone number.

Even though I grew up in the country and have lived in varying places including suburban Boston and rural Upstate New York, I’ve always wanted to try living in a downtown area where I would do a lot of walking and have our own little speck of existence in a busy city area.

Another magnificent building we walked by was the Niagara Mohawk building, a wonderful art deco structure built in the first half of the 20th century. I find art deco structures so cool; it’s as if the designers and builders went out of their way to make their work as unique as possible, a welcomed relief to the cookie cutter buildings being built today.

The vibe of the city was a great way to kick off the weekend and wash away the hectic pace of the work week. It’s all good.

20 January 2006 by Flickr 0

Wow Worthy: Kelly Osbourne

Kelly Osbourne/One Word
For new readers to “Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity”, a “Wow worthy” song is a dance track that would be an excellent fit to the radio station I used to be Director of Operations for: Wow-FM, The Beat of Central New York (WOWZ-FM/WOWB-FM). Wow-FM bit the dust in 2001 when it was consumed by a huge media conglomerate and turned into a generic “Kiss” station. My program director’s ear occasionally finds a song that would fit the station really well if it still existed today.

I’ve found my first favorite dance track for 2006, and that dance track is “One Word (Chris Cox Radio Mix)” by Kelly Osbourne. I was led to this track by blogger god Joe. My. God. in a reference to a group of guys called The Mischievious Boys.

Who would ever believe that I would be diggin’ a Kelly Osbourne track? It’s a typical J.P. tempo’d song, has a great, slightly haunting vibe and a memorable hook. As a bonus, the flip side is a damn true-to -the-original remake of “The Sound of the Crowd” by The Human League!

Both tracks have already been loaded on my club mixing gear after one listen. Go buy it if you don’t have it already (it’s been around a while), it’s available on iTunes.

19 January 2006 by DJ 1

Mood.

I think I’m in a little bit of a mood today. Actually, I know I’m in a mood today. And it’s rather foul.

I try not to be foul. I try to be the happy, go-lucky, awwww shucks, swell type but sometimes there’s just a rant stirring inside of me that must be unleashed. For the first time ever I found work to be somewhat irritating and I’m sick of counting calories and fat grams so I’m going to let myself just enjoy my supper tonight and not obsess about what I am eating. Add the fact that Earl was out of town last night so I had to sleep without my favorite teddy bear and I’m finding myself rather snappish.

So BEAR with me but there’s some things going on in the world that I must get off my chest.

First of all, “ha ha ha ha ha Bush Lite!” Bin Laden made another tape and released it to the world, complete with threats of death and destruction. The man is a monster (Bin Laden, not Bush, the latter being somewhat debatable) and is damn near a perfect picture of Evil with a capital “E”, but the Bush administration wants us to forget about him and the fact that he’s still running loose in the world and concentrate on the people of Iraq instead as we introduce them to our (proper?) version of the Messiah. “Don’t look at the lunatic behind the curtain! He’s not important! It was Iraq! It was Iraq!”

Secondly, because of said activities in Iraq, there is a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor being held hostage with a mortal deadline of tomorrow. That just sickens me. I may not agree with the Christian Science Monitor, I don’t agree with the Iraqi war. I may think that it’s somewhat foolish to try to “get the scoop” in a war zone, but to hold someone’s life in the balance like that is very sickening. May the Universe save her.

Then we have municipalities here in Upstate New York looking to form their own utility companies, instead of relying on corporations like National Grid (which recently took over Niagara Mohawk), simply because utility bills are skyrocketing at an unprecedented rate this winter, and it’s not even cold outside! There are senior citizens living on their social security checks alone and finding that their energy bills are more than their entire monthly income! Now that’s showing respect to our elders if I’ve ever seen it before. Big corporations = big profits for corporations = begging and starving elderly! Beautiful.

While I’m on the topic of energy, I am officially boycotting a local oil company because they are artificially inflating the prices in the local market. They routinely raise their prices 3 or 4 cents above surrounding gas stations. The dumb folks around here still go to them, because after all, they are the most prevalent in the area, and then the other gas stations say “if they can raise the price 3 or 4 cents and still get business, them I’m going to also!” so then the price of gas goes higher for everyone involved. You can drive 20 miles in any direction from here and find the price of gas drop 10 to 20 cents per gallon. It’s horrible.

And lastly, it has been reported that the government wants access to logs of user’s searches on Google, in an effort to curb pornography on the internet away from children. HELLO! I don’t know about you, but I do not want Condocranky Rice browsing through logs of what I searched for on the internet, even if all I do is find answers to my Unix questions. (That’s what we all use Google for, right? Pornography? Why, I never even thought of that!) When did it become the responsibility of our government to raise our children? Funny, I always thought that it was the responsibility of the parents to raise the children. If you don’t know what your children are doing on the internet, you can’t figure out to know what your children are doing and you can’t do anything about it, then you shouldn’t have a computer in your house in the first place. If you can’t run the damn thing, then stay the hell away from it or learn how to surf responsibly and safely. This scenario is like expecting the government to keep track of the fact that you subscribe to Cinesleaze on the cable network, ignore the parental controls built into your cable box and then have a fit when your kid stumbles across a man, two women and a collection of bare breasts on the screen. Rumor has it that they’d also like to track how much anti-Bush Administration stuff there’s out there on the internet, but as I say, that’s just a rumor.

I feel a little better after getting all that off my chest. Thanks for listening.

19 January 2006 by Ponderings and Musings 3

Me Too.

Since American Idol is back in full swing, I thought I’d celebrate by doing my own little audition right here on my blog. My apologies for it being audio only, but here I am singing The National Anthem. It’s recorded with no tricks, no filters and no special effects used at all. It’s as live as if I was singing sweet nothings into your ear.

Small wonder the teams left town permanently after I sang at their sporting events back in ’99.

18 January 2006 by Fun and Games Dept 2

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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