Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

I’ve had it up to here with commercialism. If you could see my hand, you would notice that it is hovering above my eyebrows, which though quite blond, are in dire need of a trim.

But I digress.

It seems like commercialism has taken over the world. Advertisements. Banner ads. Billboards. Billboards that change their “look” every thirty seconds. Crawling letters. Transparent boxes in the corner of the television screen. Sponsorship thank yous on public radio. Sponsorship pleas from a weird woman named Goldie on public television. It goes on and on.

I know, I know, it’s the American way. Good old American commerce and all that happy horse doo doo. But my goodness, when do we reach the point of commercial overload?

It’s ironic that I don’t like commercials, since radio commercial revenue pays my salary. In fact, during my illustrious radio career I have been a “copy writer” and a “production director”, both jobs being directly responsible for what I now despise.

Growing up, I admit that there were some commercials I absolutely loved. “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature”, then she gives a lightning bolt to some poor soul who gave Bea Arthur’s sister on the Golden Girls margarine instead of butter. She was pretty cool.

“Honeycomb’s big, yeah yeah yeah, it’s not small, no no no”

“My husband, some hot shot, here’s his ancient Chinese secret, Calgon!” Now the oriental woman in those commercials absolutely rocked. In fact, don’t be surprised if you see me in pigtails and a kimono hovering over a GE washer with a box of Calgon for Halloween this year. “We need more Calgon!”

I think commercials started getting on my nerves when I was in my teens, in the early 80s. I’d be hanging out with my neighborhood friends on the back porch of his house, television blaring in the background as the summer sweltered, we shot the shit and roasted marshmallows and made fun of the girl across the street named Freida Look. There’d always be a lull in the conversation, just in time for the television to blare a serious, orchestral crescendo followed by a young girl saying “Mother, how do you stay feeling fresh all day..” The mother looked perplexed, the girl looked forlorn, my friends looked pained and I was headed to the wood pile to puke. I don’t know what Freida Look was doing. Maybe she just looked.

Alright. That was absolutely unnecessary. First of all, how degrading to women of the world. Are we really suppose to believe that a woman in her 20s is going to ask her mother, who’s wielding a meat cleaver in the kitchen no less, about personal issues in the nether regions? Come on. I’m pretty sure that mothers and daughters don’t talk to each like that. Guys certainly don’t. “Dad, the toilet paper Mom bought leaves me feeling dirty. What do you do?” Yeah, right.

Then of course we moved into ridiculous with “Where’s The Beef” and all that crap. I’m not even going to go there, except that the wonderful elderly lady screaming “Where’s the Beef” should have been paid more Social Security and less royalties to be left off the television.

Fast forward to present day. Now we have commercials for medication. Like that commercial for some anti-depressant. First of all, the sad face on the little bubble that bounces along about makes me cry. I know, it’s suppose to, so I can go run out and get myself some happy pills. But does the bubble have to be so depressed? Never mind that you’re just having a bad day or that you could take a moment to take a deep breath and ask yourself if your latest tragedy is really worth it. No, no, no. Run to the doctor to get a prescription for a pill that’ll fix all your moods. Take enough pills and you’ll be “Super Zombie”!

Then we have the viagra boy. “Did you lose weight, Bill?” “Did you shave off your mustache, Bill?” “Why are you so happy, Bill?” They never come out and say why Bill is so happy, but he’s grinning like a fool the entire day. Why doesn’t he just stand up in the middle of the office and loudly proclaim “Hey! I banged my mistress during my lunch break while my wife watched and I was able to do it because I was chemically motivated!” Clue phone for Bill, if you stopped watching television for viagra commercials and paid more attention to your wife (and maybe concentrated REALLY hard at the right moment), you wouldn’t need viagra. And I really couldn’t care less if Bill lost weight, shaved his mustache or banged his mistress. Keep your chemically motivated sex drive in your seedy motel room and out of my living room, thank you very much.

And I can’t go on without mentioning those fat whacker pills or whatever they are. I suspect that they are related to that awful invention of “Olestra” which invaded my Pringles a number of years ago. I will never forget the moment I slammed the car in park on the side of the Thruway and took a dump along the fence, in the city of Albany no less, because I ate two Pringles with “Olestra” in them not two minutes before stopping. That’s what those fat whacker pills do. “May cause explosive bowels, intestinal cramping and uncomfortable gas.” And they recommend you take one before the company picnic or office party! My God. Talk about being the life of the party. Boring conversation? Pop a crab cake or whatever, do a 180 and blow away the person you’re talking to. I tried burning the rest of the Pringles, but they wouldn’t burn.

Earl and I were at the movies last weekend. Of course we have the revolving slide show before the commercials before the preview. The slide show doesn’t seem to be selling well in this area because there were only three rotating. One of them was for an new Open MRI service. “Schedule your Open MRI today”. Like the nerd who is waiting to see Tomb Raider II is going to say, “My God, I’ve never had an MRI, let alone an Open MRI. Forget the movie, I’ve got to leave and schedule one RIGHT NOW.” And God forbid you’re told you need an MRI. “I’m sorry Bruce, but we think you have an extra toe growing in your brain and we need to do an MRI.” Do we really think Bruce is going to say, “You know, before Connie and Carla I saw this ad at Hoyt’s Theatre for the Open MRI…” or “I don’t want to know about the toe in my brain unless its checked out with an OPEN MRI.” Yeah, right.

Then there’s the local restaurant in the three rotating ads which has a picture of a “delicious” entree of macaroni and cheese, french fries and a fishburger on a folding table with folding chairs, which are surrounded by a group of elderly patrons, two of which look like they’re in an unfortuate accident with their walkers. I haven’t figured out if one of them is the server yet, but perhaps the answer will come to me the next time we are at the movies.

The third ad is for Adelphia High Speed Internet. The graphic is a road sign over a highway that says “Adelphia Powerlink” with an arrow pointing down over the highway. I couldn’t agree more. Adelphia Powerlink is always down. Great visual there. Enough said.

You can’t go anywhere without someone hocking their wares. We drove into Connecticut a couple of weeks ago. We crossed the N.Y.-Conn. line and my cell phone rang. A cheery voice said “Welcome to Connecticut, press 827364910283 for the department of tourism. En Espanol, marque tres.” I really didn’t need that.

I was happily watching Green Acres on TV Land. All of a sudden, Eva Gabor’s face shrunk up to the corner of the screen so that a little dancing set of letters could appear on the bottom letting me know ElectraWoman and DynaGirl were on at 1:30 a.m. Match Game PM constantly has a “GSN” hoo-dickey hanging over Brett Somers face. Judging Amy has a CBS eye over Tyne Daly’s bosom.

Even the waitress at a restaurant we were at was pre-selling food! “What would you like for an appetizer?” And then in the same breath, “Be sure to save room for the delicious blueberry pie we have today!” Pie! I was still working out the blooming onion, iced tea, bread and butter, soup, crackers, salad and entree! Who’s got time to think of pie then?

Small wonder I want to move to the middle of the desert and shut out the world. My luck I’ll end up next to a billboard for Pringles.

Sometimes I wonder if all this technology is really good for us. Have we forgotten what the sound of silence really sounds like? You can’t go anywhere without hearing the whirr of a fan, the ring of a phone or the blip of some miscellaneous electronic gadget.

Over the weekend, Earl and I went to Albany to see “Kill Bill, Volume 2”, as well as do some shopping and such. We had a wonderful time. On the way home, we stopped at one of the Thruway service areas for a pee break. I was standing at the urinal doing my business and minding my business, when I guy strolls in chatting away on his cell phone. He comes up to the urinal next to mine, whips it out and continues to talk on the cell phone, having quite the animated discussion with someone he was obviously, excuse the pun, pissed off at. He had one hand holding the phone. Now you’d think his other hand would be holding his business, but no, it was waving around in animated excitement. I hope he had good aim.

Is it really necessary to carry on a telephone conversation with someone while you’re taking a leak?

Today I spent a good two hours setting up one of the computers at work so that the user could synchronize her palm pilot with her desktop computer. Come to find out that she wanted to synchronize notes that were written, in her own handwriting mind you, down on the palm pilot so she could print them out.

A cashier at the local grocery store almost had a full blown hissy fit because my rice milk wouldn’t scan. She had to plunk in the numbers off the barcode by hand since there wasn’t a price marked on the item. Sigh. Boo. When that didn’t work, she asked me if I knew the price. I automatically responded “99 cents”, since that’s my response whenever I’m asked the price for an item that won’t scan. I don’t care if it’s a tomato, a vase or a Ferrari, if you’re too lazy to find out the price, I’m going to tell you 99 cents.

And lastly, Earl and I decided to break out of our healthy eating spree (which lasted two hours) and visit the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. The person in front of me paid for his $15.50 order with a $50.00 bill. The cashier entered $20.00. The poor imbecile couldn’t figure out the change on her own. She asked the manager what, and I quote, “15.50 take away 50.00” was. She pondered over the problem a couple of minutes before I impatiently chimed in, “just add $30.00 to what the display says.” She responded with a “how did you know that?”, her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits that would seemingly be reserved for a masked gun man robbing the place.

“I used to work in retail.”

“Oh.”

I am a technogeek at heart. I love all the things that technology can do for you. However, in order to truly appreciate the luxury of technology, you have to have the basics down. And while you’re learning the basics, do me a favor and flush your cell phone down the toilet next time you’re chatting in a public potty.

Last night, I had such wonderful dreams. They took place in a calm, peaceful, enchanting dreamscape. Colors were bolder than I had ever seen. Sounds were full of undeniable clarity, devoid of the ringing always present in my ears. I had the ability to make things appear in thin air. I could fly. Earl was by my side, as was my childhood cat Waldo and my “single days” cat Gideon. I could speed up or slow down time. I could freeze things.

So after I became aware of these abilities, I decided to eat lunch with Earl… and Allison Janney.

Now what the heck does that all mean? I find it comical that I dreamed about Allison Janney. But she seemed pretty cool. We weren’t on a date or anything, more like a ‘hanging out with your friend’ type of experience. And she had the same abilities as I did. She told me that all I had to do was “remember”. Remember this moment. Then we chatted about various trivial things and made things appear and disappear.

I’m thinking that I was having some sort of out of body experience and I went to this lovely place where I could perform all these magical acts. I was feeling an incredible peaceful, euphoric rush. About 3/4 of the way through my dream, Earl tossed around in bed a little bit which sort of disturbed the dreamscape. A type of ripple. I forced myself to stay asleep to continue the dream. Allison said it was time to get back to work, but to look around and remember my surroundings.

I woke up, realized I was back in reality, and became miserable. I’ve been cranky all day. I don’t think that was the goal of last night’s experience.

So now I’m sitting in our great room, closing my eyes and making a conscious effort to remember. And as I peel back the layers of self-imposed negativity, I realize that I can close my eyes and remember the dreamscape again. I can feel a very small sliver of the euphoria I felt. I can feel the comfort of Earl’s presence. I can hear Allison’s laugh. I can see Waldo and Gideon playing.

I look forward to visiting the dreamscape again as I sleep. I look forward to meditating on it when the need arises.

And I thank whomever is responsible, whether its a spirit guide or my subconscious, for the experience.

As I mention from time to time, I consider myself a real huge geek. I am fascinated by what most people would consider trivial, if not mundane. I like roads. I’m fascinated by synchronized clocks. Earl dreads daylight savings time when I have to get the oven and microwaves clocks to change together at the exact instant. And of course, I love computers.

At work I’m on a crusade to go as paperless as possible. I believe everything that’s important can be stored much more efficiently in a database on someone’s hard drive somewhere. Not being as organized as I’d like to be, sometimes the data gets misplaced on someone else’s hard drive (usually halfway across the state), but I do deserve an “E” for effort.

I’m trying to introduce some paperless systems into our quaint little work place. For example, we found that people weren’t keeping track of what projects they were working on, so our customers weren’t being billed. Not a good situation, since this means less money for the company, which means less in the way of a raise for me, which means a rise in blood pressure, which means an increase in health benefits. Not to mention the fact that it just makes me cranky.

Anywho, the office manager and business manager (I don’t know what the difference is either) came up with a logging system. To my horror, this morning they began handing out beautifully bound, gaudy yellow legal pads. Ugh. Everyone has been instructed to write in pen only. Double ugh. Reason for this – it can’t be changed once it’s written. And paper can’t be torn out without leaving evidence that something is missing (a point I quickly proved as false, by writing my lunch order in my pad and ripping it out).

It’s not that my co-workers are afraid of computers… heck, they gleefully open any attachment that has the lovely, anonymous message of “I thought you’d love this!” Hello Mr. Welchia Worm. They just don’t think along Technorati lines. Being a person that loves all things connected, the simple solution to me is to construct a database that would be seemlessly integrated into the billing system. The horror! There’s nothing to write on. There’s no mounds of paper that need to be entered into the computer for billing. There’s no opportunity for garish pink ink, complete with hearts over the i’s.

Maybe I’m more weird than I suspect, but I welcome change. It’s a bold, exciting challenge everytime a new opportunity comes along. A chance to expand my mind, broaden my horizons. I wish I could bring more people along on my ride. They might like the view.

Mother Nature has finally blessed us with some beautiful weather. To supplement my sunny disposition, I took the opportunity to take my first bike ride of 2004.

Wow.

Fortunately, I’m 15 pounds lighter than I was on my last bike ride last fall, and I was delighted to see that a long sleeved jersey that I’ve never been able to fit into easily slipped on for the ride.

It was a short ride, only six miles or so in 15 minutes, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I kick started my interest in cycling again. It felt good to be on the road.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll remember that I often mentioned a hill that I used to test my endurance with. Earl and I now live about a third of the way up that hill. So now with the new house, I can test my endurance on every ride… it’s just a matter of whether to do it at the beginning or at the end.

I’m looking forward to a season of cycling and pushing my limits once again. Not bad for a guy tipping 36.

Another day in beautiful Iowa. I just got back from eating supper at a local restaurant with my classmates and various members of the computer company I’m learning from. Being the techno geek that I am, I can’t believe how much I’ve learned in the first half of the training session. I thought I already knew it all. Apparently I was wrong.

I have a tendency to talk shop at company related dinners. Maybe my conversational skills are reduced to bits and bytes and binary babble. Maybe I should pay more attention to the useless one (Jai) on Queer Eye for The Straight Guy.

I still can’t get over how nice people are in the little town in northwest Iowa. It is so refreshing. Having only met a lot of these people just 12 hours ago, it’s amazing to me that I feel so comfortable being with them. I suppose this has been a study in assertiveness. I tend to be a little shy or withdrawn when confronted with a situation outside of my little world, but I’ve felt very at ease these past couple of days. It’s been a wonderful feeling. Perhaps this trip was exactly what the doctor ordered. I do have a fresh outlook on my current professional circumstances. And I feel a warm, sunny glow in my soul that I haven’t felt in a while. Not that I was full of darkness or anything like that, but the change of scenery and such has really lifted my spirits.

I do know that if Earl’s job dictate a move (and in all likelihood, that is going to happen soon), I am going to be better prepared to handle it, both professionally, and more importantly, emotionally. I’ll be able to handle making new friends and getting acquainted to a new city or town. I really like the idea of telecommuting.

Tomorrow night I head back home. I can’t wait to be with Earl again. I look forward to sharing my new lease on life with him.

Yesterday afternoon I left work around 1:00 to travel to Iowa for the computer training I’ve been looking forward to. I arrived here in Emmetsburg, Ia. this evening, after a total of 16.5 hours on the road.

Last night I drove as far as Madison, Ohio, where Earl is located when he’s “out of town” working. It was certainly wonderful to see him, as I’m sure you can imagine. After getting situated in his hotel room, he gave me a tour of his new plant (quite impressive). Then we headed to Great Lakes Mall, which is about 30 miles east of Cleveland, for supper. Of course I chose Chick-Fil-A. I had been looking forward to Chick-Fil-A since I basically gae up on vegetarianism, and it was a nice treat.

Last night was also special for us as it was the eight-year anniversary of our first date. I fell in love with him during that first day, and its nice to know that the feeling has only grown stronger as our relationship has progressed.

This morning it was up, up, up (to a car covered with snow!) nice and early so I could get on the road by 7:00 a.m. After a bagel, a glass of juice and a big kiss, I hit the road headed west. As soon as I was on the other side of Cleveland, the clouds parted, the temperature jumped 10 degrees and Mother Nature blessed my entire drive with sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s. All the way across northern Ohio and Indiana, central Illinois and up near the northwest corner of Iowa. I’ve never driven this far west, so it was a little bit exciting for me, especially crossing the Mississippi River. All the radio stations changed from “W..” to “K..”. 🙂 The broadcaster in me appreciated that.

One thing I noticed, starting with last night, is that people are a heck of a lot friendlier than they are back home. Of course, I could be superimposing my feelings about the area on my perceptions of the people back home, but they all seem so cranky in comparison to everyone I’ve had the pleasure of crossing paths with last night and today. I’ve actually been smiled at, thanked and just generally made to feel good by the service people that I have dealt with, whether it be a gas station attendant, a toll booth collector or a high school kid behind a fast food counter. And I must say that it’s made by disposition brighter. Perhaps its the weather. Maybe back home is populated with nothing but degenerates. Who knows. All I know is that I feel sunny right now and I intend on taking my sunniness back home with me.

So now I’m situated in my motel room in Emmetsburg, Ia. The moblog will have to be put on hold until I leave, because there doesn’t seem to be any cell service for Cingular customers in northwest Iowa. Maybe things will change on the way home once I get into Minnesota, but when I got north of Waterloo, I lost my cell service and I haven’t found it since. The On*Star phone is working o.k., so at least I’m not completely out of touch with reality, and I have high speed internet here in the room too, which is nice.

And I must say that I feel like I am in the middle of nowhere. That statement isn’t really fair, because it is “somewhere” for “someone”, so I shouldn’t be judgmental by saying that this is “nowhere”. That would imply a snobbery on my part, which I don’t have. Actually, I really like it here. I feel like I stick out like a neon arrow over a casket at a funeral, especially with my shaved head, soul patch and little gay thing I always have going on, but I suppose I’ll get over it.

One lovely thing is that they have A&W! So you know what I had for supper. Afterwards I decided to drive through town to see what it was all about. I was ‘invited’ to drag race a high school kid at one of the two stop lights. Of course I did it and smoked him with our Impala LS. Gramps still has some kick in him after all. 🙂

Earl and I are sitting in the local Jiffy Lube as I write this blog entry on my Pocket PC. We’ve been out on a ride this afternoon, enjoying the beginning signs of spring. It hasn’t really felt like spring the past couple of weeks with temperatures in the 30s and 40s. It’s nice to see the sun. And, its been nice to spend time together, especially since Earl is spending more time in Ohio with work.

I am looking forward to my trip to Iowa this week. I leave Tuesday afternoon. I’ll be spending the night with Earl outside of Cleveland. Then comes the long haul to Emmetsburg, IA on Wednesday. That’s why I’m getting the car serviced, so I have one less thing to worry about.

I am hoping to have internet connectivity on the trip. But at the very least I’ll be actively updating my moblog. So while I may not be able to share my snarky comments, at least you’ll be able to see what I’m up to.

Was the term “snarky” invented on the internet? I’ll have to do some research on that.

~~~

Back at home… Jiffy Lube turned out to be a nightmare! We were there almost two hours! The service guy informed us that we needed to flush our transmission since it hasn’t ever done before and the car has 96,000 miles on it. At first, he didn’t have the right fittings to hook the “flushing machine” up to the car. But then he found something that would work so he proceeded with the job. Well then the hose broke and transmission fluid spewed all over the engine and the windshield and down the front of the car. He hooked it up again, correctly, and continued with the servicing, though it took a lot longer than promised. Plus, with all the excess transmission fluid on the engine, the car smokes like its on fire whenever we park it now. He assured us that this was temporary and only until the fluid burned off the manifold. I like being an exhibitionist, but I don’t need to be the center of attention because my Impala appears to be on fire!

This should make the trip to Iowa REALLY interesting.

I’m really starting to groove on my moblog. Of course my cell service was down most of the day (apparently it doesn’t work when there’s a sun in the sky) so I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I wanted, but nevertheless I was able to upload a few.

I think my reality-TV aspirations from last year are starting to creep up into my forethought again. Now I don’t want to go dunking for apples with Julie Chen watching so that I can win a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Big Brother. But I want people to see me. I want to perform. I want to have people stop me in the mall and say “I saw your moblog on TextAmerica and you’re whacked.” Hey, I’ve had a few offers to do some mildly obscene things on my webcam (especially under my desk at work of all places), and while the sentiments are quite flattering (I think), I don’t think I want to be the next Dirk Diggler. Not that being a Dirk Diggler type wouldn’t be interesting, but I really don’t see myself in a Marky Mark body nor do I have anything in my underwear that’s been surgically enhanced. At least I no longer have the body of Kevin James. Not that Kevin James isn’t cute mind you, but I don’t really have his physique either. I just would like to keep my webcam “G” or “PG-13” rated.

I don’t know why this need for attention is surfacing again. Perhaps because Earl is out of town more than he used to be, maybe I feel lost without my personal cheering squad. Now I’m not belittling my relationship with Earl to “cheering squad” status, but part of our relationship is that I’m his biggest fan as he is mine. at the very least he is extremely tolerant.

I’ll probably go moblog crazy on my computer training excursion to Iowa. Having a moblog is a great lesson in assertiveness. I can ask any drive-thru attendant at any given fast food place, without a trace of humor in my voice, “Hey, wanna have your picture on my website? Just hide the super-sized fries.” Before the camera in my cell phone, I would have never done that. Sure, back in the day I accidently unleashed my old roommate’s Springer Spaniel in an Arby’s drive thru, which resulted in the dog running across several roast beef sandwiches, but that wasn’t a study in assertiveness. That was more a study in stupidity. Of course I got all embarassed about it. To this day I avoid that Arby’s, and it’s practically the only one left open in the area.

So don’t be surprised if you start seeing more of me. With Earl’s new camera, and my moblog, we’re bound to make our mark on the internet. If you see me on the street, be sure to say hi and ask for an autograph.

I have been on an on-going anti-television kick over the past month or so, limiting my boob tube enjoyment to “Judging Amy”, a little bit of “West Wing” (when it doesn’t border on idiotic) and “The Screensavers” on TechTV. However, I did see an ad for a new lawyer show called “Century City”, so I added it to my ReplayTV to do list. Since this show takes place in 2030, I thought it would be interesting.

I just got around to watching the latest episode tonight. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I thought it was well done, was a somewhat realistic look at the the world 27 years from now and I hoped for it to continue.

Apparently, it’s been cancelled.

It figures. Television isn’t about putting anything interesting out there anymore. Of course, it’s about making money. And apparently, CBS has determined that after three episodes, this show isn’t going to make money. So off it goes.

At least “The Screensavers” is still interesting. They’ve moved people around on TechTV, some have left, etc., so there’s new dynamics in the ensemble on the show. As an ubergeek, I find myself learning loads of stuff. If you want to check out their website, you can do so here.

Speaking of being a big geek, the moblog is finally up and running with some quality pictures from my phone. I had to finally go to Cingular Wireless in person and practically throttle the guy behind the counter. But he got everything up and running. They had to completely wipe out my account and start fresh, so I have a new phone number, but hey, that’s the price you pay for technology. Apparently something wasn’t set up right when I upgraded my phone back in February, and every time I turned the phone on or off generated an error that finally added up to a whole bunch of errors in their system. They were unable to reincarnate Alexander Graham Bell (I think that would have been faster), so it was just easier to bag the whole ordeal and start again. Be sure to check out the moblog if you’re so inclined.