The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for November 2006

I Hate The Holiday Season

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Yes that is right. I hate the holiday season.

  • I hate being told to be of good cheer.
  • I hate reading about the fake war on Xmas.
  • I hate being assaulted by all of the crass commercialism.
  • I hate being told that we should be nicer now than during the rest of the year.
  • I hate emails that are blindly sent out without regard for whether the message is of interest to all of the recipients.
  • I hate all of the stupid decorations. Gaudy is not cool and I don’t care if they are Jewish or Xtian. I dislike them all.
  • I hate fighting crowds at the mall.
  • I hate reading about knuckleheads shooting each other over a video game system.
  • I hate the stupid elves that try and get my children to take a picture on Santa’s lap. Don’t they know that I wished Death upon Santa.
  • I hate knowing that my cousin the Grinch rolled over and gave in.
  • I hate most Elmo toys. That little red fiend’s voice grates on my nerves.
  • I hate all of these stupid battery operated toys that beep, squawk and whistle. The next person who gives my kids one of those toys is going to wake up to the sound of a marching band outside their home.
  • I hate the stupid holiday music. If I could I’d kick that little drummer boy right in the ass. And that kid who made that dreidel out of clay can bite me too. What the hell is up with a clay dreidel, the best are made out of wood.
  • I hate fake snow. I don’t like the real stuff, but the fake crap is even worse. I live in California for a reason. If you need snow to feel like you are a part of the season get the hell out of here. There is too much traffic anyway.
  • I hate, I hate, I hate.

Phew. I feel better now.

Is This The End of The Wiggles

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“SYDNEY, Australia – The lead singer of the hugely popular children’s group The Wiggles announced Thursday he will stop performing after being diagnosed with a chronic condition that causes dizziness, fatigue and nausea.

In a video-recorded statement, Greg Page said a little-understood disorder called orthostatic intolerance had left him debilitated.

“It’s not a life-threatening condition by any means, but it is one that’s going to be with me for the rest of my life,” said Page, 34, who is known for his bright yellow T-shirt. “It means that I’ll no longer be able to sing and dance as I want to, and as a result I’ve decided to stop performing with The Wiggles.”

Page, who helped found The Wiggles in 1991, handed his yellow T-shirt over to his understudy, Sam Moran, who has been performing with the group for more than a decade as a backup singer and dancer.

“I’ll miss being a part of The Wiggles very much, but this is the right decision because it will allow me to focus on managing my health,” Page said.”

Call me a curmudgeon, but The Wiggles just won’t be the same without Greg. Can you imagine the Rolling Stones being fronted by someone other than Mick.

Help a Brother Out- A Request For All Who Read This

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I stumbled onto a video at Shoshana’s blog that gave me an idea. If you watch the video you’ll see that it is a commercial for an insurance company, but I like the overall message and it gives me an idea.

Here is my request for everyone who reads this post.

I’d like to ask that we all take a moment to help someone out. It doesn’t have to be someone you know, nor does it have to be a stranger. All I ask is that we each take an opportunity to do something nice for someone else.

A few examples/ideas from the video and my own thoughts:

  1. Hold the elevator door open.
  2. At Starbucks pay for a cup of coffee for the person behind you.
  3. Let that guy on the freeway on-ramp get ahead of you.

This is all kind of spur of the moment impulse, but just for the heck of it, let’s try it. Let’s see if we can’t make a few people smile and help to improve the world around us.

If you feel like it you can blog about this or leave a comment about what you did. Let me know what you think.

A Few Random Thoughts about Life and Blogging

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My grandfather ZL” used to say that you cannot screw an old head on young shoulders. He was so right. I miss him still and always will, but at the same time I always feel his presence.

He also used to tell me that life is not a sprint, but a marathon. He was so right, but it is still so hard for me to be truly patient.

I should be more patient with my posts. Some of them should and could be so much better. All I need to is spend more time rewriting them, but I just don’t want to. I don’t really know why, but I really find it hard to force myself to spend time polishing them.

Been at the beach a half dozen times recently. I parked my car and sat on the sand and listened to the sound of the sea. Had a strong urge to go sailing, I still have such wanderlust.

My daughter gives the best hugs. She just throws that little body into it. I love her so much. I love how she puts her head on my shoulder and goes to sleep. So much trust and so much faith in me. It is an awesome responsibility.

My son does it too. It is hard to believe that these little guys look at me as having all of the answers. They are growing so quickly.

If one more person tells me that I need to give to charity XYZ because of the season I may have to punch them in the nose. Screw the bleeping season, give because it feels right. Besides where are these people the rest of the year.

I wonder how the survivors of the tsunami are doing. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Amazing to think about how one moment they were here and in the next they were gone. Mother Nature reminds us all the time about how small we are.

Feels like more than a couple of bloggers are hanging up their hats, or at least giving it all a rest. And I am still here. I don’t say that to gloat, not in the slightest. I say it because I have had this feeling for years now that I would be one of those people who would watch all of their friends die.

Maybe it is because of the longevity in my family. Maybe it is because both of my grandfathers discussed how hard it was to see so many friends and family pass on. And maybe it is because I have already lost several friends, but I just see it happening to me too.

G-d willing I’ll live a thousand years in good health and so will the people I care about.

Taped Brokeback Mountain this evening. If I get a few moments I’ll try watching it later this week.

I was glad to hear that the trainer was ok. What a scary experience. Think about how big a whale is. It is one of those situations in which you realize that you don’t always have as much control as you might like to think you do.

But at least he didn’t smoke crack and get attacked by an alligator.

There is more to say, but it is far too late to keep writing.

More Powerful than a Great White Shark

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It was big. It was mean. And it could bite a shark in two.

Scientists say Dunkleosteus terrelli might have been “the first king of the beasts.” The prehistoric fish was 33 feet long and weighed up to four tons. It had bladed jaws, a flesh-tearing feature that the sharks it preyed upon had not yet developed.

Now scientists have learned Dunkleosteus had the most powerful jaws of any fish ever, its bite rivaling that of T. rex and modern alligators.

The creature lived 400 million years ago.

“Dunkleosteus was able to devour anything in its environment,” said study leader Philip Anderson, at the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

Fast and powerful

Scientists already knew Dunkleosteus was the dominant predator of its time.

But Anderson and Mark Westneat, Curator of Fishes at the Field Museum in Chicago, used a fossil of the creature [image] to make a computer model of its muscles and its bite. They conclude that could chomp with 1,100 pounds of force, which translates to 8,000 pounds per square inch at the tip of a fang.

And it was quick, opening its jaws in just one fiftieth of a second. That action would have created suction to draw prey into its mouth.

Whoa.