So Anyways

My Music

Update: True to form, I got the name of one of the songs (My City of Ruins) wrong in my original post. I called it The Rising, but my own in-house musicologist, Ed, pointed out my error. Hey, I'm doing well to know the name of the artist. Name That Tune isn't my strong point.

OK, I guess I'll give in. It seems everyone else is doing it, so even though I don't normally take part in the blog world's personal survey crazes, I'll do this one. I'm doing it mostly since Scott asked, and this gives me a chance to help generate a few more hits to his already insanely popular site. (The guy is a hit-generating machine, surpassing in like 3 days the total number of hits I've had on two combined sites in over a year.)

So anyways...here we go:

1. How much music is on your computer?:
Very little (something <100MB). Now before you go thinking that I'm some kind of anti-social, music-hating neo-con dweeb, the reason I don't have many music files is that I have the luxury of relying on Ed's massive music collection. He's the master mixologist in our house, with a large and diverse music collection. Since we tend to have similar tastes in music, it's just a lot easier to let him download songs. Whenever I need an MP3 player update, I don't go to iTunes. I go to EdTunes instead.

2. The last CD you bought was:
Simon and Garfunkel's Old Friends Live on Stage 2 CD/1 DVD set. I bought it as a Christmas present for Ed, but then realized I really bought it for myself and could kill two birds with one stone by letting Ed think it was a Christmas present for him. Unfortunately for Ed, he gets stuck with some crappy Christmas presents because of my tendency to do that. Fortunately for me, I got a pretty good CD out of the deal. S&G weren't together long, but they created some good music while they were.

3. What song did you listen to just before posting this message?
Beautiful Day by U2. It was on the radio on my way in to the office this morning. Great song.

4. Name 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you and tell why they mean so much:
Hmmm. This is tougher than I would've thought. I like a lot of different music, but I don't usually attach any kind of special meaning to most songs. They're just songs. My typical reason for liking one or another is, as they used to say on American Bandstand (yeah, I'm that old), "it has a good beat and you can dance to it." With that in mind, here's my list of top 5 songs that I can think of at the moment:

• Bruce Springsteen - My City of Ruins. This one may be an exception to my rule of not attaching meaning to songs. This one came out (or at least I first became aware of it) right around the time of the September 11 attacks. The first time I ever saw it performed was on the post-September 11 telethon/concert. It gave me chills then and it still does.


• Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire. I've always loved this song, mostly because it combines my passions - politics & history - in a catchy little ditty. OK, I'm a dork. I admit that. But give me a song that mentions Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Ho Chi Min, Watergate, Krushchev, and Stalin and I'll love you forever.


• Annie Lennox - Walking on Broken Glass. I could name any of a dozen Annie Lennox songs for this list, but I'll go with Broken Glass. Annie's got one of those voices that I just sometimes can't believe. It's so crystalline and pure. Plus, she's just way cool. We had the pleasure of seeing her in concert a couple years ago, and it was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. She's got a lot of soul and rhythm in that little body.


• U2 - Vertigo.  As I told Ed the other day, U2 is my favorite band of all time, I think. I'll go with Vertigo for now as my favorite U2 tune since it's constantly clanking around in my head - especially that "unos, dos, tres, catorce!" part.


• Melissa Etheridge - I'm the Only One.  Melissa's album, "Yes I Am" came out around the same time that I was first coming to terms with the whole gay thing. This is one of those albums that anytime I hear any song from it, I immediately transport back to a certain time in my life - not a necessarily good or bad time, but a time with a lot of intense feelings and experiences. I always felt like Melissa was singing about the things that me and my new-found gay friends were going through.

5. Who are you going to tag next? (3 persons) and why? I'll tag the 3 fellow bloggers because I'm sure they all have strong opinions and interesting lists:

Sam (Madlife) - He's a huge music lover and has strong opinions about every song and artist out there - his would be a well-informed list, no doubt.

Todd (Word of Todd) - A new acquaintance in the blogosphere who seems to see the world from the same perspective as I do a lot of the time. Plus he has a really cool name.

Lee (Eau de Humanity) - A fellow Arizonan with a wacky sense of humor.

Tag, guys. You're it!

A Quickie

Life seems to be a blur right now - work is demanding all of my "free" time and more, I had a quick business trip this week, I managed to squeeze in a quick visit with my family who live near the city I visited, and we have a really quick weekend excursion to Las Vegas coming up this weekend. I'm not sure when, or if, life will slow down again.

The middle-of-the-week business trip was a killer - being out of the office for a day and a half resulted in an e-mail overload that I'm not sure I'll ever dig out of. Right now, after doing nothing but reading and replying to e-mails all day, I'm still sitting at 107 new messages that I have to do something with. If I don't go to bed tonight, I may manage to finish them all.

Although the trip out of town blew any chances of my feeling "caught up" anytime soon, it was still good to get away - even if it was for business. I had no access to e-mail for 36 hours, so I didn't even have to feel guilty about letting them pile up. I need that break every now and then.

Since I had several family members in the area, I decided to drive over to see them while my traveling co-workers took in a college basketball game. I think they got the better entertainment that night. My family lives in a small town that I not-so-lovingly refer to as Mayberry - everyone knows everyone and everyone makes everyone else's business their own business.

A certain level of anonymity is something I really value as a big-city resident now - definitely not something I'd have if I had followed the same path and lived in the same town as my siblings.

And people in small towns get really excited about things that people in big cities sometimes take for granted. Although I was only in that little town for a few hours this week, I heard the same phrase over and over again while I was there - "It's good to be somewhere that the cowboy hats outnumber the ties."

It turns out those are the words President Bush opened with when he paid a campaign visit to the little town last October. The whole town was abuzz with excitement over having an actual real president in town. They even let out school that day and most businesses closed for the day so everyone could go see The Man. I'm sure after the excitement his visit caused, the president probably won nearly every vote in the county.

Not only did he win the votes, but he started a new phrase that everyone seems to repeat at every opportunity. Personally, I'd prefer the ties.

Survivor: Todd Edition

I apologize for the dearth of posts lately. I have no excuse, other than the fact that I'm feeling over-worked, over-stressed, and under-motivated lately. I've taken to thinking of it as the Todd Edition of Survivor.

I'm not stranded on a tropical island with a bunch of beautiful people and I'm not really trying to out wit, out last, or out play anybody. Instead, I'm sitting in my cozy little corporate-cubicle home and trying to survive one of the periodic spikes in work load that come my way occasionally.

I'm not getting freaked out by weird critters scampering over my naked chest while I'm trying to sleep, but I am trying to survive the snakes in the grass who are only more than happy to pounce on any employees who let their guard down for a few minutes.

I'm not plotting who to vote off next, but I am watching my back.

I'm not worried about the next reward challenge because, well, we don't believe in rewards much around here.

I'm not stressing about how to get the immunity idol, but I am looking for ways to make myself invaluable to the rest of my tribe. Even though we don't have tribal councils, we do have these things called layoffs that are almost as bad.

As rough as it is at times like this, I'm not ready to get voted off my little corporate island. Give me a few more years and a few more dollars in the bank, and I may just vote myself off, though...

Sleepless in Seattle

It's not really Seattle, but it definitely feels like it today. Rain in Phoenix is a pretty rare thing usually, but not this year. The latest storm started on Thursday afternoon, and it's still rainy and cold on Saturday morning.

A rainy, cold Saturday morning seems like the perfect time to sleep in, cuddling under the warm covers and avoiding all of the little weekend chores that normally need doing. Going to bed last night, that was my plan - sleep in and relax on a cold wet winter weekend morning.

It didn't quite work out that way. I woke up about 4am and my mind immediately went into overdrive, thinking about everything under the sun (or the dark cloudy sky). Here's a sampling of what it was like:

OK, it's 4am. I'm really tired. I should go back to sleep.
But, wait. Is it raining? Yep. It is.
I wonder how much rain has fallen?
Is the pool overflowing yet?
Are the weeds growing out of control?
Where are the dogs?
Whatever you do, don't move. Don't want to disturb the animals.
How do I get that spreadsheet set up the way I want it?
Damnit, I forgot to send that very important e-mail at work.
How many days till we leave for Tahiti?
I'm not sure. I think like 98 days. Which means I have to go to the gym.
Can't afford to be fat in Tahiti.
I should go to the gym in the morning.
I'm really tired. I should go back to sleep.
I really don't know what to blog about.
I know! I'll blog about not being able to sleep1
That was a really good dinner last night.
What should we eat this weekend?
Should I shave my head before we go to Tahiti?
There's got to be an easy way to do what I need with that spreadsheet.
Maybe Ed will know.
I'm all itchy.
Must be the cold weather.
Don't scratch. It might wake up the dogs.
How long till baseball season?
Jason Giambi and Jose Canseco in a bathroom stall together is kind of disgusting.
I really need to go back to sleep.

I finally did get back to sleep, but not much before the animals did wake up. When they wake up, they demand their attention - trip outside to relieve themselves, then breakfast. Quickly. There's not much point in trying to avoid life at that point, so I just got up and took care of their every need, feeling sleepless and grumpy.

3-Week Report Card

It's been so long since I wrote a political post, I decided it's time to re-enter the fray. I still can't believe W. got re-elected, and I've been stewing in self pity ever since. My wounds being sufficiently healed, I feel a need to vent a little.

It's been three weeks since the inauguration (only 205 weeks to go!), and it seems like a good time to issue a report card. I'll do my best to grade fairly despite the fact that I'm a yellow-bellied bleeding heart gay peace-loving liberal who's all for the destruction of the institution of marriage and a complete breakdown in the traditional values that made this country great (tongue planted firmly in cheek):

Foreign Affairs - Iraq: "B"
I have to give him credit. The big vote came off pretty well (or at least it seems to be perceived as having gone swimmingly), although the insurgency seems to be as strong as ever and it's no more clear today than it was months ago how we are ever going to extricate ourselves from the mess we're in there. But all the pictures of purple-fingered Iraqi's have to add up to at least a short-term political win for the President.

Foreign Affairs - General:  "C"
All the talk in the State of the Union speech about restoring freedom and liberty to the oppressed around the world sounded good to a few people, I'm sure. But it was so completely unrealistic and far-reaching that it could be viewed as laughable or even dangerous.

If he puts his money where his mouth is and leads a global effort to liberate the truly oppressed people and victims of genocide in Central Africa, the world will be a better place and I'll be the first to give him an "A." If, instead, he continues to alienate even our closest allies, we're in a heap of trouble and he'll fail miserably.

In an effort to be fair, I'll give him a "C" for now and wait to see which way the wind will blow.

Foreign Affairs - Axis of Evil: "F"
I'm sorry, but I can't give the guy a passing grade for dealing with the scariest threat the world faces - a nuclear-armed Iran and North Korea - when the Iranians are sabre rattling and the North Koreans are all but launching missiles. I don't care how "charming" Condi has been in her debut tour of Europe. All the tough talk about these two countries, without a unified global voice backing it up, makes for a very dangerous situation. I hope Condi and Karl and Rummy are all as smart as their supporters claim they are. Otherwise, God help us all as this nuclear threat continues to develop.

Economics: "F"
Current budget deficit: $427 billion
2005 estimated deficit in proposed budget: $390 billion
Additional cost of Iraq war not included in budget: $80 billion
10-year cost of Medicare reform passed last year: $720 billion
Transition costs for Social Security reform: $2 trillion +

As someone on the news said last night, and Democrats harped on in the election, massive tax cuts at a time of war with record budget deficits and expensive new social programs like the Medicare prescription plan add up to fiscal insanity.

With all this economic news in only the third week of the new term, it's scary to think what the state of our economy will be four years from now.

Domestic Policies: "C"
This grade will surely drop as Bush makes new court appointments and continues to support things like gay marriage ban amendments, but I'm trying to be fair. So far, the campaign for Social Security reform is all we have to judge him on (this term), and that doesn't bode well for the prospects of a higher grade. Trying to sell Social Security reform using the same "the sky is falling" scare tactics that got us into a war we can't get out of pretty much shows that nothing much has really changed.

Overall Grade: D
There ya go. Pretty good when you think about it. A "D" from a yellow-bellied bleeding heart gay peace-loving liberal who's all for the destruction of the institution of marriage and a complete breakdown in the traditional values that made this country great.

Password Hell

I guess I'm showing my age, but I've been thinking back to the good ol' days a decade or two ago when people had to remember at most two or three numbers that they used all the time - their address, their zip code and a phone number or two. I remember it was a big deal back in kindergarten when I could repeat our home phone number. That was pretty much all I needed to get through life until a few years ago.

Now it seems that everyday there's a new number I have to remember. I live in constant fear that someday my mind is going to go blank and I'm going to forget my bank PIN number so whatever meager amount of money I have in the bank will be lost forever.

Same thing goes for stock that I have invested with a couple of different brokers. There's not a lot of money involved, but it's not something I want to lose. And I'm afraid I will lose it because it really only exists to me in cyber form. I don't get paper statements in the mail anymore, so the only access I have to the money is via the internet. That means I have to remember a login ID and password for each site.

Then there's PayPal. I don't use it much either, but I do use it for the occasional e-Bay transaction. Yet two more ID's and passwords to remember.

Of course, Typepad requires another sign-in and password.

The only access I have to my paycheck is via the web, where I can view a PDF copy of the check. Another ID/password.

I don't even think I have any paper checks anymore, so pretty much all my banking is done online. Yet another combination.

Then there's all the various passwords I have to use at work about a million times a day - about a dozen that I can think of off the top of my head. And, of course, corporate paranoia has led the company to expire passwords after what seems like a way too brief amount of time. So, not only are there a dozen or more passwords to remember, but they change all the time.

I do what I can to make all the passwords easy to remember and I try to keep them similar (I know, not a particularly smart idea, but one driven by necessity). But, there's always the smartass that requires some really ridiculous password - it has to be 11 characters, it has to be a combination of alpha and numeric characters, it's case sensitive and requires at least one upper-case character, and it can't be something you've used before. Ever.

Sometimes I wonder just how many numbers the human brain is capable of remembering. I think I may be approaching my personal limit. Please, someone, make the password insanity stop. I can't take much more.

If He Catches, I'll Pitch

In what I'm beginning to think is a conspiracy against me, yet another of my all-time favorite professional Phoenix athletes is being sent away. This time, it's without a doubt the hottest catcher ever to play for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Robby Hammock.

Robby was lucky enough to catch last year for Randy Johnson (yet another of my favorites, for reasons having nothing to do with his appearance, who's been sent packing) when Randy pitched a perfect game. Robby's excitement when the game was in the books was classic - jumping up and down and acting like a kid who'd just gotten to do something way cool. It was a moment that I'll always remember.

I won't discuss all those other mental images that stick in my head, most of which would get me in trouble with the authorities. Or with Ed.

Blah blah blah

Like all good Americans (except those equally good Americans who chose to watch something a little more entertaining), I dutifully sat through the State of the Union address last night. I tried to listen carefully, but I must admit, I didn't retain a lot of what was said.

Thinking back on the speech, all I can really remember is a droning voice saying stuff like,

"blah blah blah Iraq blah blah Freedom blah blah blah marriage is between a man and a woman blah blah blah Freedom blah blah social security blah blah blah danger blah blah blah blah Freedom blah blah blah social security blah blah..."

I know that was bad of me. I'm sure some serious things were discussed, but I just really didn't care to listen too intently since I already knew what was going to be said.

The night wasn't a total waste, though. Watching the speech transported me back to September 2000 when Ed and I visited Washington as tourists. We made tour arrangements before the trip with our representative, expecting nothing more than tickets for the White House tour and maybe tickets to a Capitol tour. Much to our suprise and great thrill, the congressional wannabe aide guy who was in the representative's office when we arrived, took us on a very cool personal/private tour of the Capitol building. We got to walk through the famous basement tunnels from the congressional office building to the Capitol building itself. He then proceeded to take us all through the building to see things we had no idea even existed. At one point, we paused outside a closed door, he opened the door and invited us to follow him in, and we found ourselves standing on the floor of the US House of Representatives, represented terribly crudely by the stick figure drawing below:

I nearly soiled myself. From the best I can remember, we stood right in front of the seat where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sitting last night.

I know most people wouldn't think that was quite as cool as I thought it was, but I was pretty much in another world at that point. The shear magnitude of history that has been made in that very room was a bit overwhelming to me. I could see in my mind's eye FDR in that room telling the country about "a date which will live in infamy," JFK standing at the podium encouraging the country to send a man to the moon, and all of the other big moments that have happened there.

Amazingly enough, our tour didn't end there, either. Next, we found ourselves strolling through the Speaker's office and out onto his private balcony overlooking the Mall, with probably one of the most spectacular bird's eye views in all of Washington - the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and Arlington House all lined up. It was quite a tour and one reason I'll always be grateful that we visited DC the year before 9/11. I have a feeling we won't see any of those cool things on our next trip.

Disgust

Every so often, something is said or done that just throws me over the edge. I'm usually a pretty laid-back guy and I don't let things really bother me, but there are the occasional times when I just get really offended and bothered by things I hear, see, or read.

That happened to me today.

There's a police officer in Phoenix, Jason Schechterle, who was involved in a hit-and-run traffic accident several years ago. The car he was driving was rear-ended, and it exploded in flames. Officer Schechterle was burned extremely badly. He managed to survive by some miracle beyond comprehension, but he was burned so badly that he essentially had no face left.

The physical pain and suffering he had to endure just to recover from such a severe burn must have been unreal, but that was probably nothing compared to his having to learn to live with such a horrible facial disfigurement. He has spoken of how his own young children were too scared to look at him at first and how he contemplated his own suicide as a result. It is a real tribute to him, and incredibly inspiring to me, that he managed to overcome all of those issues and has had the courage to not hide and remain cutoff from society, but to make public appearances and bravely go on living his life as normally as possible. He has used his notoriety for good causes, and he deserves a huge amount of respect for all that he has managed to survive.

Instead of respect, though, he's been treated incredibly cruelly. Some grocery store tabloid, The Weekly World News, has named him one of the 10 ugliest people in the world.

Is it really necessary to add to the man's grief by putting him on such a list? Does the money generated by the tabloid's story justify the cruelty that they displayed in publishing such a list? Sometimes when you see junk tabloids like this, it's easy to forget that these may be real, thinking, feeling people. They're not animals and they deserve some basic human dignity. Unfortunately, the people at The Weekly World News apparently don't see things that way.

You Know...

At the risk of perpetuating something that everyone but me has probably already seen, I thought this list was right on the money (Numbers 1, 4, 7, 8, and 11 hit particularly close to home for me):

You know you're living in 2005 when...

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that
they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a
business manner.

7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an
outside line.

8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three
different companies.

10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.

11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.

12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if
anyone is home.

13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the
screen.

14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you
turn around to go and get it.

15. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.

16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)