Peripheral Observations

Okay, now that the near nervous breakdown threat has passed, there are a few things I have to point out here, peripherally related to the election.

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Despite my promise to myself to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert cover the results, I got sucked into the technology of CNN’s coverage. (But they reran it, and it was hilarious.) I had been joking earlier about the fact that blogging through the event was obsolete and that if you didn’t tweet your thoughts, they weren’t worth sharing. Yet, there we were, watching these massive touch screens, with gigantic graphs and graphics popping up in midair, holographic interviews taking place, and perhaps only one or two on-sight interviews with bad audio, which clearly was from all that outdated crap that every other news network uses. Dude, color me impressed! Even if they chose to waste the holographic interview on a celebrity who was less than eloquent, it was still a cool feature, and my mind raced with the possibilities.

Here’s my theory. CNN’s tech people rock. Their tech people don’t run that kind of software and hardware using Windows. Their tech people don’t make the kind of money that the tech people I’ve worked with at my job make, and therefore they are either leagues better, or leagues more inspired, or leagues better funded. My money is on the latter. Essentially, my library will never get touch screen technology with expanding graphics the size of a linebacker, nor will we have the privilege of interviewing the great unwashed from the privacy of their own homes via a holographic and scentless beam. This awesome technology gave me a look on my face that probably would’ve passed for catatonic, but that was largely due to the open mouth and dripping drool. If I want to play with touch screens and talk to holograms, I’m going to have to apply for a job at CNN. That was so cool! I just might.

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If CNN can have a holographic interview, why can’t Minnesota count their senate votes quicker? Will someone please help them?

This morning I asked my brother how the hell long it takes to count the damn votes.

He said, with all seriousness, and in the very best impersonation of The Count from Sesame Street, “One! Ah, ah, ah, ah! TWO! Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!”

I PEED MY PANTS.

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Thanks to election night, Nancy Grace FINALLY shut her big fat mouth about the Caylee Anthony case. JEEZE, how can any one person obsess about this one case for so freakin’ long? How can Headline News allow this to continue? It’s been less than 24 hours and she’s right back at it tonight. When do we get to vote her out? Someone please, offer Headline News something to take her place and talk about something, anything, else. Please. There is a reason no one else is covering this with such depth – there is NO NEWS ON THE SUBJECT. Maybe we could get a program to air every single night to discuss passionate theories and interview insiders about the Kennedy assassination, or the whereabouts of the Jamestown settlement, or the real cause of the Chicago Fire. On second thought, perhaps there should be some kind of rule on news networks that carry the word “news” in the title, which precludes old news and reminds folks just what the word “news” means. Yeah, that would be helpful.

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Doggie Extraordinaire is a Nader supporter. My brother and I had numerous conversations about the candidates for many weeks and months leading up to yesterday, which Doggie E. cared little about. However, whenever we mentioned Nader, he’d cock his head to the side with interest. My dog is an Independent. His tail wags both ways and he cannot be pigeonholed into any oppressive party platform, as his concerns and beliefs are not fully covered by any one party. Namely, the edibility of cats and rodents in his own yard was not discussed, nor was there any mention of the war crimes committed against canines of all genders and proclivities by countless groomers across the country. McCain and Obama didn’t debate the definition of a “dog” as it applies or does not apply to breeds like Yorkies or Chihuahuas, and neither addressed the desire of the dog to name him or herself. This would ultimately do away with embarrassing names like River, which constantly reminds a proud dog that he pees way too damn much. I can see why my dog was concerned and why Nader appealed to him. Maybe in 2016, Riv. Sorry.

Sacrifices

How long can someone survive with only 3.25 ounces of blood left in her body? That might be a high-end estimate. I think I might have less.

After I put my dinner in the oven, there was some thunder rumbling in the distance, and those of you who have a dog know that as soon as the weather threatens to get bad, the damn dog announces frantically that he must pee. This means you have to put on whatever protective gear you can find to deal not only with the inclement weather, but find the cloth leash (because chains in a lightning storm are unwise), put on shoes that easily slide on and off to protect you from standing on escaping worms, yet will protect your feet from the rain and puddles, and throwing on that rubber parka, even though it's 80º outside, to keep your pajama top and work slacks (because you've only had time to half-change clothes since arriving home) from getting drenched in the downpour. You take the dog out, and though it's not raining quite yet, it will be in a moment, which the dog doesn't understand. He decides this is a grand time to run full-force down the street and go for a high-speed, high-impact run around the subdivision, which almost dislocates your shoulder before you get him back under control. Well, somewhat. Finally he pees, and while his bladder unloads an unbelievably large load of liquid, you notice the lightning is quite dramatic and tell the damn dog to hurry the hell up, perhaps curse him a little bit for saving up his pee all day for this storm.

Yeah, well, all that is quite annoying, but for some reason, despite the danger I thought I was in while the dog was peeing, I actually went inside and grabbed my camera so I could return to the imminent storm and take lightning shots before the deluge began. Uh-huh. With a big metal tripod. And a mostly metal camera. In the middle of a field. With lightning. And I call the dog stupid.

My pictures weren't all that great because there were far too many clouds hiding the lightning, but three of the pics showed little fizzles of lightning. Okay, maybe you'll have to click to embiggen them to see the lightning, but it's there -- I swear!

All artists sacrifice a little of themselves for their art, right?

For me, it was my blood.

At 10 p.m., with an impending storm, every single mosquito in the Tri-State area heard the news that there was a juicy human standing outside taking pictures, and the swarm commenced. They were all over me in a way that I've never experienced before. They were in my ears, on my lips, up my shirt sleeves, between my toes, and in other unmentionable areas that had me wiggling like Jell-o. I even had an Æon Flux moment where I trapped one between my eyelashes, Venus-flytrap-style. It's very hard to hold still for 5- and 10-second shutter speeds when bugs are in your hair, up your nose, and under your arms, biting and sucking your blood. Somehow I managed to take 175 pictures, though. Do the math. I was out there for quite a while, bleeding to death into small siphons of thousands of insects looking to use my life to further their own species. Fuckers! And all I had to show for it was these three photos with tiny little fizzles of lightning.

Even the dog thought I was nuts. When I went back inside, pale and near death, he looked at me as if to say, "You know, if we'd been on that sprint around the subdivision, they never would've caught up to you. Now you're going to bleed to death out of a million microscopic holes and who's going to give me cookies everyday? Oh, wait, yeah, I'm cute so everyone will, but you'll still be dead. Stupid human."

That's me.

Dogs are Family, Too

Doggie Extraordinaire is the little brother we never had. He needs a blog to deal with what we do to him. Click the photo below to see what we've done to him now.



Poor thing.

He still loves us.

*No doggies were harmed in the making of this blog post. Perhaps humiliated, but not harmed.