February 2004 Archives

Heather and I took the kids to the Philadelphia Zoo today. It was, on the whole, fairly underwhelming. Now, I will give them the benefit of the doubt that it is still February, and prime zoo season is still a bit away, but I wasn't near impressed. The most zoo-like thing was the large mass of people wandering around, tripping over each other and yelling at each other.

McKenna really loved the monkeys and the giraffes and the leopards. While we were looking at the leopards one growled and McKenna felt it was appropriate to growl back.

It was nice to just be outside and get the kids out in the fresh air. The sun was shining, the temperature was warm, it was all good. Heather and I will go back in May and try again when all of the exhibits are open and there's more animals running around.

So I've decided to do two things for Lent:

1. I'm giving up Mt. Dew entirely. I've tried this before, but I keep falling off the wagon. I figure this is a good way to get back on.
2. I'm going to fast during the day, Ramadan-style. So as long as the sun's in the sky, I'm not going to eat. That means I have to get up early, eat some breakfast, and then spend the rest of the day doing other things, and not eating, which is bad for me because I'm a snacker. I love to graze.

We'll see how this goes.

Stop being such a goddamn punk. It's a sore shoulder, not the end of the world. If you spent more time practicing and exercising and less time on my TV running your mouth, you might actually be able to play.

Thanks,
Maurice

Steve, you're a great guy with great skills and you're gonna do GREAT!

I promised more information on Brian Douglas Wells, the pizza delivery guy from Erie, PA that robbed the bank while wearing the collar-bomb and blew up while surrounded by the State Police.

The FBI has put up the following page seeking more information. It looks like, from the evidence they've released, and the information they're seeking that Mr. Wells was indeed coerced into committing the crime, and was not acting on his own.

Also, the cane gun that he was carrying was provided to him by the same person who placed the bomb around his neck.

My weekend was spent playing soccer with McKenna and Heather and visiting a place in Bucks County called "The Devil's Half-Acre". The Devil's Half-Acre was interesting, and I'm going to write up more on it later.

It was just a really nice, light weekend, with lots of walking, outside time, and exercise, and I feel a lot better for it.

More please!

Why do you suppose it is that viruses of a certain type seem to originate from the same area?

In Africa they have a set of viruses like the Ebola, Hanta, and Marburg, which all do particularly nasty things with your innards and blood.

In Asia, there seems to be a predisposition to respitory viruses, flu, Avian flu, SARS.

Why is that?
Will America begin producing viruses, and what shape will they take?

I find it amusing that Bush promised to bring this country together, but continues to go out of his way to attack John Kerry and John Edwards.

Is this how a president brings people together?

All the more interesting for me is the fact that Bush, a rich Harvard boy that can't even prove he substantially served his cushy Air National Guard duty goes out of his way to attack Kerry's opposition to war, when Kerry was in the thick of battle, and was a hero.

Here is a good breakdown of their differences in service records.

I'm in this place today where I have money for lunch, but I don't want to spend it. It's more important for me to hold onto the money, to have it to save, to invest. I don't feel like spending any money any more.

I declare this to be a good thing.

I mentioned before that I'm thinking about applying to be on 'The Apprentice', and I'm working through the questions on the test now, (I'm going to post the questions and my answers here soon), but I grabbed another application while I was at it.

Mensa has home tests you can take and send in with $18 as a kind of pre-test to their membership test. I figured "What the hey?". It arrived last night and I'm going to take it over lunch.

On other fronts, when I looked at the list of things that people are looking for when they come to my site, Brian Douglas Wells is the number one search, with almost 200 hits this month. He is, if you don't remember, the pizza delivery guy that died in Erie PA because of a bomb strapped around his neck. He said he was forced to rob a bank by the person who put the bomb around his neck. The story's grown cold since then, so I'll spend some time poking around and see if there's any more information.

I dreamt last night that I was back at Rider, in college and I was invited to a party, but I didn't know my way around, and I needed someone to help me get to the building on campus where it was occurring.

Katie Holmes was there, and she was going and she agreed to help me, so we got into my old Dodge Shadow and we were driving around New Jersey. At one point, I took a wrong turn off of the highway, and we entered a town that had huge old brick skyscrapers, and was built on the side of a hill. It was beautiful, and I fell in love with the town and I wanted to stay there, but we knew we had to get back to campus, so I turned the car around and started driving back to school. On the way to school we stopped at a Baskin-Robbins to have some ice cream. Mel Gibson was there, and he was running the store. I bought a double scoop of caramel pecan and Katie Holmes had some chocolate variety. Mel Gibson kept trying to talk to me, but I couldn't hear him above all the noise in the store, and the ambulances roaring by on the street.

I walked outside with the ice cream and say ambulance after ambulance driving by and I asked James Earl Jones (playing the dean) if they were all going to Rider, and sighed and said they were. The party was getting out of hand and people were taking too many drugs and getting hurt. A large group of old people in suit stood watching the parade of ambulances, and I realized they were the university trustees, and the Dean was going to lose his job.

I returned to school with Katie Holmes, and we walked by the party. It was outdoors, and people were killing each other, and dancing, and thrashing, and taking drugs. It looked like a scene out of Mad Max.

We ducked into a house and ran upstairs. My mom and other people lived in the house, and McKenna was there. Katie Holmes started playing with McKenna and her toys, and I went to sit in another room and think. I wanted time to be alone.

I'm thinking about applying for the second season of "The Apprentice". That's the show on NBC with Donald Trump, in case you haven't been following it. My two word review of the show: Fucking Fantastic.

I love the show, and I've turning over in my head what I would do differently than each of the people in the show, and I'm thinking that I should give it a try.

I downloaded the application, and I keep thinking, do I dare?

Why not? What have I got to lose?

So my company uses Medco, like every other company in the world, and I am getting increasingly frustrtated with them.

Heather called them 10 days ago with an insulin order, thinking that that would give them enough time to get it processed, shipped, and to our door by yesterday, which is what they promised. When it didn't arrive yesterday she called them, only to find out that they hadn't even processed it yet. When she freaked out they told her that they would expedite an order and she would have it by today. She called again, and was told by a rep that they wouldn't even process it until the 17th of this month.

Heather lost it, and started yelling. They then offered to let her talk to a pharmacist that would counsel her on what would happen to her while she didn't have her insulin, or we could go to the store and pay the money out of pocket ot pick some up.

Nice choices, huh?

So I stepped in to try and get something done. I'm not always the most persuasive man, but I am very bull-headed and I usually persist until I get my way. I talked with someone in their Ohio call center that was very nice, and admitted that it was the company's fault, and their actions were unacceptable, but there was nothing she could do, aside from what she had already done, which was call her managers and leave messages for them.

They have no way of emergancy shipping a supply to someone when they've fucked up.

So now we're supposed to be able to get an amount tomorrow evening for free at our local pharmacy, but that's not a "guarantee".

The angriest moment for me was when I was talking to the rep and she said that insulin was a 'maintenance medication' and they had no protocol for shipping it overnight. Maintenance medication? WTF is that? My wife needs this to live, and for them to think and act like this is no big deal is not only reprehensible, it's borderline criminal.

I was sitting at working, listening to "Do You Realize" from The Flaming Lips and I was struck by elated I feel to be a parent. It's astounding to me to think that I am someone's dad. I wish I could wrap the children of the world up and hold them all.

I saw an ad on TV for adoption on Saturday and I wanted to call the number. I hate to think that there are children in the world not being loved.

It saddens me to think that I might one day die and not get to spend the rest of my children's life with them.

I am the luckiest man in the world to be a daddy to McKenna and Owen.

I've been heads-down at work, putting in lots of extra hours in an attempt to get work done. We're still in the middle of product roll-out, so I'm pressed for time.

It's Saturday, and instead of spending time with my children, or playing chess with Heather, I'm in my office working away on the computer.

I just wanted to let all of you know that I haven't forgotten about you, and I'm looking forward to the day where I have a little bit of breathing room and I can write some more.

Love,
Maurice

A friend sent this to me:

Fred Phelps is at it again. This time he'd like to erect a monument in Lebanon, PA to condemn a gay teenager that committed suicide.

What will Fred Phelps do when he gets to heaven and finds that gay people can enter? What's he going to say? Would he rather go to Hell and live with the devil and stew in his own hatred than to come an accept gay people?

It's just sad. Phelps is just sad. Sad and pathetic.

I understand we're Americans, and we're all feeling a bit uncomfortable with our bodies, after all, that's the American way, but is Janet Jackson's boob coming out of her outfit when Justin pulled on it really a big deal? I mean, the Golden Globes were just last week, and we saw tons of women running around wearing next to nothing and showing off their boobs. Mary-Louise Parker thanked her son on-air for "making her boobs look good in this dress" (search for Parker in the article). MTV features a Britney Spears video that shows Britney writhing around on the floor wearing a shear outfit and nothing else. Lil' Kim went to an awards show wearing nothing on her left boob but a pasties. Why isn't the FCC investigating that? Or Rose McGowan walking around in a see-through outfit?

To recap something we should all know...we all have nipples (barring unfortunate medical conditions). Almost all of us have spent time sucking on our mother's breasts. We've all seen breasts before, even in National Geographic. Odds are highly in favor of us either having boobs or dating someone who does. (Sorry to exclude the gay men here) So why is this a big deal?

I just don't get it. Maybe I'm not supposed to get it. In a world where there are so many other things going on, and so many people hurting and so much strife and horror, the most important thing we all have to discuss is Janet Jackson's breast.

Parenting can be so amusing...
I had an explosive nasal moment, sneezing for a few minutes, and I wanted to make sure that I hadn't gotten anything on me or my shirt, so while I'm examining myself, I notice a big brown chunk on my shirt. It doesn't look like snot, but you never know...

I get a tissue and I start trying to wipe it away, but it's thick. It won't wipe away easily. It's crusty and pasty.

I look at it again...it's peanut butter!

Then it dawns on me: While I was sitting on the couch eating my breakfast (English muffins with Peanut Butter), McKenna climbed in my lap to share my breakfast. Apparently in all the sharing, and sticking her hands into the peanut butter, she decided that my shirt was much in need of an improvement and placed a big dollop right in the middle of the logo.

So I've been walking around work with my peanut-butter-shirt since breakfast.

Oh the joy... :)

By the way, a big giant "Fuck You" to AOL, who tried to tell us that they needed to layoff 450 people in December to cut costs, only to spend GOD KNOWS how much to run all sorts of ads during the SuperBowl. Lest we also forget the fact that they also have an ad with Snopp Dogg and Jerry Stiller, and made an ad with Sharon Stone, all promoting their new "improved" AOL.

AOL is a piece of shit, and it's downright disgusting that they send 450 people packing a few weeks before Christmas (note how the article I linked to said that no senior management was laid off. Good for them!) and then turn around and spend all of that money on marketing.

It makes me ill.

So the first half of the Superbowl I was sitting there thinking "Thank God for the commercials, otherwise, this Superbowl would be unbearable."

The second half, I was thinking, "Thank God for the football, because these commercials suck." (Speaking of the football, what was up with Carolina's decision to run with the ball at the end with 4 seconds left on the clock? I'm not the greatest football authority, but shouldn't they have signaled a fair catch and let Delhomme throw a Hail Mary from the shotgun? Put 5 receivers out there and try for 6! I'm still trying to puzzle that one out)

Seriously, there was very little marketing sizzle this time. I mean, there have been some fantastic commercials, and the Simpson's Mastercard Commercial was cool, but really? The ads were nothing to write home about. Or even send a postcard, or a text message. Which is a shame because I'm such a whore for good advertising.

Speaking of good advertising, after listening to so much Wu-Tang Clan and NaS lately, I finally went and bought a pair of Timberlands. I really needed some new shoes for work, since my Vans are all but destroyed, and I found a cool brown pair that were on sale for $79.00 and I went for it. I don't think I would have bought them though if I hadn't heard Timberlands mentioned so many times in all of the songs I've been listening to.

Next week, maybe I'll purchase an Escalade and show off my bling bling.

Well...probably not...