In The Wind
I have some very brief remarks and then I will take questions.

Actually I won't be "taking questions" but I figure I'll probably never be president so I'll never have the opportunity to say the above line, so this is my only shot, here in this forum. So the "questions" thing was a lie. Neither my first nor my last here. The part about the brief remarks is right on the money, though.

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First, some pictures I found to highlight some of yesterday's post.

The only good thing people can ever think to say about smog is that it makes lovely sunsets. These people are unimaginative and defeatist in my opinion. Smog also does a great deal for the economy by retroactively spurring automobile sales (see, if we didn't buy all these cars and then drive them around, there wouldn't be all this smog and Ford and GM would go out of business and all of America would starve to death. So the only thing between us and gnawing, miserable death is smog). But even though these people are lame, they are also (for the most part) right. All the brown and gray dinge becomes a lovely orangey-red as the sun is setting.

The same thing can be said about the smoke from a raging, out-of-control brush fire. See?

Lovely.

The problem is that eventually the sun goes down, after which the fire looks more like this:

Somewhat less reassuring, metaphysically speaking. It looks more like there should be a crowd of people running away from it shrieking in mortal terror, doesn't it? Without all the twilight optics it all just so definitely screams fire, which is fine in its proper place (inside my oven, confined to a burner that can then be switched off as soon as my salisbury steak TV dinner is warmed to perfection) but less so when all loom-y and menace-y creeping over hills and inching towards buildings like that. Very undisciplined, I think. I intend to bring it up at the next Home Owner's Association meeting.

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As of yesterday's events, I am now celebrating 15 consecutive years of not watching the Grammy awards. Congratulations, me!

I don't watch not because it's a vapid self-congratulatory industry circle-jerk. I mean, I blog. That kind of thing is right up my alley, philosophically speaking. I don't watch because I don't understand the Grammys. Green Day and U2 won this year for albums that are (I'm pretty sure) at least 2 years old, right? Who is even eligible for that? I'm glad it's Green Day and U2 instead of who usually wins Grammys--"comeback" records for people whose bands include a banjo player and a mouth-harp--but relevance is no substitute for clarity. And I don't even know how much relevance they have because from what I understand, that U2 album was very, very mediocre. And TWO YEARS OLD. Did I mention it was two years old? I think it was two years old. I might be wrong about that, but it sure FEELS like it was two years old.

I also avoid watching the Grammys because there's an outside chance I might catch a glimpse of Mariah Carey. Not only would I then risk a serious case of the Skeevy Tremors but I don't want to expose myself to catching some kind of TV-borne case of the Monumentally Stupids. Can't be too careful.

Plus I object to the whole thing because of the very-famous case of the Starland Vocal Band beating out Elvis Costello for Best New Act. This year marks the 30th anniversary of that atrocity. I know it's been covered elsewhere, but so has the Spanish Inquisition. That doesn't mean we forget.

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Last: Qaeda Planned Plane Attack On LA

For the record, as a resident of the (fringe of the) Greater Los Angeles area, I would like to add a retrospective: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaAGGHGH!

Phew.

I know it was 2002, but I'm happy not to be dead all the same. I never go to the building (or even the specific city or county) targeted, but Riverside to LA is only about a minute by jet-liner. With my luck, we would have had some kind of heroic Flight 93 action that thwarted the attack away from the heavily populated center and dropped the thing right on my house. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to do my part, but it's all so Donnie Darko I just can't stand it.

Thanks, George Bush! Way to execute the minimum requirements of your job. I salute you in a totally non-sarcastic way using all five of my fingers.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 6.1



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:48 AM