Giving thanks… and not so much

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

I just thought I’d take a little time to share some of the things for which I am thankful, and some for which I’m not quite as thankful.

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Obviously, first and foremost, I’m thankful for my wife and two little Johanns (who aren’t so little anymore), without whom I’d be afloat in a sea of lostness.

I’m thankful for my family.  My parents are both alive and well and living here in Springpatch, as are my brother, my sister, and their respective spouses and kids, who will be coming over tomorrow as we host what will hopefully not become a disastrous dinner.  It’s our first time hosting, and Mrs. Johann has never cooked a turkey before.  (I have all the Chinese places on standby.)

I’m thankful for my extended family, most all of whom live in California (both No- and So-), and I want them all to know that even though they are 2000 miles away, they are always on my mind and in my heart.

I’m thankful for my few yet terrific friends, whom I don’t see or call nearly as much as I should.  For that I am sorry.  I am also thankful for the new friends I hope to meet soon, if I can ever get away long enough on a Saturday morning to join the Bloody Mary Mafia.

I’m thankful that membership in the Bloody Mary Mafia does not require the imbibing of Bloody Marys.

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I’m not so thankful for, even though it is everyone’s right to do so, all the politically charged pissing and sniping that has gotten twenty thousand times worse since we, as a country, made history last November by voting a black man into office.  I don’t know how anyone else feels, but I’m tired of automatically, arbitrarily being labeled as ANYTHING- especially an extreme version- based on an opinion.  Y’all don’t like it when I do it, don’t do it to me.  Or else don’t bitch at me when I do it to you.  Bottom line, it’s gotta stop somewhere.  It’s obnoxious and completely counterproductive when it comes to actually solving the problems we are facing, so either we both need to quit the petty name-calling and finger-pointing, or else realize that nothing is ever going to change.  Both “sides of the aisle”, as it were, are at fault, but some of the things I’ve seen some of you “kinder, gentler” liberals call conservatives lately on Twitter are appalling.  If you don’t want me to profess that you fully condone and support murdering babies because of your stance on abortion (which, in my opinion, is nothing more than unfortunately legal retroactive birth control for the lazy and irresponsible), for example, then don’t label me as an elitist racist just because I have a differing viewpoint on certain things than that of our President, who happens to be black.  I agree with his concept of healthcare reform, and that it is needed badly; I don’t agree with his method of getting there.

Basically, we need to stop being so “all or none” with everything.  Not all conservatives are “Right Wing Nut Jobs”, no more than all liberals are “Left Wing Nut Jobs”.  Glenn Beck does NOT speak for me, folks.  If I had to label myself, I’d say I’m a conservative, for the most part, yet I fully support same-sex marriages.  I am all for every American citizen (note I said “citizen”) getting healthcare; I just don’t believe in enabling- and encouraging- people to stand around waiting for handouts for which someone else has to pay.  I fully support the First Amendment, I am 1000% percent against book burnings and censorship, yet I also feel there is such a thing as information that the public most assuredly does NOT have the right to know.  At least not right away.  My point is that, with most issues, an all-or-none stance is a dangerous thing.  It’s just that the Nut Jobs who DO believe in all-or-none get more airtime.  We people that ride a lot closer to the center line (whichever side that may be) are the people to whom all the Nut Jobs should listen.  America is never going to become a fully Left Wing country, nor will we ever become a fully Right Wing country, so stop trying to make it that way.  And God help us all if we ever succeed.  In either direction.

I’m not so thankful for the fact that there is almost no good music made nowadays.  (SIDE NOTE: my brother, the illustrious and always insightful AnonCom, has offered to make me some CDs of artists around whom an old fart like me can wrap his ears without them bleeding.  I hope, anyway…)

I’m not so thankful for double standards.  Of ANY kind.  That whole “it’s okay when I do it” mentality is part of the whole problem (see above).  ‘Nuff said.

I’m not so thankful for publicity whores (the Gosselins, Octomom, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil, the “Bubble Boy” parents, Nancy Pelosi, Rush Limbaugh, the aforementioned Glenn Beck, Jesse Jackson, just to name a few), and the American public that both enables them and demands their continuous exposure.

There are plenty of other things I could list for which I am thankful, as well as those for which I am not, but this is getting long already and I need to make dinner for the lil Johanns.  So let me end it thusly:

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I’m thankful we live in a country in which I can spew my ramblings, you can rip me a new one for them, and we can all come back and do it again the next day.  Whether you agree or disagree with me, you guys are ALL awesome.

Be safe and have a Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday today to my favorite lab rat, Marg Helgenberger, who plays exotic-dancer-turned-criminalist Catherine Willows on C.S.I. She turns 51 today.

Marg Helgenberger

Smokin’ hot.

I’m just sayin’.

[Insert collect-DNA joke here.]

Real men get suspended for wearing pink

There was this story in the SJ-R today.

Yes, I agree:  the bus driver should have asked prior to wearing the all-offending tie, to make sure his pinhead supervisor was okay with it.  They DO have a dress code.  But holy crap, is calling awareness to one of the largest causes of death among women REALLY that egregious an offense that he needed to be suspended without pay?

Answer: no, genius.

Look, folks, even though all my past posts somehow got pulverized into internet dust, most of you remember that I’ve always been one that believes in following the rules (or laws or policies or whatever), even if they’re stupid.  If you don’t like the rule, get it changed.  But in the mean time, you still have to follow it.

But come on.  It was a tie.  It’s not like he wore a t-shirt that said “Fuck You” on it, or those tacky ultra-small 80s-era jogging shorts, or something similarly offensive and/or tasteless.  It was a tie- a simple tie- to help support the Real Men Wear Pink campaign for breast cancer awareness.

And most of the douchebag commenters on the SJ-R website, many of whom have had a long-standing “screw authority/government/the police etc.” stance in their comments, suddenly are all over this bus driver’s case for not following the rules.  Funny- it’s okay to break all the laws in which you don’t believe, but death to dress code violators!!  Dumb asses.

SMTD, what you should have done was to tell this driver, “next time, ask first”.  This was NOT an offense worthy of even a verbal or written warning, and CERTAINLY not a suspension without pay.  Pick your battles, idiots.  Stop trying to flex your authoritative muscle to try to make an example of someone that was doing a societal “good deed”, even if said good deed was largely only symbolic in its effect.

Fight the fights that are WORTH fighting, SMTD.

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UPDATE 10-21-2009: Justice is served!! SMTD caved to the pressure from all over the country- not just Springfield- and rescinded the bus driver’s suspension.  In a letter to the editor in today’s paper, the chick that suspended him did a major, MAJOR backpedal on her stance and realized she looks like a complete dickhead in this situation.  Again, YES, he should have asked first, but for her to fly off the handle and suspend him for a day without pay was absolutely ludaquith, in the words of Mike Tyson.

More like high-speed wail

Okay, it’s been a little while since I’ve made a “piss people off” post, considering the last time I did, my entire blog disappeared, but since this is a local topic, maybe “they” won’t care enough about it to do it again.

So Springfield is all up in arms about the possibility of a high-speed rail system coming through town.

Um, why?

Why are high-speed trains any worse than the slow-moving freight trains that come through town 67 times a day now?  Seems to me that a high-speed train might get through town quicker, since it moves at- stay with me here- high speed.  Is it the noise?  Are they any louder than the freights, and if they are, won’t the noise have less of a duration since the train travels more quickly?

So far, the most compelling reason I’ve heard is that Geoff Isringhausen doesn’t want a big concrete wall blocking the view of his upscale car business from Jefferson St.  To that I say, tough shit, Geoff.  The people that shop for snooty overpriced imports already know where your place is.  Porsches, Lexi, and Mercedes Benzeseses are decidedly NOT impulse buys.  Isn’t that the whole reason you moved off of Dirksen Parkway in the first place?  To get closer to your clientele?

My other favorite argument was how someone was quoted in the paper saying, “we’re not ‘against’ high-speed rail; we just don’t want it on the 3rd St. tracks”.  People, people, people… that sounds an awful lot like “let the eastsiders deal with it”.  Just remember, when it happens- and it WILL happen- that y’all brought THAT little shitstorm on yourselves- don’t include me.

I don’t know that I’m necessarily “for” the high-speed rail coming through Springdale.  I also definitely cannot say I’m “against” the high-speed rail.  If any of you “against-ers” can give me a valid, legitimate reason why high-speed rail is a bad thing, I’ll jump on your bandwagon.  Conversely, a valid, legitimate reason why it is a good thing would go a long way for support in that direction as well.

Thoughts?

Produce section porn

Tomato given to me from my sister-in-law’s garden.

Insert your own caption.

Hopefully she’ll stick around

I watch Food Network with a reasonably fair degree of regularity.  At first I was somewhat “forced” to, as Mrs. Johann enjoys it, but I am warming up to the channel.  I like the shows “Ace of Cakes”, “Iron Chef America”, and “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” mainly, and there are a couple others I try to watch whenever possible.  The only thing I can “cook” is probably a bowl of Froot Loops, but I still enjoy watching, basically out of the “wish I could do that” principle.

Not to be outdone in the vote-someone-off-each-week “reality” show genre, Food Network has a show called “The Next Food Network Star”, in which 8-10 chefs and cooks selected from thousands of entrants go through cooking and catering challenges for the ultimate prize of their own Food Network show.

This season just wrapped up, with the winner being Melissa d’Arabian, a very charming stay-home mom from Texas.  During the first couple of shows, she appeared to be grossly out of her league, as she was up against trained chefs and caterers, and her experience was nothing more than cooking for her family.  Ultimately, she wound up beating all of them and winning her own show.

This was the fifth season of “The Next Food Network Star” (herein called “NFNS” for clarity’s and keyboard-stroke-saving’s sake), and of the previous four winners, only two of them are still around.  You can’t swing a proverbial dead cat on the television without hitting Season 2’s winner, Guy Fieri, as he has two or three shows of his own now (“Guy’s Big Bite”, “Ultimate Recipe Showdown”, and his biggie, “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives”, which last year very prominently featured one of my favorite local places, Charlie Parker’s), he appears on several others somewhat regularly, including NFNS, and he is the current pitchman for TGIFridays.  Guy, I really like, as do obviously many other viewers, as he seems to be the ‘drinking buddy’ kind of guy that just happens to know how to cook.  Dude wears skateboard shorts, drives a vintage Camaro, has earrings… he just doesn’t look like a typical “chef”, and I think that’s what I like about him.

Then last season’s winner, Aaron McCargo, has a show called “Big Daddy’s House”, and seems to be doing well.  Like Fieri, he also seems to be a guy people can relate to, as he doesn’t appear to be the “I’m a ‘chef’, therefore I’m better than all of you” type.  Now granted, Food Network seems to try to put that type on their shows so as not to [appear to] talk down to their viewers, but they still have a few that, at least on the surface, appear to have “that air” about them.

Season 1’s winners, Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh, collectively known as “The Hearty Boys”, had a show that lasted maybe 4 or 5 episodes, and disappeared.  Season 3’s winner, Amy Finley, got so far as promos being shown, but I’m not sure her show even made it on the air.  Unless it’s on really late at night or as a weekend fill-in show, I don’t think she’s even around anymore.  Personally, I thought she fell into that whole “I’m better than you” category, but that’s just me.

Here’s the thing:  the judges for NFNS are Bobby Flay (sort of the “host” for the competition) and two top network executives.  It’s not like the viewers have any sort of say in who stays and who doesn’t, which is the way it should be, in my opinion.  Shows that give the viewers ANY say in anything wind up being nothing but popularity contests based on who is “hottest” or “most attractive” or whatever, rather than based on the quality of their performances.  Believe it or not, people tend to be superficial like that.

So therein lies the rub:  since, in the last four NFNS competitions, only two are actively still on the air, what does that say about the network’s ability to select their on-air talent?  A couple of of the runner-ups from the four previous seasons even have shows- most notably, runner-up Adam Gertler from last season (“Will Work for Food”).  There was a guy from Season 3 who I felt was far and away at least a better “performer” in front of the cameras than winner Amy Finley was.  Granted, I had no knowledge of his cooking ability, or hers, for that matter, but I would have much rather watched him than her.  Based on nothing more than her abilities in front of the camera, I thought she was very monotone, dry, and again, projected an aura of talking down to the viewer.

I’m really hoping Melissa d’Arabian has a lot of success.  I didn’t watch NFNS religiously, but what I did see, I thought she was very personable and very relatable and, given the right vehicle, could wind up being a very popular on-air personality.  Even if she does catch on and really become a big star a la Guy Fieri, that still only puts Food Network’s record at 3-2 on NFNS.  A 60% success rate isn’t anything to sneeze at in baseball (not many teams have a .600 winning percentage), but in a competition like this, it sure doesn’t shine favorably on the network’s ability to “pick ‘em” with regard to their on-air talent.

Good luck, Melissa.  Statistics show you’re going to need it, but you seem to have a personality to overcome the odds you have against you.