Politics
Topic: rant
I spent some time reading right and left-wing blogs yesterday - as usual the vitriol on either side was intense. Yet in this case the left wing seems to have the upper hand.

After all, their basic argument - please help these poor people who have been left to drown and die holds far truer than it was nature's fault, it couldn't have been predicted, it was the mayor and the governor's fault for not showing early strong leadership...it was Clinton's fault for taking away FEMA funding in the 90s...

All those pieces are a little true. I was not impressed by the governor of Lousiana, and I don't know what Mayor Nagin was doing before his heartfelt radio address last week slapped some sense into the Feds and changed their piss-poor backpedaling "uh, we're coming...we didn't know it would be this bad." It's true that Clinton and Bush presided over White Houses during times when funding was decreased for updating the levees.

Hurricanes are going to happen, though. In a meteorlogic and geological sense, that hurricaines and earthquakes will happen is predictable as the sunrise. And anyone with kidnergarten math skills could see as Katrina hovered over New Orleans that it was Category 5/4, and the levees were rated for Category 3. Four is one more than three.

My take on this whole tragedy - there was a vacuum of leadership. The first signs of leadership I seem to remember was the governor of Texas of all people opening up the schools and shelters and thinking ahead. According to my parents, in Austin, the shelters there were being readied since Friday BEFORE the storm! The national guard should have been deployed days earlier. The first speech by the president should have been at least a day earlier, and much stronger in tone and focus. And if the dipshit head of Homeland Security (oops, my anger is popping out) compares this to an "atomic bomb" being dropped on the city one more time, I'm going to beat on my TV screen. Go ahead and drop an atomic bomb on New Orleans, Dipshit Cabinet Officer, and see how much worse that could be.

Because there wasn't an atomic bomb. There were highways left in place, people on bridges in the sweaty last days of August who could have used those days to relocate rather than being forced to wait.

Leadership could have steadied the worries, got people to stop freaking out and start collecting themselves. Organize marches out of the city, organized food and water, ordered the buses down sooner.

Instead this was a national disgrace on racial lines baring the dark heart of haves and have nots in America. The poorest, most vulnerable people died for no reason. Forget party lines, forget admiring people because they are democrats or republicans or jedi knights or vegitarians.

We are vulnerable. Our manufacturing jobs are disappearing, replaced by low paying service jobs and health care positions. The value of our dollar is based on nothing but our credit as a nation. And fiscal policy in this country gives poeple incentive to borrow borrow borrow and consume, but not save. Or save in the domestic stock market which may go up, but who cares as the dollar's value falls and falls.

Stop telling us not to worry, stop urging us to consume to save the economy. Stop telling the vulnerable that help will be on the way soon and they'll be taken care of. We have to step back, to save, to protect the vulnerable and switch the incentives so that we can be responsible for ourselves.

Leadership is telling the people what they don't want to hear sometimes. I don't understand a president who is decisive for decisive's sake on complex issues such as the economy, stem cells, and war... but can't make an early decision and show leadership when being decisive early on would save lives.

I don't feel sorry for Jennifer Aniston
Topic: rant
The new Vanity Fair has hit the newsstands... very good article about military recruiting... but the main article is a little cry-fest with Jennifer Aniston, of all people.

Honestly, I never much cared for Jennifer Aniston. The Rachel character on Friends seemed to me the precursor of Jessica Simpson's vacant beauty.

But besides my initial dislike, I do have heart enough to wrinkle my nose at the whole Brad Pitt thing. I mean, they announce their divorce early this year (with all those rumors about Jen not wanting a family - "But I do!" she wails), and not six months later, Brad is showing up in a magazine multi-page photo spread called "domestic bliss" with the new girlfriend?

Still, Jennifer Aniston is beautiful, famous, fabulously wealthy, and has no obstacles to becoming even more so. Do we really need a huge front page article with all the details of how much she suffers? And stories from all her friends about how much she is growing and changing through the tragedy? I know - it's Vanity Fair, not Smithsonian or National Geographic, but really... about halfway through I woke up from the star-fucking haze of celebrity coverage and blinked. Jennifer Aniston's suffering does not deserve THIRTEEN pages. Honey, Brad Pitt never did seem like much fun to hang out with. I'd love to have him working on my lawn shirtless, or dance with him in a club... but other than the loss of the glorious-looking children that would have been... you're better off without him. Angelina with her tatoos and brother-love and UN ambassadorness seems a better match. Tougher in her way than Jennifer, who needs someone cuddly like Mark Ruffalo.

James Horner is a lazy son of a gun
Topic: rant
One of Bisous' little quirks is an ability to recognize movie soundtracks at the drop of a hat. Last of the Mohicans, Bettlejuice, Willow, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Alive, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park - these movies and more. Main themes, romantic themes. What they were playing when Yoda was dying... and since there are only a few guys doing scores (Ennio Morricone, James Horner, Danny Elfman, and of course John Williams), it's not too hard to tell what composer did what for which major movie.

James Horner is one of the busiest guys - and when Mr. Bisous and I were watching "Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius" yesterday, I was getting more and more annoyed. He stole themes from (I believe his) other movies lock stock and barrel. When Bobby Jones was sinking a huge shot at St. Andrews, the same music was playing as when William Wallace was getting disemboweled during Braveheart. That's a bit distracting, to say the least. He also used major sections of music from Field of Dreams and Sommersby. Sometimes the base line was a teeny bit different, or there was a change up in a transitional area, but mostly it was THE SAME MUSIC.

Look, Mr. Horner. I bet you get a nice chunk of $$ for your scores (John Williams is rumored to get a million or more each one!). Don't phone it in.

I feel better now.

Check out what my trainer put me through today in my Grindstone Blog! Now that was a demonstration of the exercises I'm supposed to do split into three days a week the rest of the month, but man, I'm one tuckered chica right now.

The saga of the cellular phone
Topic: rant
First off, just have to say BRRRRRRR. When I went to the gym this morning, it was -3 degrees. At those temperatures, it took a few warm-up pumps before the clutch engaged in the car, and breathing in through the mouth caused my horrified lungs to rebel with a coughing fit.

Not only that, we're supposed to get something like 20-25 inches of snow between tonight and tomorrow. I thought, hmmm, I'll go to the supermarket today... no luck - NO PARKING SPOTS in the parking lot. And that means lines and lines of people inside, and muscling aside mothers of small children and elderly people to get the last 12 pack of diet coke. Maybe it was the "knockaround boxing" hat I wore (Mr. Bisous bought it off a guy at his work who is a boxer), but I feared if the aggression became unleashed, I'd end up standing at the top of a pile of the last unblemished fruit, pelting unsuspecting customers with "tangelos" and ultimately being hauled off by police.

So I skipped the supermarket.

My recent dealings with all the major cellular phone companies have not eased matters.

This all began a few months ago, when Mr. Bisous saw a new cell phone he coveted. His buddy from work got the phone and the plan from AT&T Wireless, which had a deal with Mr. Bisous' hospital - the details of which were not important except that evenings start at 7. With Mr. Bisous old plan, and the flakey old phone he had, evenings started at 8. So he wanted to upgrade and kill two birds with one stone.

Due to the merger of cingular and AT&T wireless, he had a heck of a time getting someone on the phone or in the store who knew a damn thing about what was going on with the plans, but finally, he signed up for the plan he wanted. Weee. He could take pictures and text message me giggly cute romantic stuff and all was happy.

Then a month passed, and he got the bill. Surprise! NO night and weekend minutes. $64.70 in overage charges! $9 in text messaging fees!

He called the company and ultimately was told he could have weekends, but nights would definitely start at 9. Well, Mr. Bisous said, that's not acceptable. I was told 7. Too bad, they said. But I never would have gotten the new plan if I wasn't told evenings started at 7. I would have kept my old plan, where evenings started at 8. Fuck you, they said (paraphrased).

Fine. I'll just take my number over to Sprint, he said, where my wife already has a plan, and evenings start at 7, and the cost for an extra line with way more minutes and unlimited calling between the two of us is the same as what we currently pay together. Like we care, said AT&T wireless.

Mr. Bisous retorted - And I'm going to have my wife say AT&T WIRELESS AND CINGULAR BLOW on her weblog, and have her write an elegant letter of complaint to all the vice presidents and customer service.

It's not like your wife is Dooce or anything. Who reads her weblog? said AT&T wireless. And we don't know the name of any of our vice presidents. But here is a Post Office Box in Anaheim where you can direct your letter of complaint (snicker).

So the 10 year relationship between my husband and AT&T wireless did not end well.

Never fear! I said. Come join me over at Sprint, where you can have a shiny new BETTER phone and endless minutes to talk to me. And your nights WILL start at 7 or we will blanket the vice presidents of cellular phone companies all over the world with elegant complaint letters. Plus, some very cool people with cellular phones read my weblog! So we bought him a new phone, intending to port in his own number.

7 days and 5 hour-long phone calls to Sprint customer service later (and some phone calls to AT&T also because you can't port a number unless the number is active, and even though it was active it was pending cancellation.... so it had to be temporarily reactivated and BLAH BLAH IRRITATION BATMAN)- we think we have his number ported into the new shiny BETTER phone. Except the phone won't unlock. The little number sequence they told me would unlock his phone DOESN'T work. And every time we call Sprint back, we get directed to someone new (and if they ever tell you you're being directed to the Trouble department, they're just fucking with you, because after that you just get disconnected). I imagine some dude at the factory gets his jollies putting in the wrong unlock code every 200 phones or so. The good news is there are only 10,000 codes it could possibly be. The bad news is that if you call asking about unlocking the phone, the Sprint Customer Service Representative will eventually begin guessing numbers and asking you to try them. 6745! 8354! Try that backwards and with a pound sign!

Eventually, we are told to go to a Sprint Store for unlocking. A Sprint Store? The nearest Sprint Store is a kiosk in the mall run by Chad. We met him last weekend. He's a perfectly nice guy, but I know exactly what's going to happen when Mr. Bisous goes to the mall - Chad is going to use his own Sprint phone with his superfly headset accessory to call the Customer Service number. Then they will try more numbers. 0001! 4444! Try that backwards! And then he's gonna tell Mr. Bisous to mail the phone back to the factory.

And then we'll have to port the damn number all over again.

Well. We live in a glorious but trying age, it's true. Flu and cancer may not get us, but irritation will.

Float On
Topic: rant
Now that I am back in the land of the living, every moment seems to be taken up with catching up on what I neglected to do the first two weeks of the year.

That, and I watched the movie "Troy" last night, which took about 15 hours and may be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Strange that the movie took so long, too, when it compressed the ten year Trojan war into what seemed like a nice summer beach brawl. Kudos to the phys-ed and catering though - from the looks of the hardbodied actors it there was no white flour or sugar allowed on the set.

I was somewhat disappointed - hey, if you're going to redo the Iliad, you really ought to get a little closer to the story. I mean, the whole point of the movie was these men fought for glory, and everyone knows their story, so...but I digress. The main absense I felt was the minimal role of Helen, and the total loss of Cassandra. Hey, they were pretty interesting women in the story, and even Helen had very little to do in the movie but look petulant and be kissy kissy with Orlando Bloom.

On the bright side, I got the Modest Mouse CD with Float On and I can listen to it on repeat the entire way to work and all the way home. "WE ALL FLOAT ON IF IT GETS TOO HEAVY WE ALL FLOAT ON DON'T (mumble) DON'T WORRY WE ALL FLOAT ON WE ALL FLOAT ON WE ALL FLOAT ON."