Remiss....Or: The Perils of Middle Management....

Remiss....Or: The Perils of Middle Management

Well, it's another week come and gone. No words posted here on the old blogamathing. They've been a little difficult to find, the past month or so.

No, that's not quite right. There are words. There isn't free time, lately. Ten hours shifts became twelve hours shifts, and twelve-hour shifts became fourteens.

There's a point where you're thankful to have a job, and all that. And there's a point past that, too.

There's not been enough time to recharge the batteries, here lately.

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There have been a few things rattling around in the noggin, though.

The first is that I've needed to throw a link up to Gooseneck's new blog....

I think Goose and I have been reading each other's blogs for six years or so. He's one of those guys that I need to make time to get out and meet, some time. He's a Cub fan, and a Bigfoot junkie to a degree. And I've said, once upon a time, that of all the blogs I read, the one closest in tone to mine was his.

Well, life happens from time to time, and Gooseneck had to stop blogging for a while. But he's back.

You can find him over at http://thebigfootdiaries.blogspot.com

Troy's always got good stuff. And let me publicly apologize for letting it go this long without pointing you fine feathered folks in his general direction.

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I'm worn out of you people and your political opinions.

I'm worn out on the whole idea that just because somebody's policies (moral, fiscal, whathaveyou) disagree with yours, they've become the enemy. I dunno. It's an old thought, I guess, but every time I hope that we've started to move past the Black/White, Right/Wrong, Fight or Flight reflex that lives back in the reptilian part of our brain, we get a week's worth of backlash resulting from some dipshit screaming out during the middle of a Presidential Address.

For the record, this guy over here believes that the current President is no more a Communist than the previous President was a Nazi.

(And for the record, I voted for neither man. That's the beauty of voting for a third party each of the past three elections now: Zero Culpability!!!!!)

And also for the record, I would agree with anybody's assessment of Kanye West being a jackass, no matter that person were Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Communist, Nazi, Anarchist, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, South African, Brazilian, Ugandan, Liechtensteinien, Ohioan, Texan, Northern Californian, Baltimoron, Hulkamaniac, Methodist, Baptist, Anabaptist, Quaker, Mennonite, Duchy Amish, Agnostic, Athiest, Muslim, Taoist, Shinto or Jew....

And that's before this week's events, even. The guy wandered onto my personal douchebag radar prior even to Hurricane Katrina.

However, I cannot claim knowledge of all things popular culture. Prior to Sunday, I'd have guessed a Taylor Swift was a breakfast dish you find in roadside diners in the New Jersey area....

At any rate, I got Obama's back on that one. Though I did douchechill somewhat at the calculated softball attempt to be a normal guy with that statement....

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Anyway. Other things?

Not much.

I recommend Inglourious Basterds, if you haven't made it out to see it. Fun. Muchly.

And if you've never read any Ekaterina Sedia, I recommend her, too. That recommendation comes via my buddy Alex. A Secret History of Moscow was a lot of fun, and Alex highly, highly recommended The Alchemy of Stone, which is next on my list.

And The Cubs? Those bastards. They just won't die.

Is that a weird thing to say?

Little tired of having my heart broken, guys. This junk where you fight to stay in contention in these last three weeks of the season, winning seven of eight, or whatever it is....keeping my hopes up only serves to disappoint.

Because I'll drink that frigging Kool Aid time and time again, no matter how many trips to Jonestown I go to, swearing that I never will again.

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And, I'll enclose a re-run within this post. I wrote this five years ago (damnation!!!!), and it still gets me three or four hits a day. Out of anything I've written, this probably still gets the single most amount of hits.

Simply, it is an accounting of how all the presidents of the United States who had served prior to my birth in 1977, and who had perished at the time of that writing, died:

How the Presidents Died

Here's how the Presidents of the U.S. (prior to my birth) died.

1. George Washington (pneumonia)
2. John Adams (old age, heart condition)
3. Thomas Jefferson (alcohol poisoning)
4. James Madison (Syphilis)
5. James Monroe (Syphilis)
6. John Quincy Adams (Bear Attack)
7. Andrew Johnson (Poultergeist)
8. Martin Van Buren (Syphilis)
9. William Henry Harrison (Stupidity)
10. John Tyler (Still alive, and living in Wahoo, Nebraska)
11. James K. Polk (Spider Attack)
12. Zachary Taylor (Assassinated by the Yakuza)
13. Millard Fillmore (Syphilis)
14. Franklin Pierce (Frightened to Death)
15. James Buchanan (Beaten to death by midgets)
16. Abraham Lincoln (Oxidation of vital organs)
17. Andrew Johnson (Syphilis)
18. Ulysses Grant (Died when an alien burst out of his stomach)
19. Rutherford B. Hayes (Drowned in a vat of mustard)
20. James Garfield (Still alive, in the music of Johnny Cash)
21. Chester Arthur (Choked on his mustache)
22. Grover Cleveland (Syphilis)
23. Benjamin Harrison (Syphilis)
24. Grover Cleveland (Syphilis, already)
25. William McKinley (Killed by Duncan McLeod)
26. Theodore Roosevelt (Still serving as U.S. President)
27. William Taft (Died in an attempt to become the world's fattest man)
28. Woodrow Wilson (Syphilis)
29. Warren Harding (Died laughing at his own middle name)
30. Calvin Coolidge (Syphilis
31. Herbert Hoover (Beaten to death by clowns)
32. Franklin Roosevelt (Assassinated by Daddy Warbucks)
33. Harry Truman (Eaten by monkeys)
34. Dwight Eisenhower (Ripped to shreds by the Incredible Hulk)
35. John F. Kennedy (Oxidation of vital organs)
36. Lyndon Johnson (Syphilis)
37. Richard Nixon (Syphilis)