Wake Up America

To secure life-saving vital organs, some physicians are pushing the boundaries of what constitutes death. The ramifications for the transplant system could be profound.

The news isn't quite as grim as that headline would make you believe, but I'm not planning on dozing off in any doctor's waiting rooms either.

Adam Smith Lives, In Moscow.

Vladimir Putin, of all people, is lecturing the West about following the failed policies of socialism. He may have a point. When Obama was running for president, he derided the idea of borrowing money from China and sending it to the Arabs to buy oil. At least when we did that, we got oil. Now it looks like our government is about to borrow almost a trillion dollars so that investment banks can continue to pay ridiculous bonuses and perks to the very people who destroyed the economy.
I went on a Gordon Lightfoot song buying binge this week. I'd sort of forgotten how depressing his lyrics are. Sample:

Sitting alone, my friends have all gone home
They never were around when I needed them.

Listening to the songs, and being depressed, of course, made me realize that depression itself might be my most loyal friend. Not a good friend, mind you, but certainly the one that's always around.

Adam Smith Lives, My Computer Dies

According to the headline in the Wall Street Journal, as home prices have plunged, sales are ticking back up. Whether it was credit default swaps, or no-proof-of-income loans, that drove prices up, the fundamental laws of supply and demand weren't repealed. When houses were unaffordable, people didn't, couldn't, buy them. If the prices come down, people will buy them.
Folks with an interest in a bail out plan may not want to hear this. The truth hurts, that's why they say it's hard to tell fact from friction.

My laptop has been turning itself off lately. I took it in to the shop to be looked at. They called back today to tell me it's terminal. That's what computer guys think is funny. Well, okay, they didn't really say that, but that's what I'd say if I was a computer repairman.

Daydream Believer

Karen's day surgery went off smoothly, and she's home resting comfortably. The only problem we ran into at the hospital came when we were ready to leave, and the nurses couldn't find Karen's coat; there was another Mrs. Hart having surgery there at the same time, and the coat was misfiled.
When they finally located the coat, the nurse said, "What a nightmare." I told her that after Karen's last trip to the hospital, that didn't even rise to the level of a daydream.

Formulary for Disaster

It's been awhile since I had something funny to say, May 7th by my estimation, so I'm back to complaining about health care insurance. My brother in law can't get the medicine his doctors say he needs because it's not in his pharmacy plan's formulary. I don't think the people paying for the drugs should be completely in charge of prescribing. It's like a system of balances and no checks.

Karen's day surgery is tomorrow. She isn't allowed to eat in the morning. I'm going to be supportive by not eating, either. Well, not where she can see me anyway.

Things to Do in Anchorage When Your (Cable is) Dead

The washing machine turned out to be more interesting to watch than I expected. There are sudden plot twists and pauses since every few seconds the drum reverses and spins the other way. Also, Karen is having day surgery next week, and last time she did that, we had no end of adventures, some of which she remembers.

I came home today and found the largest gas bill I'd ever seen. Then I realized that I must not have paid the bill last month. When I subtracted that amount: still the largest gas bill I had ever seen.
I checked my e-mail and a friend had sent me that one showing that the earth is tiny compared to Jupiter which is tiny compared to the sun, which is tiny compared to Antares. It was going to be tiny compared to Betelgeuse but I realized I didn't know how to spell Betelgeuse, although, look, my spell check did. Anyway, the point of his e-mail was to keep things in perspective.
Uh-huh, still the largest gas bill I've ever seen. And unless the Jovians are planning on paying for it, it's not clear what good all these pictures do.

Your Clothes Are Clean Mr. Mesmer.

They delivered our new washing machine today. It's a front loader with a glass door, so it really doesn't matter now if Dish ever gets around to fixing our service.

Wash Day

Back in the 1960's, we had a joke we thought was pretty funny about "civil rights" washing machines. They came with a black agitator inside. Now we have a new president and yesterday we bought a new washing machine. They don't even have agitators any more.
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new..."

Green Roku News

Do you remember I wrote once about a verdant uprising chronicled in a science fiction book from my youth? Well, of course you don't, but even if you did, the BBC has gone you one better. They made a mini-series of the Day of the Triffids, and it's on Roku. I'm only a third of the way through the series, but so far, unlike Starship Troopers, the worst movie ever, they paid some attention to the book.

Roku to the Rescue

We didn't even have to wait for February 17th to lose access to TV, our Dish dish blew off the house the first day of the chinook. I called the local provider about repairs. They told me that it would be cheaper if Dish scheduled it themselves, so they transferred me to Dish executive offices to spare me the phone tree maze. Dish denied doing repairs in Alaska, barely conceding that they even had customers up here. I called the local provider back, and back and forth. Eventually they said that they'd be out some time.
So far, we haven't really missed TV. We haven't even had to watch our Netflix DVD's that have been sitting around since October. We have been watching All Creatures Great and Small on the Roku. The longer the dish lays out in the yard, the more I'm thinking about letting it stay there. Karen has 70 hours of Design on a Dime on the DVR and we get our news from NPR and what's left of our newspaper. Roku isn't as good for that. Based on what we're watching, it appears that someone named Hitler is doing bad things to cows.

Whether It's Cold Or Whether It's Hot, You're Going to Have Weather, Whether or Not

and we're going to complain about it.
If I read the chart correctly, and there's no reason to think I did, then we've had fifty five inches of snow so far this year, and we have a snow depth of nine inches. Most of the melting has taken place since Tuesday and a small part of the run-off is in my basement. The rest of it is in my boots.

Are We Men or Are We Moose?

Moose are disappearing from the upper Midwest. The scientists say it's because of global warming, although that's what they always say when anything goes wrong. A few years ago it was Arabs.
Last week it was ridiculously cold here. We coped. Life went grumpily on. There was even talk of airlifting blankets to polar bears threatened by the growing ice sheet. Today, it was above freezing and the city was in chaos. Traffic was snarled, schools and offices were closed, mail on many routes went undelivered. It's as if the moose are running the asylum.

That's Not to Say That Stationary Rocks Are Necessarily Covered in Moss

I was talking to my sister last night. She's enduring a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, precipitated, as it were, by a perfect storm of weather. I told her that she should come up here because next month on her birthday, our house will have been in our family for fifty years. "We could have a little party," I said.
"We could have a big party," she said.
We could, I guess, if I had (m)any friends.
Anyway, you, at least, are invited.

Jack Handey Says It's Easy

It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money.


Another easy thing, blaming the Jews for Hamas war crimes.

Going Where the Food is Hot

One of my customers told me she and her husband were going to New Orleans this week. Just hearing about a trip made me feel jaunt-y.
I've always wanted to go to New Orleans for the food. Probably I'd eat too much and then I'd roux it.

Or, You Could Step Outside For A Second

Brain cooling device developed.
The temperature here still remains well below zero. They were saying that tomorrow afternoon it should start to warm up, if you call zero warm, which we would, but now we won't, since they're now saying maybe Sunday, or maybe Easter Sunday, or maybe some other time when it's too late too matter after we all flee to Arizona or give up and start pushing daisies. Ha, we won't be able to push daisies. Why? Because it's too cold!
I do seem to be getting a little hot here, maybe my brain does need to be cooled.

Roll Over Gutenberg and Tell McClatchy the News

Dr. Egon Spengler: Print is dead.

The headline appeared in Ghostbusters back in 1984. Now it's being borne out right here in Anchorage where our local paper has been eliminating features and pages, preparatory to today's issue which eliminates whole sections. One feature being eliminated is Perfect World*, edited by a young lady on my route*,which allowed the youths of today to practice journalism. Of course, I've come full circle, when I was a youth of yesterday, I thought that young people had insights unavailable to the "older generation". Now that I am the older generation, I just think young people haven't had enough experience to know what they think, and I wish they'd turn down their music since it all sounds like the same song.
Anyway, print had a pretty good run from 1439 till now. Not as good as fire, maybe, but still, compare it to cuecat.

*A Perfect World is the title of a great Clint Eastwood movie which contains the line that deflates pretty much everything, "Who're you gonna brag to about that?"
**Just a way to get me in the story, not unlike the bear mauling that happened to someone I vaguely knew that took place when I was in another borough.

Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard~Paul Simon

You probably already knew that Paul Simon was a genius, but here's more proof. How can I have gotten so objectively flabby and soft in the last two weeks, and yet, by the time I finished work today, I was so painfully stiff.
Need more proof that Paul Simon is a genius? In that same song, Call Me Al, is the clearest explanation of most Christian's faith that you'll find:
If you'll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal.

More Copying and Pasting

So, after reading the forecast, I was huddling near my computer for warmth. I'm reluctant to turn up the heat since Enstar welcomed in the new year by raising natural gas prices 22%, after a thirty-something percent rise last year.
I saw this. I knew from previous experiments in weight gain that Iowans aren't afraid of lard, but now it turns out that they're not afraid of salt, either, not even alone in dark alleys with it.
Roosevelt said we only had to fear fear, but I'm a little worried about going back to work on Monday after my unbridled affair with Doritos for the last couple of weeks. My soul delights in fatness, but my thighs somehow have to fit inside my uniform and I'm more like Jeshurun than I want to admit.

Copy/Paste Because It's Too Cold to Type

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ANCHORAGE AK
530 AM AKST SAT JAN 3 2009

...LOWEST MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES THIS DECADE RECORDED
YESTERDAY IN ANCHORAGE...

THE OFFICIAL MINIMUM TEMPERATURE OF -16 DEGREES IN ANCHORAGE ON
JANUARY 2ND IS THE LOWEST RECORDED THIS DECADE. THE LAST TIME
ANCHORAGE WITNESSED A TEMPERATURE THIS LOW WAS FEBRUARY 8, 1999.
ADDITIONALLY, THE LOWEST DAILY MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE THIS DECADE ALSO
OCCURRED YESTERDAY WITH A HIGH OF -7 DEGREES OBSERVED AT THE NWS
OFFICE. THE LAST TIME ANCHORAGE OFFICIALLY WITNESSED A DAILY MAXIMUM
TEMPERATURE THIS LOW WAS FEBRUARY 4, 1999.

THE CITY OF ANCHORAGE HAS ALSO NOW FAILED TO OFFICIALLY REACH ZERO
DEGREES FOR FOUR STRAIGHT CALENDAR DAYS (DECEMBER 30TH - JANUARY
2ND), WHICH ALSO SETS A NEW MARK FOR THIS DECADE. THE LAST TIME A
STREAK AS LONG AS FOUR DAYS WITH BELOW ZERO READINGS OCCURRED WAS A
SEVEN-DAY STRETCH FROM JANUARY 30TH-FEBRUARY 5TH, 1999.

TEMPERATURES ARE CURRENTLY NOT EXPECTED TO IMPROVE SIGNIFICANTLY
THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE NEXT WEEK.

Draw Your Own Conclusions

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
I see the world as round.