Category: Random Babblings

I feel so moved

So for some combination of guilt and boredom I feel like I should make an actual blog entry. There have been a number of times when I’ve been commuting where I had an idea for a short, glib, interesting and inciteful blog entry but by the time I got in front of a computer it had long since faded away. Plus having an entry like that here wouldn’t really fit in with the current contents anyways 🙂 So I figured I’d start an entry and put a few thoughts in here, revise it a few times and call it good enough. I know my masses of fans are eagerly awaiting my brilliant entries 🙂

Taking a page from the Colbert Report, here’s my Tip of my hat & Wag of my finger thoughts for the day:

Wag of my finger:

  • Borders Books – I am pissed off at whomever the big wigs are at Border’s HQ that decided to make 1/4 of there store a Toy Store. The reason we bring our kids to Borders, and not Toys R Us is to show them that we are willing to buy them books and that reading is exciting and fun. It was hard enough keeping them away from the books that came with a matchbox car but now that you’ve got an entire section for Legos and other plastic stuff visiting your store has become exponentially less fun and as a result we will be shopping there less. Oh and to top it all off, I see Toy stores clossing left and right… great idea to jump on that bandwagon, maybe you should investigate selling Dot Matrix Printers, Video Cassettes and possibly even start renting DVDs too. But actually, thank you, I really should be supporting smaller more local book stores anyways, and now that your true colors are shining through I’ll be more likely to do that. I did speak with the Bangor Border’s Store Manager the first time we encountered this and he totally agreed and basically said the order came from on high that this is what they had to do.  So again, whoever the expert consumer marketing strategist at the Border’s main office that came up with this idea, I have nothing but ill wishes for you this holiday season. Hrumph. grumble. grumble. grumble. <waves cane>.
  • Democrats – My favorite tweet about them from last September still seems quite on target – “BREAKING NEWS: Democrats Hoping To Take Control Of Congress From Republican Minority In 2010″.

Tip of my hat:

  • The Sing Off – While neither Emily or I are particularly skilled singers we’ve always enjoyed listening to acapella groups and have stack of BOCA (Best Of College Acapella) CDs that we bought a number of years ago when the folks who organized BOCA actually had a retail store right next to the school she was teaching at (it’s now web only at http://www.a-cappella.com/ ). Marshall has a CD we play in his room every night as he’s going to be which features almost all acapella songs, and for years Owen had a variant of this CD playing in his room too. So the new short but fun series NBC has on right now, The Sing Off, has been fun to watch and listen to.
  • Phineas & Ferb – Owen asked to watch this show sometime last year, and I had never heard of it before. Around the same time some other friends posted links to some videos of songs from the show and I saw it stream by once or twice on Facebook. Despite it’s actually being shown on the Disney Channel it’s surprisingly good. One of those shows which is fun for kids and has stuff parents giggle at too. Lots of repeating jokes. Admittedly predictable and dumb at times, but overall I give it a thumbs up. We just ordered it (though since it’s not arriving until after we leave for xmas travels I grabbed a copy off the salty pirate seas as well. arr.)

Ohio, Shanties, License Plates & Politics

1) Just got back from a long weekend in Ohio for the Antioch College Reunion. It’s a strange time to visit Antioch, it officially closes it’s doors in a matter of days. Buildings are locked, staff is minimal and it’s not the way I want to remember it. However, there are two things happening that I’m optimistic about; 1) There’s still the possibility of the Alumni & others being able to get the college free & independent. For me we’ve been burnt so many times on this front that I have to admit I’m not putting too much energy into believing this, but I’m really ‘hoping’ (Since on this front I’m not sure what else one can do but to hope that it works out). 2) The ‘NonStop Liberal Arts Institute’ is forming in YS. Basically take all the faculty from Antioch and move it into a classes taking place inside various locations within Yellow Springs. Up until now I’d kind of been on the fence on this idea but after hearing the faculty speak about this, I’m pretty damn excited by things. Sadly I have already spent way way way more than I should have on visiting Ohio so I cant put my money where my dreams are on this front, but damned if I wont do all I can to see this happen. More on this later.

2) I’m a strange person… good though. 🙂 While I revel in this at times, it’s also a bit concerning since the world clearly doesn’t work the way I think it should and I don’t really fit in in ‘normal’ society. Case in point, I spent this morning driving to work through Bar Harbor while looking for unique license plates (see below) with the windows down and the sea shanty ‘Leave Her Jonny, Leave Her‘ blasting as well as my singing along very loudly (‘The rats are gone, but we’re still here… leave her jonny, leave her!’). Maybe I’m just enjoying the moment of maintaining the marketing that Bar Harbor is a quaint fishing village where locals drive around in rusty subaru’s singing sea shanties, or just missing the fact that I didn’t get to do my radio show on WERU this month because I was off in Ohio.

3) License Plates – So we play this game with some other friends starting every year on Memorial Day. One group is in the Portsmouth, NH area, we’re up in ‘Downeast’ Maine and another group is in central CT near one of the big casinos. We all try to see who can see one license plate from every state (not counting 18 wheelers). We’ve been doing pretty well to date and have only Wyoming, Oklahoma & Nebraska to go. Last year we went the entire summer without seeing North Dakota so we’re doing pretty good this year.

4) I took the political compass test on Facebook and got the following results. Clearly I’m drifting to the lower left corner. Shh.. don’t tell anyone, otherwise they might know I’m not normal;

My Political Compass

One fun thing the facebook version does is compares you to all your friends who have also taken the test. In order to protect my fellow liberatrian liberal nutty friends I have removed the names but here’s how I compare with my ‘as geeky’ peers:

That’s all for now.