David's Tangled Thoughts

I got a lot to cover but I’m going to try to keep it to short bites. I’ve been stressing out over work. Someone quit and I have been picking up some of the slack which involves me doing additional work. Not that I want to pat myself on the shoulder but I already sit on my ass and read, type, and think all day. This is stuff that I can see and manipulate. However, add in some more analytical stuff in order to locate missing things and I want to go bonkers. I come home and all I can do is veg out even though I should be studying or forging ahead with my job search. I haven’t seen my friend Erin in months so we got together over the weekend. My intention was to find a new Chinese takeaway place since the one that I liked came under new management and their food is horrible. We weren’t terribly successful but we did find a sit-down and dine restaurant. You know, the kind that existed before buffets. They had excellent dishes but their prices were very high. So the search continue

I feel bad and must apologize for my absence. I have not been in the greatest off moods lately and am not really In the mood for blogging. There are plenty of things I want share. Soon. I'll be back again soon.

I could have sworn I blogged about him earlier this year but one of my coworkers got involved in an incident where a man was shot dead. The coworker was named as the "mastermind." He was charged with murder. After a brutal double homicide that occurred in my hometown not to long ago, it reminded me of him and I asked if anyone had heard anything about his case. The only thing I was able to find out is that he has agreed to a plea deal. He'll plead guilty and testify against the actual shooter. In exchange, he will get 10 years. Who knows if that will get cut even further for good behavior. While I certainly think that he doesn't deserve the death penalty or even life in prison, I think ten years is not enough time--especially if he really was the person that set this whole thing into motion.

Twitter isn’t the best place to converse due to the limits imposed. This post is mainly for suenarmie as a response to some of her tweets. @usapines Gen Wasington was a Virginian? No. Powhatans, yes. The white Americans rising against Britain was right but Confederation wrong? General President Washington was indeed a Virginian. He was born there, raised there and participated in Virginian society and state. Chief Powhatan was not a Virginian. While Powhatan may have resided on the land that would become the territory of Virginia, he was not part of that society. Powhatan was the head of his own. Yes Americans rising up against Kingdom of Great Britain was right. For the most part, the colonists were happy to continue to be a part of the empire but then Great Britain got involved in some wars and racked up their debt. Well where were they going to raise money? Hmm, their colonies in the New World of course. So the Parliament at Westminster passed acts that started to tax the colonis

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh announced that he will not be running for reelection. Some of my republican pals will think that this is just another democrat running scared from constituent anger. Sen. Bayh said that he didn’t want to continue due to the bitter partisan divide. It’s a surprise I know, but I actually believe what this politician says. Although there is an anti-incumbent attitude rising within the electorate, Sen. Bayh would be reasonably safe even though Indiana is regarded as a republican leaning state. Of course, he has the democratic base of support but he has earned the respect of many republicans due to his fiscal policies and positions first as a two-term governor and then as senator. He is a well-known and well liked centrist democrat and even though he probably wouldn’t be winning by large margins as he did before, Bayh, I am pretty darn sure, would have kept his seat. Personally, I have great respect for the guy and would probably vote for him if I was a hoosie

I was curious to see how Vancouver would follow up the spectacular opening ceremonies that Beijing put on. I couldn’t even imagine that they would even try. There was no way that Canada could put up that kind of money and manpower. From what was reported, Vancouver’s opening ceremony cost was one tenth the size of Beijing. For the amount they spent, it had the potential to be just as great as Beijing’s. The ceremony started out great. Vancouver used an array of projectors that along with three dimensional objects created some stunning visuals. The stories that these visuals were trying to capture seemed interesting and relevant. They had a strong start but the presentation started to peter out. When they got to section covering the prairie provinces using Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now , I was bored—almost to sleep. Really, though, that wasn’t the big problem. The most painful and awkward moment was during the lighting of the stadium cauldron. The plan was to have four pilla

I think I was a sophomore in high school when my parents signed for internet access. Since we lived in the sticks, dial-up was the only offering. Still, the connection was good enough to allow us to listen to streaming radio from around the world. The audio quality wasn't the best but the variety in music was great. There isn't much variety on American radio, I can tell you that. One of my favorite stations was Radio Pilatus coming out of Switzerland. There was a particular song that I would hear from time to time. Obviously it must have been a hit and the more I heard it, the more I liked it. Eventually, I was able to record about 2/3 of the song. I was never able to find the information for the song so I could obtain a copy. It was in German (or at least Germanic). I kept that file thinking that one day I would come across someone who also knew the song or could listen to it and give me information. I tried a student studying German and even a student from Germany

Verizon is continuing to hammer away at AT&T. I my opinion, Verizon has been preforming better in the ad wars. I haven't seen this one on the television, but I liked it enough to link it on here: Y'all remember Big Red gum right??? Just checkin... h/t Verizon

I probably could have done more important things this afternoon. Instead, I spent a good part of it cleaning and shining my shoes. While I was growing up, I only had two pairs of shoes at any one time. After all, my dad said that I only needed “regular” shoes and “church” shoes—sneakers and a more formal looking deck shoe usually. After pulling out what I had from my closet, I have 11 pairs of shoes. 9 are shown here: The two not listed are my combat boots (I can’t remember where I put those) and my flip flops which have been put away until summer. Not counted are my sandals. Ever since I caught my dad borrowing them a couple summers ago, I have not touched them. To me, shoes are not articles of clothing that you share. I’m all for borrowing pairs of pants or shirts but shoes, socks, and underwear are big no-nos. For a guy, I think that I do have quite a number of shoes. I looked up the question on answers.com and it said that the average man owns 3 pairs of shoes. Good grie

"Down Under" became one of my favorite songs back in the 80s. I was a little sad to hear that the group, Men at Work, has lost a copyright infringement suit. Apparently a part of the song contained a tune from the kid song “Kookaburra Sits in an Old Gum Tree.” It’s that fluty section. Here’s the video. Listen for it: I never made the connection although now that I’ve listened, I do hear it. Still the decision disgusts me. First of all, who knew that Kookaburra was even in copyright? Seriously, what other childhood songs that we learned are copyrighted? (Did you know that Happy Birthday to You is in copyright?) It’s ridiculous. I think that songs such as Kookaburra have entered into the public domain and ought to be free from infringement suits. Kinda like generic trademarks – asprin, thermos. The plaintiff, Larrikin Music Publishing, is presumably going to be rewarded damages although due to statute of limitations, they’re not going to get back royalties for the

It's funny to me how I know more about the republican candidates that are running for governor in Illinois than I do about the republican candidates running for governor in Michigan. That's what happens when I live in the Chicago media and economic zone. Plus, Illinois politics is a lot more fun to follow. Full of back-stabbing, incompetence, corruption, power, and money.