election 2008

my presidential voting record is not very good- i've voted in every national election i've been eligible for, but have never voted for the eventual winning candidate. that doesn't really bother me as much as the fact that my previous presidential votes have been cast on an opinion mostly formed from what i saw and read in the media. i, like most americans, made my choice based too much on sound bites and images- both things selectively presented to me by someone else and occasionally taken out of context.

this year, whether i vote for the eventual president or not, i'm determined to vote for the candidate who most closely represents my values across the entire spectrum, and to educate myself by thoroughly researching the issues without the help of the media. when i make my decision, i will do so by using only the candidates' own words, whether they be in print or live. no sound bites or video clips, but rather entire outlines, essays or speeches to give context to every comment.

i'm going to take you on my electoral journey. every so often between now and november 4, i will post about one of the major issues being discussed in this campaign. i'll link to the candidates' websites and give a brief interpretation about what their own words mean to me. i will watch every debate in its entirety (either live or recorded) and post about it a day or two later.

with each post, i'll let you know how i feel about the particular issue at hand and which candidate i feel more aligned to. my posts will not be meant to influence your decision in any way other than to encourage you to read more on each topic with an open mind.

this blog has always had an open comment section, and these posts will be no exception. feel free to comment however you want, including lobbying for one candidate or another. i only ask that you respect the opinions of others and cite anything you quote with a link to wherever you found it. after all, there's no better way to make your point than to educate others further on it.

my 3 songs, casey stengel edition

here you are- consider it my gift to you today...

• 50 cent, "in da club"
• duran duran, "rio"
• the beatles, "when i'm sixty-four"

speeding at the DMV

twitted about this yesterday... had to renew both my license and registration this month, and i must say, i had the most pleasant DMV experience ever. waited only about 20 minutes yesterday to get my license done, renewed for 5 years for the low, low price of $25. today, went back to do the inspection and registration. got through the inspection station in about 7 minutes- no joke. went inside to do the registration, got a number from the info desk, had my number called before i could even sit down, renewed for 2 years for $40, and walked out. total time inside no more than 3 minutes.

that's a little over a half hour to renew a license, get a vehicle inspected, and renew a registration. small wonder, indeed.

the married bachelor

as many of you know, erin decided a while back that she and the kids would spend the summer in seattle with her folks. since she knew she'd want her car out there, she decided early on that she'd drive there and make a journey out of it. they left this morning for a 10-day trip across the continent, with extra time scheduled with friends in st. louis, omaha, and colorado springs.

this all means that i'm left here, tending to the homestead and living the bachelor life for the first time in 12 years. there are certainly benefits to being alone- just finished up 2 hours of "guitar hero 3"and am currently watching baseball while i type this- but it's been a little tougher than i anticipated. i mean, my 4 best friends just rolled out of town this morning and won't be back for months.

between work, some scheduled side trips, and a wish list of home improvement projects, i'll have more than enough to occupy my time. but to combat the silence, i'll have to do more than yard work. maybe i'll leave the toilet seat up, just because i can.

please, please don't say "forking"

so, i rolled over sometime early this AM and was knocking knees with my beloved (get your minds out of the gutter- that's not a euphemism for anything- our knees truly were hitting), and i started wondering, what's the opposite of "spooning"?

traditional spooning involves both parties facing the same direction, so there are actually two alternatives- both parties facing each other, or facing away from each other. do either of those positions have a colloquialism?

(this post didn't start out to be a reminiscing, but thinking about neologisms has triggered memories of sniglets and rich hall and hbo's NNTN- a far cry from the colbert report, to be sure.)

a deafening silence

well, it was about 9 months in the making, but we all knew it would happen sooner or later. willie's gone as of early this AM, along with two of his coaches.

it's easy to look at him as a scapegoat for the team's failure, but i have to believe at some level he truly wasn't getting the job done. i've always been a huge willie fan, way back to the time he was a yankee second baseman. on the surface, his demeanor suggested he was a good man for the job. but in recent weeks, amid all the turmoil in flushing, i was struck by the audible silence of the players. when asked about willie, most just didn't want to get involved, and some even went so far as to suggest that the mets should just do whatever they were going to do and get it over with. i didn't hear or read a single comment from a player either in support of willie or accepting any blame for the team's collapse.

you have to believe that their silence is an endorsement of this decision. we'll see if by getting their wish this team can salvage this season before it's too late.

happy fathers' day

what better way to celebrate the day than with a finkipedia grammar post, right?

today's question- what's the right title for the day? is it "father's day" or "fathers' day"? i don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this- like the posts on "myriad" here and here, i believe the ultimate answer is that they're both technically correct.

most of what i see used in print is the singular possessive ("father's"). the official holiday, first proclaimed by lyndon johnson and officially reproclaimed this year by president bush, assigns the title of "father's day". i would argue however that since we're celebrating all dads and not just one that the day should be more appropriately addressed in the plural possessive. someone out there must agree with me, because the wikipedia entry on father's day (titled using the singular) starts off with this comment:

• Although normal practice for English punctuation indicates that the holiday should be called "Fathers' Day" (as it is a plural possessive), common usage dictates that the ostensibly singular possessive "Father's Day" is the preferred spelling.

common usage be damned. band with me, my fellow grammarians. buck the trend and start recognizing all mothers and fathers by using the plural possessive when you send your best wishes. pledge your allegiance and make my fathers' day with a comment below.

tree huggin'

had a rare weekday off yesterday to spend with the kids. went up to longwood gardens (which you may remember from a previous holiday posting) to see how things look in full bloom. kids liked checking out some large treehouses that have been built since our last visit there.

boys have their last day of school today; i'm here in the office for a full day then on call this weekend. looking forward to doing a bunch of cool things together next week before they all leave me for their summer trip. (more about that sometime this weekend).

poll comes down today...10 votes- wow! (thanks for voting 3 times googs). general consensus was that things were good, but i like a few others think the background could use some adjusting. look for some changes this summer.

too hot to post

...or do much of anything else. not supposed to be 95 degrees here in june, much less 95 degrees for 4 days in a row.

tried to escape the heat this weekend by going to the pool on saturday and the movies yesterday. took the kids for ice cream after the movie yesterday afternoon, which seemed like a good idea at the time. unfortunately, the heat must have warmed the store enough to make the ice cream a little soft; the situation declined rapidly once the goods were in the hands of the intended. molly and brendan fortunately chose to get their ice cream in dishes, convenient receptacles for the soup they inherited after about ten minutes. owen ordered a small cone of chocolate marshmallow ice cream that was actively melting when it got into his hands. poor kid didn't stand a chance. within minutes, he had more ice cream on his hand and on the ground around him than he had actually consumed.

next time i think we'll just get milk shakes.

new poll

a while back i put a poll or two at the bottom of the blog, but it was so far down no one ever saw it. trying to resurrect the idea a bit, and will occasionally put something immediately to the right of the newest entry to increase visibility.

first poll is more self-serving. looking to change the site up a bit over the summer, and am curious to know what i should work on first (maybe everything?). please make with the clicky and vote on the poll to the right. (should you be more of the essay type than the multiple choice type, feel free to comment away on this post with any recs for updating the site).

none of the hits however mentioned "lionel hutz"

read a random snippet on the onion the other day regarding the FDA disallowing the stop-smoking drug Chantix for pilots because of reports that it may increase the risk of auto accidents. (turns out it was the FAA, not FDA, which makes more sense, but that's beside the point.) as i had heard nothing about this, i was curious and googled "chantix auto accident".

the 34th result was a link to the usa today article mentioning the recent ban. the first 33 results were all links to attorneys' websites, looking for individuals interested in filing a claim against the drug company.

next google search was for "tort reform".

(googling "finkipedia", btw, gives you 8 hits- several to this site, two to official finkipedia-endorsed blogs, two more to a site that somehow found my tag of "FoF" noteworthy, and two dead-end links to some site that has something to do with cough syrup with codeine. huh?)

my 3 songs, sittin' on the dock of the bay edition

time for more tunes. to get you ready for summer, here's 3 songs that might come in handy on a lazy summer's day...

• guns n' roses, "patience"
• peter bjorn and john, "young folks"
• billy joel, "the stranger"

easy one, right?