Luke says "jump!"....

....We say "how high?"  What do you call a male "prima donna"?  Whatever you call it, Luke is one.

It seems he was playing with K over the weekend and jumped off the couch wrong, spraining his "knee".  Now he has a hitch in his giddyup.  The vet says it's a floating patella (kneecap) a common problem with small dogs.  For a week we have to carry him up and down the stairs.

But before that K found it hard to find a dog food that he liked.  He would eat one kind for a few days, then tire of it and refuse to eat it anymore.  Dry food, wet food, a mix of the two....she never found the right one UNTIL she gave him a tiny piece of real chicken we were eating.  Boy Howdy!!  

Now we have to buy a rotisserie chicken weekly in order to have a bit handy for him every day to mix with his dry food.  And frankly, I like it too, so I'm not exactly crying in my beer.  (The chicken, not the dry dog food.)  Saturday, however, we bought some smoked turkey instead as they were out of cluck.

Last night His Highness The Lukester turned up his nose at that one, too.  At 6 pm I had to go out and battle the commuters on their way home who also stopped at Market Street for their chicken dinner.  I had to race to beat a little old lady to the last one, but I got it!  Actually she was debating between two, one mildly seasoned (that Luke prefers) and one lemon "something".  When she put the mild one down for a nano-second I lunged for it!  

In the end Luke approved, and allowed me to remain in his presence for the remainder of the evening.

Oh lucky me.  ;)

S

This could be bad news....

There is an email going around that says a coup is underway to oust John Boehner as Speaker of the House and replace him with Paul Ryan.  (Hmmm...I actually thought it would be Eric Cantor who would lead the revolt.)  I'm no big fan of John Boehner, but I feel like he would be someone who could/would negotiate with the Democrats.  

Paul Ryan is a headline-grabbing "my way or the highway" kinda guy.   Bad move, Republicans!  The Tea Party-ers apparently didn't get the message:  The People have repudiated extreme politics.  They want our leaders to work together to get something done and not throw us all under the bus.  

My concern is that if this is true and Ryan (or Cantor) does become Speaker, we're going over the "fiscal cliff" next year.  Sequestration (across-the-board spending cuts) will automatically kick in, cutting not only fat from government (good) but meat, too (bad).  And we can ALL see our paychecks reduced when the "Bush tax cuts" expire and we go back to our previous tax rates.  Ouch!  Ryan has said, and I believe him, that he will NEVER allow taxes to go up on the wealthy.  

"If my friends can't get their tax cut, then none of you can, either."

Ryan says the wealthy are the "job creators", which is a half-truth at best.  While the wealthy might be "incubators" of new businesses, they depend on middle class consumers to actually buy whatever the new businesses are selling in order to succeed.  If the middle-class has their take-home pay reduced due to higher taxes, they'll buy less.  New businesses will stagnate or even fail, perhaps taking us into another recession.  How would that create any new jobs?

Whatever the two sides can negotiate regarding tax rates for the wealthy, so be it, but don't hold the middle class hostage in the process.  The election is over.  Now we need leaders, not ideologues.

S

Thoughts on Veterans Day, and 007, too.

Today is the day we set aside every year to thank our military veterans who have served so that we can all vote, speak our minds, go (or not go) the the church of our choice, and just enjoy all the bounty we have.  What is that saying, "They all gave some, and some gave all"?  They are special people who deserve our thanks and gratitude.  I salute them all.

Any time you see a veteran or an active duty military member, why not take just a few seconds and shake their hand and thank them?  Lord knows we don't pay them enough considering all they do for us.  A little pat on the back seems in order.

And a personal note:  I'm especially proud of my wonderful wife K who as a US Navy veteran was almost single-handedly responsible for defeating communism, and my daughter Andrea, also a US Navy veteran, who pretty much ran naval operations on the west coast in the early 2000's (despite what some of those stuffy 'ol officers might have thought).  Notice Al Qaeda didn't mess with the west coast when she was in charge!

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Movie review:  Skyfall

K and I saw the new Bond 007 film Skyfall last night, and it did NOT disappoint!  Every scene, from the very first to the very last, was riveting.  The writing, acting, cinematography....everything....was amazing.  The car chase scenes and the special effects were spell-binding.  It was filmed on location in England, Turkey, and Shanghai, and the scenery was incredible.  There was nothing I didn't like about it.  I especially enjoyed the references to vintage Bond films of the past.  

Yes, I'm prejudiced....I'm a big "Bond, James Bond" fan, but everyone there seemed as impressed as me when they left.  Go see it. Definitely, go see it!

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Time for my Sunday morning breakfast.  I've been craving this for a while now, so on my grocery shopping trip this week I got what was needed for ....

....biscuits and gravy.  Mmmmm!  Now I know what you're thinking, but it's OK.  I'm pretty sure they're low-cal.  :)

Hope you all have a wonderful Veterans Day.

S

I'm like a kid on Christmas morning....

I'm really not a movie junkie.  I probably don't go to 3 or 4 movies a year, and the ones I do go to are often times half-hearted outings.  I rarely watch the Academy Awards because I've never even heard of most of the nominees, much less seen them.  

There is, however, one exception to my big-screen ambivalence:  Bond.  James Bond.

I'm a huge James Bond fan.  I even enjoyed the ones that were deemed lackluster.  Screw the reviewers.  As long as there's action, 

gorgeous women,

cool firearms,

and fast cars flying through the air doing things the car parked in my garage can't do,

 I'm happy!

I see a lot of myself in James Bond:  Handsome, dashing, a charmer of women, fearless, a great shot, a skillful driver, and just a downright dangerous dude.  Have I mentioned I also have a serious problem with "delusions of grandeur"?  *wink*

This evening K and I are stepping out, going to see the new Bond film that just opened, Skyfall.  While I generally don't enjoy going out into large crowds, I'll make an exception for 007.  I'm excited!

I'll have a review for you tomorrow.  Happy Saturday everyone.  ;)

S

What if they threw a party and nobody came?

The Christmas season just gets more and more absurd.  Isn't this (especially) the season where we're supposed to display peace and love for all, just like Jesus did?  Apparently Walmart didn't get that memo.

In their headlong chase for the Almighty Dollar Walmart has decided that Black Friday, that absolutely insane first official day of the Christmas shopping season....the day after Thanksgiving....will now begin at 8 pm ON THANKSGIVING EVENING!  That's when they will open the chutes and let the cattle stampede in.  So much for letting their "valued employees" spend the day with their families.  

I contrast that (here in Dallas at least ) with Weir's Furniture.  They are closed EVERY Sunday.  The Weir family is very religious and they close for that reason, but the bottom line is they allow their employees to spend their Sundays doing whatever they want.  It's their time for family, church, football, picnicking, or whatever.  Here's my point:  people know that if they want to buy a sofa or chair or bedroom furniture from Weir's they'll have to buy it on Saturday or Monday, but NOT on Sunday....and their business hasn't suffered a bit.  If fact, many big-name furniture stores have come and gone in the past 64 years, but Weir's is still here.

I can't think of one thing that will be in Walmart at 8 pm on Thanksgiving Day evening that won't still be there at 7 am on Black Friday morning.  Quit being such dicks, Walmart, and let your people have the day off.  

Rant over.  Now go out there and have a nice weekend.  ;)

S

More stuff that really chaps my hide....

I've found several more things that just chap the heck out of me:  It seems the abbreviated online versions of many news services (Yahoo, USA Today, NYT, etc) like to tease us with articles such as "10 things you can do now to save on your electric bill" or "The 5 best and worst places for retirees to live".  So you click on those links and expect to see a list....#1, #2, #3, a so on.   Instead you see 16 paragraphs of text.  So where are the "10 things..." or "The 5 best..."?  Just show me the damn list!

And freeway designers.  I've been in many parts of the country where there are tall screens separating the freeway lanes going in opposite directions....northbound traffic can't see what's happening on the southbound side.  I'm guessing this is to prevent rubberneckers from slowing traffic while looking at a wreck on the opposite side of the freeway.  Makes sense, right?

But not in Dallas.  Ooooh no!  Here we build 12-lane-wide brand new freeways that have a 4' tall divider between lanes going in the opposite direction.  So every time there is a wreck going one way, cars going the opposite direction slow to 3 mph in order to see all the carnage.  Then as soon as you pass the wreck it's back to 80 mph.  WTF? 

Then all the "traffic engineers" complain traffic is too slow and initiate another 10-year, gazillion-dollar project to install more lanes.  (Job security?)  Bullshit.  Just include a tall divider down the middle and traffic will zip right along.

Come on all you egghead engineers.  This ain't rocket surgery!

S

The good news for Republicans...

...is this:   The Republicans now know what they need to do to field serious presidential and congressional candidates.  They have seen first hand that marching in lock-step with their party's most extreme elements (the Tea Party) is a recipe for disaster.  The majority of Americans are not extremists. 

For too long Mitt Romney had to pander to the Tea Party, telling them what they wanted to hear in order to get his party's nomination, and then couldn't back-track fast enough to show he was a moderate.  He made a good effort with the first presidential debate, but it was too little, too late, and his public 180 was probably considered too hypocritical.

And the disaster wasn't just at the top of the ticket, either.  Many of the leading congressional Tea Party-backed candidates were defeated, too.  If the larger Republican party is smart, and I think they are, they will begin to distance themselves from the extreme elements in their party and move back towards the middle.  They don't have to be afraid to be moderates, to stand up to the Tea Party and say, "NO, you're wrong!"

Now would be a great time to do that.  Both parties need to sit down and begin working together for the first time in a long time to constructively address many of the problems facing our country.  Looks like the ball is now in the (Republican controlled) House of Representatives' court.  Have they gotten the message or not?  We'll soon find out.

S