Category Archives: Unclassifiable

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Long-Dark Tea Time

Let’s see what is annoying me today:

The Speaker of the House won’t let the soon to expire tax cut on payrolls get extended because the “American people are sick of it.” Well, I have my doubts as to how many “people” he spoke to, but as somebody who puts every bleeding cent back into the economy, quit making this tougher, honestly. I’ve seen so many able to confuse petulance with leadership. Taking your ball and going home is not making things better. Instead, taxes will go up on the folks who can least afford it, unemployment insurance stops, medicare gets tougher…jerks.

The Sabres are driving me nutty. I’m remembering October as the good ole’ days. Lots of folks are calling for Lindy Ruff. Me? I’m just calling a moratorium on interviews with any Sabre who spews such bromides as “We got outworked,” “We have to get our feet moving” or “Back to basics.” They haven’t been very good at hockey lately. While I’m all for being prudent, some sign that it bothers somebody would be good. Everybody is all eager to pick on Ryan Fitzpatrick for playing poorly since his new contract, but I’m pretty sure Drew Stafford merits a space on that park bench as well.

In 2000, the Bills were respectable, the Sabres were coming off a trip to the finals and even the Mets were prospering. For this sports fan, these were the good old days. I think I’ll be come a Tiger Cat fan as a favor to the Argos.

The presence of, or lack of snow has had no discernible effect on my holiday mood.

That has been more of the sounds I heard as I wandered through Target on Saturday. It’s strange as you could just here some of this while buying necessities: “This is the wrong god-damn size” “We don’t need a Wll” “An awful color, I can just hear him bitchin’ now”

Tidings of comfort, joy and proximate parking spaces, I guess.

At the rate the Bills are getting blown out lately, I don’t suppose the old little league mercy rule could kick in.

Writers have been picking on the atmosphere at the First Niagara Center of late, saying it’s a little dead (or like a Leaf home game or something), but I don’t think that is fair. The game presentation has been kind of lame, but the product on the ice has been so wanting.  The recent Sabres Leafs game got the joint rocking by being a good hockey game. Create those on a regular basis and good things happen. Marked up beers and overpriced t-shirts will sell and we’ll be closer to Hockey Heaven as opposed to the current Hockey Purgatory.

Kim Jong is dead, wonder how Kourtney and Kandy are faring. Maybe as a friend of mine mused, maybe we can get that episode of “No Reservations” that we’ve been waiting for, or better, maybe the real Top Gear (the British one) can have a race the length of the Koreas (admit it, that would be kind of cool).

Let me leave the last words on this rambling post to my good pal George Clooney

Yeah, the Descendents was that good.

Our Top Story Tonight…

In a refreshing approach to find out about things, I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of the give and take when it comes to all things that led to the occupy movements.

It is astounding to me that Speaker Boehner‘s answer to when asked about the pay-roll tax cut that is about to expire, if it would help the economy was “I’m no economist.” Well, jughead you don’t have to be. The people who get a little more money in their paychecks will probably spend it, and wait for it, that probably helps the economy. It’s also the justification for extended unemployment benefits as those folks have to spend their funds for the sake of running their households.

That is at the gist of the occupy stuff, my arch-conservative friends. To summary dismiss the occupiers as “go get a job, we aren’t just going to give things to you” is ignorant. George Carlin was spot on when he said the reason they call it the American Dream is that you have to be asleep to realize it. The powers that be are more interested in all tools that keep them comfortable than actually being proactive in their actual mission. Here’s your one and only tea party parallel: they are dissatisfied with the current government situation. That’s it. It’s not a level playing field. The opportunities and chances are going to those who can buy them.

Locally, I was intrigued by Donn Esmonde’s column in the Buffalo News, http://www.buffalonews.com/city/columns/donn-esmonde/article656887.ece, where bus fares are getting raised to help close a budget deficit. Generations squandered on holding waterfront land and many things nontransportation based are attempting to get balanced on the most loyal customers to the system, not right.

A good friend took a little issue, with making light of the movement when I posted this on my facebook page:

Her point was along the lines of nothing like making light of the screwing of a generation. I was more along the lines of making light of the sudden immediacy of the movement, as the screwing has been going on for a long time now. Making light beats the alternative as the Occupy folk shouldn’t be so pious as the Tea Partiers they/I resent.

My paycheck assures my place in the 99% and that is okay. It just that this thing of ours has been breaking for awhile now, and the representatives actually need to represent, yo.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Yeah, it was fun

image

And I’m a kid. Thanks to a great benefactor, my workplace got a visit from the Stanley cup yesterday. Fun for this hockey nut to see such history just sitting there. Lest any hockey superstition practitioners mock me, remember by touching it, I didn’t jinx the sabres as the season didn’t start yet. It may however have jinxed the Bruins’ chances of repeating and I’m cool with that.

After all, the red sox and patriots can talk to them about recent disappointments.

Let them All talk

I’m all over the place in my befuddlement.

Gonna start the work week with three very lengthy days serving the greater good, but by thursday, it could Chinese arias played on a bow saw by a left handed blind guy and I would still be at the water’s edge that eve. Looking forward to Lowest of the Low’s return….

As it might allow something to happen, JUST SELL THE DONOVAN BUILDING AND OTHER PARCELS. @ECHDC

(all credit to buffalopundit for that one, but he is right)

Got three days of music seeing/listening over the past four, so that is definitely a good thing. As a side note, since they are both local, go see The Skiffle Ministrels and Babik. Two decidely different, but very original outfits that are sure to put you in a good mood.

An actual progressive move by New York State, something that should have never been an issue, finally isn’t. I know the Catholic Diocese is perturbed locally, but last time I checked nobody has a monopoly and City Hall is where you go for the licenses. More stable loving homes….reads like a win win to me.

Michelle Bachmann is polling at 22% in Iowa. Apparently, gravitas isn’t needed in the GOP either. It just strikes me as interesting that for all the grumbling about the President’s background in 2008, telegenicism is apparently transcending records there too.

Not that I’m against joggers and charity runs, but do race organizers realize that there are more than two streets in the city of Buffalo?