Politics, Sports, War, Windows Vista and a whole lot more...
DANGER! DANGER! THIS IS A RIDICULOUSLY LONG POST...
-
HYDRATE-OPHOBIA: I was watching one of those "World's Dumbest" video-collection programs the other night, and the theme of this particular show was "World's Dumbest Pranks". This is the show which features such famous B-list stars like Danny Bonaduce and Tonya Harding, among others, telling the viewers how unbelievably stupid the people in the videos are. When Tonya Harding says you're dumb, well, it's time to go jump off a cliff, 'cos there ain't no hope for ya. Anyway, one of the prank videos had to do with a mom's phobia of SPORTS DRINKS. Well, Mom and Dad went away for a weekend, so what does their dumb teenage son and some of his friends do? They went and bought a truckload of sports drinks, some twenty-five THOUSAND bottles, and piled them all over the house. The living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, all over the frickin' house. Well, Mom and Dad came back home, and while Dad took the whole thing in stride, the Mom was in endless-freakout-mode because there were cases of sports drinks everywhere. The only comment I have is, there are enough things in this life to be afraid of...why Sports Drinks? And what do you call such an affliction? Hydrate-ophobia, perhaps? Hey lady, if you're reading this, I have a bottle of GATORADE within reach. Ya thirsty?
==================================================
THE KENNEDY WATCH: For some reason, I seem to be intrigued with the circumstances surrounding JFK's assassination all those years ago. So far, I've read "Four Days In November" by Vincent Bugliosi, "The Day Kennedy Was Shot" by Jim Bishop, and a book by Evelyn Lincoln, who was JFK's longtime personal secretary. Right now, I'm halfway through "Death Of A President" by William Manchester. The author describes the sadness and massive grief among those who were closest to JFK, as well as the Nation's Sadness in an excruciatingly microscopic manner. It's morose and gloomy, but ultimately very gripping, and as such is a revealing portrayal of the Emotional Devastation that gripped Washington, D.C. as well as the rest of the nation. After I've read this one, I've got another one all lined up, titled "The Kennedy Men, 1930-1963". Evidently Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. was quite a scallawag in his day. His first son, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. died in 1944 when the warplane he was piloting blew up and his body was never found. And we all know what befell John F. Kennedy and his younger brother, Robert. And, it's probably just as well that Old Joe Kennedy had departed this earth before Teddy's Chappaquiddick travesty took place.
-
I've found yet another tale of the Kennedy family, titled "Sins Of The Father", which describes still more of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.'s dastardly deeds early in the century and evidently he was Quite Dastardly, Quite Often. He manipulated the stock market for personal financial gain, he took advantage of people along the way, he had an unsuccessful run at being a diplomat (Embassador to England), and was appointed head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, weeding out the kind of graft and corruption he'd participated in earlier in the stock market. And that's just skimming the surface. It's not as if I'd set out to read every Kennedy book I could find; I've found them all 'at random' lately. It's as if I was Meant To Read These Books at this particular stage in my life. Why, who knows? Before now, I'd never had any idea just how Awful the Kennedy Assassination was. The grit, the misery, the horror and the sadness...I'm shocked, really, by how terrible the events surrounding November 22, 1963 were for our country, as well as for the Kennedy Family, and those who served him in his administration. Everyone remembers the Young President who captivated the entire world. But here's something that puts it all in perspective...had JFK lived, he'd be 93 this year. Ninety-three. Gosh, time flies...
-


From left to right in this 1938 photo: Joe Kennedy, Jr., Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy (she died in an airplane crash in 1948) and John F. Kennedy, future President. These Kennedy Siblings were living in England while their dad, Joe Kennedy, Sr. was serving as U.S. Ambassador. Interestingly, this photo was taken on the day England declared war on Germany.
-
There's an interesting parallel that can be laid at the feet of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., a well as his younger brother, John. Joe Jr. had flown more than his share of missions in World War II. He had several chances to be Honorably Discharged and go home, but he wanted to keep flying and talked others in his squadron to stay together. Lastly, he volunteered for a hazardous mission involving "drone" airplanes; he took off in a plane loaded to the gills with TNT; the idea being that he'd switch the plane to Autopilot and then bail out, only the plane blew up before he could bail. The idea was, that the plane would be remote-controlled to a suitable bombing target. In JFK's assassination, when the motorcade took off from Love Field for the trip thru Dallas, The President indicated he didn't want Secret Service Agents standing on the rear bumper of the limousine for protection purposes. He wanted to seem really in touch with his public so he waved the agents off. It was later pointed out that had a Secret Service Agent been standing on the rear bumper, there's a chance he would've blocked Lee Harvey Oswald's view of The President from the 6th floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building. John F. Kennedy was a very smart guy, and so was Joe, Jr. Yet both suffered judgment lapses brought on by bravura. President Kennedy, dismissing the Secret Service Agents who were trying to protect him, and Joe, Jr., by volunteering for a mission that he himself said was, at best, a "50-50" proposition. The moral of the story? Being Too Brave Can Get You Killed. The meek shall inherit the earth.
==================================================
WORKING MY WAY THRU WINDOWS "VISTA": It's different, that's for sure. I miss having the names of various browsers in my lower toolbar, for instance. Instead there's a lower-left "zoom" thing which, when clicked, zooms all the browsers back in a Star-Wars sort of way, and there's another device, at lower right, that you can click to see what your browsers consist of. So Windows Vista needlessly complicated something that was convenient. I guess all them Microsoft Engineers have nothing better to do. New features! Complications! Whoopee! But there's a neat little Vista feature which is located just above the lower right toolbar; you can easily change the size of what you see on your screen; you can select as low as 50% (half-size) or as high as 400% which will work on ultra-small items, or if your screen is the size of an Average Football Field.
-
But in another case of fixing something that's not broken, Vista's Recycle Bin has been needlessly "enhanced". If you want to "Empty Recycle Bin", you do so by a right-click on the icon, and you'll find Vista's Recycle Bin menu has not only the 'Empty Recycle Bin' phrase, it also contains another phrase, "Delete Recycle Bin", which is just stupid, 'cos who wants to delete their recycle bin, the place where all of the computer garbage goes? I am not the only one who has Accidentally Deleted My Recycle Bin, thinking "Delete" meant "Empty". The 'net's loaded with users who've done it. But it's fairly easy to get your Recycle Bin back. I'm running Windows Vista "Home Edition" so the following may or may not work for your particular system. To reinstate your Recycle bin, press "start>all programs>accessories>system tools>control panel (select classic view)>personalization>change desktop icons>recycle bin"...yep, that's all you gotta do to get yer Recycle Bin back. That's enough technical stuff for one post; I almost deleted this post going back and forth to make sure all my instructions were correct.
==================================================
YOU'VE GOTTA LOVE THESE GUYS (OR NOT): You might remember that phrase being used in promotional spots for the Seattle Mariners a season or two ago. Seattle has been the dreadful land of mass upheaval lately. Manager Don Wakamatsu got fired. The manager of Seattle's farm team, Tacoma, was put in his place and is Expected To Work Minor Miracles. I can also imagine the New Manager works for a lot less than the Old Manager. Always follow the money. Thing is, since the New Manager took over, Seattle's won 4 out of their last 5 games. You heard it here. The Mariners Are Winning. Well, not so fast there, bucko. The M's are playing Cleveland in the current series, and they just played the Oakland A's, and those two teams are, well, about as good as the M's are. The big test awaits: The M's are on another long "away" stand, in which one of their opponents will be the New York Yankees. So we'll see if the Mariners have become Suddenly Revitalized or if it's more of The Same Old Song. Should be interesting. Once the M's battle cry was "refuse to lose". These days, it's more like "refuse to finish under .500", which, to the uninitiated is the same amount of wins and losses. These days, the M's are running a HUGE deficit..
==================================================
To all TWO of my faithful blog-readers, I apologize for not posting more often. Many of my latest postings have been over at the Seattle Times' Mariners Blog, where all us fans suffer together. Plus I've posted, titled and captioned almost 100 new photos over at http://www.webshots.com/; username 'digitaldave72'. Plus, I've been really, Really lazy lately.