Friday, October 28, 2011

"Good news everybody!"

Greetings once again all the visitors to the blogoshere.  In the words of Professor Farnsworth of "Futurama" I have good news everybody.  Though this is actually good news, it isn't always when he does it. I've recently listed this blog with Technorati.com. They're one of the largest blog directories out there.

They have millions of people a day coming it to peruse the blogs listed on there. So I'm hoping that will help drive some more readers to this site.  Not that I don't appreciate the ones I currently have. I definitely do, however this is one of those cases where more is better

So with that said I hope to be greeting even more of you on a more regular basis as this moves forward.  As always feel free to comment with your thoughts. Follow the blog using the button on here as well as on Facebook and share with your friends anyway you feel moved to do so.  Til next time thanks for coming by.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

"Who says...................?"

Greetings once again all those of the blogosphere.  Any of you who've been reading along or who have read through my past postings should know I'm a big baseball fan.  For me Pitchers and Catchers reporting can't come soon enough.  While admittedly I've been reduced to more of a casual fan status since the end of the regular season, well partially since just after the All-Star break when the M's went on their historical 19 game losing streak, but mostly since the playoffs started. When that happened I didn't really have a horse in the race anymore.  So while I payed attention, it was no longer "must see" TV for me.  

I have been paying attention more closely since the World Series began.  Again still no horse in the race, but Texas is at least in the M's division so I continue to root against them.  For those of you who don't understand the appeal of baseball, and think it's boring you don't know what you're missing.  All it would take is watching Game 6 of this series even if only from the 6th inning on and you'd be hooked.  

It had everything that most Primetime TV shows haven't had since the mid-late 90's and the advent of "reality" TV.  It had strategy, it had intrigue, it had the unexpected.  It had Texas Manager Ron Washington using 2 pitchers in an inning............TO HIT.  It had the pain of defeat and the joy that can only come from getting to play for one more day.  Once you started watching it sucked you in and there was no way you could turn it off.  

Now while it's true the TV ratings for this series have been down, this game quite simply had something for everyone.  Someone once said you watch enough baseball you see things you've never seen before and this game definitely had that.  It had errors being made by big leaguers you normally only see made by little leaguers. Though when the little leaguers make them, it's way cuter.  Plus win or lose they usually get to hit Dairy Queen either way.  It had mammoth home runs that seemed to travel into a different area code.  It had a team seemingly down and out twice, battling back to survive. 

In the book "Ball Four" pitcher/author Jim Bouton wrote "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out it was the other way around all the time." Never is that more true than in games like that. The drama is palpable and as you watch you can feel your heartbeat increase.  That kind of an experience isn't one that comes along with just anything.  Certainly doesn't happen during an episode of "Jersey Shore". Any feelings during that are more along the lines of needing a shower or having dinner make a return trip.  

So if you've said baseball is boring in the past. Maybe it's time to give it another chance. It may just give you the roller coaster ride of your life in the process.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

"Marking the time.........."

Greetings again all those who find their way to my humble corner of the blogosphere.  I've even managed to come up with something two days in a row now so I've got a bit of a hitting streak going.  Though now that I've talked about it, I've probably gone and blown it.  I'll do my best to keep the creative juices flowing as long as you people come back looking for more.  

As far as today is concerned it's the anniversary or birthday of my musings on here. I'm not sure which one to go with though I suppose either works equally well.  It was a year ago that I logged my first post on here. I started off strong but faded a bit. I'm hoping with year two I'll have a bit more staying power.  

A lot has happened within that time frame.  With that time passing it certainly gives us a lot to look back on. As far as this space is concerned, I'm choosing to focus more on moving forward. On expanding this endeavor and truly hitting my stride. 

I definitely don't want to turn this into a political blog, though as a sort of P.S. to yesterdays post when Pat Robertson of all people calls the GOP to extreme you have to love the irony just a little bit. It's really a pot calling the kettle black situation. Not that he isn't right, but still. Was at least good for a quality laugh.  Well that and Rick Perry's "genius" 20% flat tax idea.  I'll let Colbert and Stewart handle the jokes on that one.  I just keep waiting for him to think he's Steve Perry and break into "Open Arms."

Things here in the 'Ham, while significantly less exciting, have also been fairly unfall-like lately.  The sun apparently hasn't gotten the memo that it was supposed to be on hiatus until somewhere around Memorial Day. The clear skies did make for a pretty cool view of the Northern Lights tonight. So that was a nice treat for my inner 8 year old boy.  

I suppose I'll finish this up and make way in my head for my next posting. I'll bid you all adieu and continue to look forward to the future. Looking back is alright for a short time, much longer than that you just end up running into stuff. 

Monday, October 24, 2011

"Answers from the great beyond."

Hey there shiny happy blogosphere people. You're probably not all holding hands. Sorry channeling Michael Stipe there and got a little carried away. Granted it's been a while and there's not that many of you. However I will hopefully be able to provide a more consistent amount of reading material. My problem in writing has been the vast amount of information out there and not wanting to duplicate what's already been covered. I mean, when there's an entire internet as well as what's left of the newspaper industry out there what's left to cover by me.

I'll give it a shot anyway and just see what I come up with.  I guess the big story of the week has been the end of the Qadahfi, Kadaphi, Gaddafi or whichever spelling everyone wants to go with this week.  I swear when I did a report on Libya it was the Q version of the guy. Personally I could never figure out why as a dictator he never promoted himself beyond Colonel. This of course issues in a new era in Libya and further "progress" theoretically in the middle east.  While having the Colonel out of power is obviously a step in the right direction. There's "miles to go before we sleep." Both for Libya and the region as a whole.  The vast power vacuums created by the destabilization of long term dictatorships makes it easy for extremists to move in and take over. At a minimum throw a wrench in the process towards the freedom that the people have been fighting for.

Here at home the presidential election season seems to start the moment they hold the inauguration.  There's also extremists here to be worried about. Though they seem to be calling themselves Republicans, Libertarians, or "Tea Party" these days.  All these candidates, who if asked will tell you how much they admire the Presidency and ideals of Ronald Reagan.  However if Reagan was to be running today he'd be liberal even by Democratic party standards.  That's how far the political spectrum has been pulled to the right. They've gone well beyond "trickle down" economics to just plain let businesses do whatever they want. Whether that's dump a bunch of oil in the Gulf of Mexico without any penalty, or allowing banks to gamble with their clients money and making huge bonuses as those clients lose their houses.

Not that there isn't extremists on the other end of the political spectrum.  Recently they've taken on a face with the "Occupy ____________" movement.  What started in New York City has had offshoots show up all over. Even here in Seattle.  Now while I agree with the premise of the movement. I can't say that the people who are showing up for these rally's appear to even have a clue what's going on or what the 'movement' is about.  From the time I've spent in the Westlake Center area of Seattle, looking through the crowd gathered around it seemed to be made up mostly of the homeless population looking for a place to squat more than anything else.   It certainly doesn't look to be made up of people likely to be filling up the ballot boxes come next November.  I can hope that it raises some awareness of the issue along the way. I can hope that it gets people who have become so apathetic politically that they think nothing can ever change to wake up.

First the steps need to be taken to assure the congressman/women and senators, who are elected by the people, are actually working towards their constituencies interests instead of the interests of the corporate donors.  Corporations are not people too, and a lobbyist shouldn't wield more influence than the votes at home. So that starts with closing the loopholes that allow the corporate donations to political campaigns in the first place.  After that the repeal of the Dubya tax cuts for good and a return to even a Clinton Era tax structure is also a good place to start.  I'd also suggest making all the corporate CEO bonuses taxable.  When they can't buy the votes of congress to keep these things from happening real progress is likely to be made and the influx of money that will provide will go a long way towards making things better for everyone, not just that top 1%.

Now I'm not saying that I have all the answers or any of them really.  I certainly can't do any worse than those that are already out there.  I'm also not the first one to suggest them I'm sure.  However, someone (most likely my mother) once told me not to complain about a problem without suggesting how I would solve it so there you have it.

I suppose that's all I've got for now.  Til the next episode.