Falling in Love with The Discovery Times Channel

Good stuff on DTC lately, especially full-hour overviews of issues surrounding North Korea and Saudi Arabia. Couldn't finish up watching the North Korea episode last night, as I was tired, but I noticed that the show narrator stated that George Bush considers any attempt to have talks before NK's nuclear disarmament to be tantamount to blackmail. Does that seem a bit unrealistic to you? It's not as if Kim Jong Il is going to say, "Sure, we'll take apart the nukes we've built so Dubya will return my phone calls..."

Ignoring the situation just escalates things. Didn't we just invade a nation under the pretense of a possible threat due to weapons of mass destruction? And we didn't even have proof. Now here's the biggest totalitarian dictatorship in the world claiming to have its own nuclear arsenal and we ignore them? Makes no sense to me.

I Want My Own Lightsaber

I wrote this tune recently called "I Want My Own Lightsaber." It's kind of this pop-punk piece with these cool lyrics about what would happen to you if you were able to invent a working lightsaber. Basically, you'd tell your best friend, who wouldn't be able to contain himself and he'd tell all of his friends. You might go find someone you don't like and carve his SUV into tiny pieces. But then word would get out. As soon as the word got out, you'd be cast into this Bourne Identity-esque situation where corporate interests and the government would hunt you down, take away your invention and leave you to die in a ditch along a lonely highway somewhere.

Anyway, I'd love to get this tune down on digital because it would be fun to post here. Unfortunately, there's little time for digital recording anymore and my keyboard seems to be on the fritz, with several key buttons and knobs not working. Maybe someday when I get the money to get it repaired...

Weekend Recap

Got lots of stuff done this weekend. Saturday's weather was crummy, so I took the day to run some errands. First off was finding a place that would patch the tire on my car. (I picked up nails in my rear tires after the guys from LICB finished framing out our extension upstairs.) I got that done in Riverhead and then got a haircut. Andy, the guy who has been cutting my hair for over 15 years at Main Street Haircutters in Riverhead went in recently for open heart surgery. Evidently, he had some chest pains and went in for a stress test and some other cardio tests. They brought him in for a quadruple bypass, from which he's slowly recovering. Andy was back to work within 12 days of the surgery, which I find amazing. He's taking frequent breaks at work, but he's back to cutting hair. Best to Andy and his family - take it easy and don't rush things.

On Mother's Day, I cleaned out the grill and got some new propane in time to make Mom dinner. I picked up two big London Broil steaks at My Butcher and marinated them for the whole day. I also made that South Beach recipe that uses cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potatoes, but I added some garlic to try to approximate garlic mashed potatoes, which went nicely with the steak. Kim made her 7-layer salad, too. Mom got a gift certificate for some makeup at Sephora from Kim and Rob. I bought her an ice cream maker and some ice cream dishes, which we can't wait to try out.

Next weekend, there's plenty of work to be done around the house. There are a few stumps that need to come out of the ground near the pool. Plus, I may take a tree out in the back yard near the garden so that that whole area can get some sun for growing vegetables and whatnot. I want to see if I can rent a skidsteer for a day so I can pull the stumps and some shrubs from around the pool, clear out the garden area and maybe make some "adjustments" to the landscaping around the yard. We'll see...

Kerry and Lautenberg: Let's Put Disclaimers on Fake News

Remember my last post about government-produced propaganda? Check out the next-to-last paragraph. It calls attention to the fact that television is a linear medium and that folks can tune in to a fake news segment and miss any disclaimer that runs prior to the segment. John Kerry and Frank Lautenberg are sponsoring a bill that would force source disclosure for these fake news stories. The disclaimer would need to run continuously throughout a government-produced segment, which is exactly what I had envisioned. This is the only way to make sure no one misses the disclosure due to channel-surfing and whatnot.