• I’m John, and I can’t see you

    Katie Couric is good at what she does. As far as I know, it’s as true today as it was six months ago. What’s more, I’ve always liked Katie Couric (even though I don’t watch much weekday morning TV). I say this up front because this entry is yet another example of me being hyper-critical, which is somewhat ironic given my many flaws. Although, isn’t always the worst offenders that are the biggest critics? I say this over and over in these entries, so tonight I’m going to add one more flaw to the list: disingenuous apologist.

    Back to Katie. I hear she had a big debut this evening. I’m not a fan of the Network News genre of “newstainment,” so I don’t know this because I was actually watching. No, you have my wife to thank (blame) for this entry. Cheryl had a number of good things to say about the broadcast, but I wasn’t paying attention to any of them, save one: the first one. I was thrust headlong into a state I like to refer to as: “the blank stare of deep thought.” Irony strikes again… the first thing Cheryl had to say about the broadcast was the last thing Katie had to say. Apparently she signed off by saying, “I’m Katie Couric and I hope to see you again tomorrow.”

    Cheryl thought it was nice and personal. Not having seen it, I thought it sounded a little too pleading… like she was afraid that after tonight no one would come back. In a way I guess even that is kind of sweet; a refreshing departure from News Anchors with high opinions of themselves. As my blank stare of deep thought persisted (and Cheryl’s voice was a barely heard background mumble wafting through the mists of oblivion) I wondered why I was the only one in the house that knew that our television is not a two-way video conferencing device. If Katie couldn’t see us tonight, how is she going to see us again? Doesn’t “again” suggest a recurrence, a repeat of a previous event? The only people she saw tonight was the production crew at CBS. Baring an extraordinarily bad case of poor judgement by the head’s of the network honchos, it’s a pretty sure bet she’s going to see them again.

    As Cheryl was finishing up (unknowingly) talking to herself, a final thought came to me which brought me out of my altered state of consciousness: I wouldn’t have done better. I shared all of this with my wife and she gave me something I like to call “the spousal stare of contempt.”

    There’s a somewhat obvious lesson in all of this: never voluntarily admit to your wife that you weren’t listening to her.

  • Boy knows best

    Adam was finishing up his dinner and rediscovered a cup of Pringles he had on the side. (It was one of those form fitting cups with a single serving of chips.) He went for a spoonful of chips when I helpfully suggested, “Adam, you can’t eat chips with a spoon.”

    Adam took one look at me, grabbed hold of the business end of the spoon, ground up some chip dust, and took a spoonful of chip-bits with a grin on his face and a gleam in his eye.

  • The primary choice

    With an election looming, we’re hearing a lot about questions we think about every day. Whoa nelly… I knew that little bottle with a child proof cap wasn’t a single serving bottle of Kool-Aid. (They’re making it really thick these days, eh?)

    O.K., so we’re not hearing a lot about day-to-day, nuts and bolts, regular life stuff. This is where I come in…. This afternoon I was thinking about such a question. How do you pick the best lane in traffic? I’m not a terrible driver. I don’t change lanes on a whim. I don’t believe passing cars in an adjacent lane automatically gives me exclusive right-of-way, in all directions. However, when opportunity presents itself I’m not above a bit of traffic speculating; and acting on the outcome of this mental exercise.

    So I was pulling out of my office and immediately got my freak on; I was turning on to US 19 and there was NO oncoming traffic. I was like a kid coming out of the candy store, with a bag of empty wrappers, a five speed manual transmission, and right foot with an itch that needed scratching. That’s right, I’ve got your “vroom-vroom” rie-cheer baby! (Author’s note: “rie” rhymes with “pie.” I point that out just in case you can’t find the phonetic spelling in the dictionary.)

    With this unprecedented room to maneuver and a red light on the horizon I had a big decision to make. Do I get behind the dump truck, the city bus, or the light-truck/commercial vehicle? “Alex, I’ll take ‘light commercial vehicles’ for 500 yards please.”

    The dump truck was a no-brainer, particularly with its middle wheel touching the ground. We all know what that means: it was leaning towards the dump on the fill-dump cycle. It also means it’s doing the quarter mile in nine minutes, so it’s a poor choice to follow. A city bus can be tricky. If it makes a stop it feels like you’ve died and gone to driver’s hell. On the other hand, you get yourself behind some bus driver that’s good and pissed from being cut off all day… you can make some pretty decent time. Alas, those guys seem a bit rare around these parts, so the odds say, “Bye-bye bus.” That leaves the light-truck/commercial vehicle, which in some circles is referred to as a “pick-up truck.” In my experience these are some of the worst drivers (behind cops and the occasional probation officer), so naturally they are the perfect candidates to keep in front of you (if you can keep them in sight that long).

    So I picked the pick-up; and if you are a regular reader you know that the dump truck won the race. (The one that no one else knew was happening but me.)