All posts by James DeVol

November 28th

Well…It’s been a little more difficult than usual having something to say lately and I really don’t know what the problem is…but I’m going to keep trying until the block goes away….and you’ve seen this before so you shouldn’t be surprised, I’m not but that is because I’m the one that has to live inside this head….and it gets scary in here at times. But, that is another topic for another time. I am getting to really like the Roku my boys bought me…listening to Pandora right now and the last two days have been lots of streaming movies, tv shows, etc. I can see why the cable and dish companies are becoming concerned…if I could get the Red Wings on the thing, I would cancel the dish tomorrow…maybe after the season is over…it is kind of nostalgic to listen to music Sunday mornings; it takes me back to the days on WLAV when they had a show called “Jazz Brunch” that I would put on and read my newspaper to…I’m still waiting for the first commercial on Pandora…the boys said they have them but it’s been a couple of days so far nothing…I’m not complaining mind you, just musing.

Not a lot to do today..it is going to get warm enough to take the bike out again and I have been watching the temp to see when it gets there….going to make a pork loin in the slow cooker since most of the turkey is gone or I froze it to make the turkey soup that I promised to G….need to get back on the veggie thing for a week or so to make up for all of the normal food I’ve been having…does anyone else get tired of pie? That’s about it for now…have to get the rub made for the pork loin and read the rest of the papers so I’ll have topics for later…I should feel worse than I do today…there were manhattans involved last night….more later…

It’s been weird…

Well…with all of the strange things happening over the past few days, I’ve really struggled with working up outrage over politics or really anything; so that’s why you’ve only seen a few of these lately. There is a small bit of one that I might be able to use to get started, though,…with Sister Sarah putting her foot in her mouth once again, this time on the Koreas, I was taken that her reaction to criticism of her gaffe was to tweet about the few times that Obama has misspoken; trying to equate her ignorance and stupidity with Obama’s distracted statements. Really, Sarah? There is not much else to say when the media covers the village idiot with the same gravitas as the president. Does anyone think she’s not running?

Okay….I’ve exhausted what little energy I had…so I’ll come back later and continue…

It’s later….went out for a while to meet up with the twins and V for a couple and to watch Michigan lose…again…to a new place called Farah’s that I’ve never been to…but that is about it for the day…I’ll probable feel lousy tomorrow so there may be a lag in the normal post times…who knows?

November 27th

Well…not much of a day yesterday…did an almost complete veg for the day being sucked into the world of Roku that is quite seductive when you compare it to the normal crap that is on TV…I think I might make it a British tv day today…at least until the Michigan game comes on at noon….and I’m not really looking forward tot he game….I think we’re going to get blown out…but the upside is that Rich Rodriguez should be gone by Monday if it’s really bad….I did have the warning lights come on in the car again yesterday like they did a couple of months ago…I’m hoping they will just go out like they did before…I may try to disconnect the battery and see if they will reset but it’s so damn cold I don’t want to do that until tomorrow…until then, I have the stress that it may be a 300 dollar alternator…

Not much to do today but laundry and the kitchen, of course, after t-day dinner…I did get the superficial stuff done like running the dishwasher a couple of times but the up to your elbows, clean everything needs to be done today…so, as always, a boring day that will be punctuated by disappointment. I will try to get to a couple of topics later….oh, and the Wings won a good one last night where the defense stepped up and held Columbus to one goal….yay…

Okay…just a little car update…just went out to get the newspapers and all of the warning lights are out…well…except for the airbag light that has been on for 4 years….so, one less thing to think about….

November 26th

Well…I know I’m really late this morning but there is a reason for it that I don’t know if I should share…it’s a family thing, extended family really but that doesn’t make it any easier. You know how I struggle with the balance of privacy for my family and friends and wanting to share this weird life…so, I’m going to have to think about this for a while..

I did have a nice Thanksgiving with my boys, made a great turkey and the rest of the stuff and we had a hoot just talking for a few hours…they are all so thin and good looking, but even the youngest one has the starting of gray hair at 23…but, at least they all have lots of hair so maybe they won’t suffer my fate…and, they all went in on a present for me.. a cool little device called a Roku that wirelessly streams Netflix and other stuff to my TV…I guess they couldn’t stand that I was watching that stuff on my computer when I have a perfectly good tv…tried it out and it is pretty neat….they said they wanted to move me at least one foot into the 21st century…more later…

Another thought…

Well…I was either reading or listening to the news the other day and came upon this little tidbit that the righties don’t want you to know…that over the last year, corporate profits have been the highest in the history of the world….yep, under the socialist, anti-business Obama administration, American corporate profits are the highest they’ve ever been…let’s say that again…highest corporate profits…EVER…now, I can’t wait to see the contortions that the repubs will go through to explain away the inconvenient fact that corporations are doing better under the Dems than they did in 8 years under the Bushies. But…I can guess one…that corporate profits are up because the repubs are coming back into control and are going to help business even more…and this fact has removed the new repub talking point “uncertainty”, that too scary state of affairs that has paralyzed everything…please, give me a break…geez…

November 25th

Well…I feel much better today…don’t know if it was bad food or what that was the cause for yesterday’s malaise but what a wasted day. I can’t say not much to do today…have the boys coming over for dinner and have to get the pies started before I go out for coffee…they opened the coffee shop to try it out today so I kind of feel obligated to stop over there….I’ll fill you in on the rest of the day as it goes on…but need to get going right now…more later…

Okay…got the pies done and the potatoes peeled…and wanted to get this thought down before I forget it…I am starting to think our country is completely broken…after reading some comments to an E.J. Dionne column where he decries the lack of civility and the revisionism that the right is now doing with regards to Thanksgiving….these mean-spirited folks can’t, even for one day, just give it a rest, to take the day off and just enjoy…if we could just harness the hate that these people have…we could stop importing oil…

The MAD thing…

Well…lest you think I’m one of those squishy folks that think it is a sin to use American power to further our security ends, this one will put that to rest…I hope. For all of us that have lived through he cold war and the threat of having 20,000 nuclear warheads from the Soviet Union rain down on our heads, this fearful overreaction to a bunch of cave dwellers with a few pounds of plastic explosives is just laughable. I mean, please, we disrupt our whole way of life, give up essential freedom, and spend billions of dollars on scanners and other security measures that are always chasing the last attack while we stand for the humiliation that chips away at the very idea of America. I propose that we stop playing defense…that we get rid of these scanners, the TSA, and stand up like the country that won World War Two…

My proposal is simple…we let the world know that in the event of any attack on any American anywhere, we will spend 6 months finding out who is behind it…and then, whatever country is responsible will have one of their cities turned into a puddle of glass. I know the argument that these terrorists are an amorphous, stateless entity, but they get support from many well-known countries like Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia with money and logistics. A very simple, easy to understand set of consequences…why do you think the Soviet Union with one of the largest armies in the history of the world never attacked us…it was the policy of MAD…Mutually Assured Destruction that made the price too high. I just propose that we again make the price too high…that we stop cowering in our stocking feet being searched like criminals and become Americans again.

The answer to the terrorist’s statement that they will defeat us with a “death of a thousand cuts” is to reply with a death of a million degrees…geez…

November 24th

Well…a long day yesterday and I feel a little crappy today…I did win at pool so that was okay but I now remember why I’ve cut way back on the drinking…just want to stay on the couch today…which I could do but that would be giving in and I won’t do that. So, I’m going to suck it up and get on with the normal stuff….and I am glad there is not much to do today…I do have to brine the turkey but that is about it…so that’s all I’ll do…this isn’t going well so I’ll stop here…more later…

Okay…I’m back for a few minutes…got the turkey in the brine, worked out, and had my coffee and newspapers but I don’t feel that much better…maybe after I have lunch? I am going to take a nap here in a few minutes, that is, after I have some leftover ribs…so, the posts today are going to be kind of sporadic…sorry about that, but you know this happens some Wednesdays…

Top Gear America…

Well…I was going to put a placeholder here until the comments solidified in my head but I think I’ll just start and then come back…this one is going to be about the British show “Top Gear” and its pale, bastardized American version that aired on History this past Sunday night….kind of telegraphed my feelings, huh? Come back after pool in Ada and I’ll complete it…

Okay…I’m back and feeling kind of weird…the chicken I had for lunch may have been borderline…but, we’ll see…if you’ve never seen the show “Top Gear” on BBC America, it a car show with three middle aged men as the hosts; that sometimes like each other and sometimes show the uniquely British contempt that is reserved for the “wankers” that is not only directed at each other but the world as a whole. I think where they are successful is that it is basically allowing these cranky hosts to be the normal, funny people that they are…not the perky, young, always “on” hosts that infest most of American TV. That brings us to the History channel’s americanization of the show, using the young, perky, hosts that I just hate. It starts with Tanner Foust, whose 15 minutes of fame should have been over long ago. The same can be said for one of the other hosts, the never funny Rutledge Wood that I’ve seen and avoided in many Nascar broadcasts, and the other one that I’ve never heard of…the three of them trying to match the smart banter of the BBC show with their own lame version. It only took about 10 minutes of the first episode for me to gag and quit watching it…what’s wrong with having some funny middle-aged Americans hosting the show…or heaven forbid, a woman? Just my thoughts…and I may come back later to say a little more…but if I feel like this, I won’t…one last thing before I head out…the one most important thing that I think the American producers missed is that Clarkson, Mays, and Hammond in the British version are extremely intelligent, well-read individuals, and come across that way…and the hosts of America’s version come across as “Jackass” lite who don’t bring anything to the show but reading the script….does everything have to be dumbed down for us Americans?

Let’s do a little sports….

I’ve been thinking that I need to lighten up a little for a while, or for one post, whichever comes first, so I think I’ll throw out some thoughts on sports….I am getting so tired of Napcar, or Nascar to the rest of the world…can’t we have another champion? The TV ratings are way down and if you look in the stands at the races, you’ll see that they are 30% or more empty no matter where the races are. In my opinion, it’s a result of the sanitizing of the design of the cars they race…they’ve taken the innovation out of it by having such a stringent set of rules. Where are the days when Curtis Turner showed up with a 3/4 scale car that no one could figure out until he parked it next to a rental car of the same make? It used to be an exciting time when you never knew who was going to show up with the next big thing….but now, cars are being disqualified for being 10 thousandths of an inch out of spec…less than the width of a human hair…

Basketball…nope, don’t care about basketball…

Football…well, the Lions are still the Lions but I am hoping that they will at least be competitive on t-day. And, we have Michigan vs. Ohio State Sat but I’m just hoping it’s not a blowout…hmmm…I’m not really offering any insights here…so I think I’ll just stop for a while…I could get to Manchester United but I don’t think any of you out there know or care about soccer…I will say this..they were playing against Wigan yesterday and two Wigan players were sent off with red cards…but Man U only won by 2-0…they have looked terrible all year and I’m tired of hearing about Wayne Rooney bitching about his contract, etc…what has he done in the last year?

That’s about it for now…