Day 30

Well, here we are at day 30 of the "noble experiment. I can't believe a whole month has passed and that soon a whole year has passed.

As Forrest Gump once said (or would have said): " Bloggin' evr'y day is TOUGH."

I tried to do the every day thing and fell down definitely over the weekends when I just wanted to sleep or had other things to do.

Content. I don't think that I had a total shortage of things to blog about but I ran into time crunches, which made it dificult to expand on things the way I would have liked.

It was good to see some of the other blogs and to read them. I did think it was cool when I created a Massachusetts group at NaBloPoMo that people joined. I wished I could have been more involved there too.

I think that I did accomplish one of my goals for this thing. I will blog more at least once a week if not daily. I did miss it when I stopped doing it more religiously. I also took a step towards next year's goal of blogging every day. If I can blog 15 days out of the month, then I can blog next year for more than 15 days.

That's all for me and NaBloPoMo. See you next year!



BTW-for NaNoWriMO I got to over 32,000 words, which is short of the 50,000 goal but lightyears better than last year's 2611 and 2005's 500.

Second to last day

Today is the second to last day of the 'noble experiment'-to blog every day for a month. I fell short as I am sure many had. November is a funny month-sometimes it seems like nothing happens and then everything happens-especially since people feel the pressure to wrap up everything for the year.

Thanksgiving was solemn, casual, restful and work. While I did not participate in the 'Black Friday' madness, I did make a few small purchases on that Sunday.

Still coasting through the 'On Point' Archives. I surprise myself at how much economic analysis I like to hear...

24 HOURS TO THANKSGIVING

Well, here we are. 24 HOURS to Thanksgiving. Thankfully I am not travelling anywhere. To listen to news coverage, you would think that this was more important than anything else-traveling on Thanksgiving and shopping the day after. I will be making dinner this year. Unlike most people that I have been reading about, I have no worries. While I am not Betty Crocker, I was drafted into kitchen duty at a young age and can make some basic things. Thanksgiving and Christmas dishes were a required part of the curriculum. I did tell the person that will be joining me that he will not be sitting on the couch and watching tv or writing. While I was in bed sick yesterday, I automatically started mapping out his chores which will include dicing and chopping and mixing and table setting. We will be making more than two people should have for Thanksgiving. I don't expect us to eat it all. In addition to celebrating the bounty that we are able to have, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners also serve a way of providing easy to fix meals for at least two weeks. A harkening back to the days when people ate the same day in and day out-the days when you were just lucky to get fed, rather than fuss over what you got.

In addition to hearing on [insert the name of any morning show] about how to avoid taking in too many calories at Thanksgiving, Jasmyne sent out a bulletin on MySpace that covered her feelings about Thanksgiving and "Black Friday."

I agreed with a lot of the sentiments of her bulletin. One of my favorite animated avatars is an Indian clocking a Pilgrim upside the head. However, I see celebrating Thanksgiving as celebrating the idea that we have something to be thankful for, particularly the bounty that we have no matter how big or small and not the landing of those who would wreak genocide upon most of the Native tribes of Northeast America.

As we are on the topic of being thankful for bounty, I really can't take the annual segments on the morning shows where person acting as expert gives hints on new ways not to indulge at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I understand if you have something really wrong with you and you need help on how to cope with whatever illness (e.g. diabetes, lupus, etc), but that is not who these segments are aimed at. They are aimed at many of the women that are already insane with calorie counting and dessert denying to meet that mythical weight, while the menfolks shrug their shoulders and wash it all down. I don't know how many ways it can be said that these are two days of out of a year of eating more than a tablespoon full of food each will not kill you. If you have something wrong with you or if you are in training, sure, plan accordingly. Otherwise, be thankful that you have the opportunity to have what you have and when you have it because many don't. I always find it curious that for the most part, those who both preach the calorie counting and do the interviewing are women.


It is true that Thanksgiving has become a way station on the road to Christmas Shopping land. It used to be that attaching the word "Black" to any day of the week meant that said day was doomed. Now "Black Friday" means "last chance for retailers to get back in the black." Artificially lowered prices, tele and cyber bullying by retailers to get you into the store and spend your money.


I can tell you how my Thanksgiving will play out:
-Cooking (after shower and travel to the Thanksgiving location) to the tune of whatever is on-They Might Be Giants, New Order, REM, Stylistics, 80s and 90s stuff, Holday cartoons

-Calls to family

-Changing into "nice clothes"

-Saying a specially crafted prayer

-Eating-a lot

-Sleeping

-Some walking

-Some sports watching (football and figure skatin')

-Going online to see if anyone has signed up for next week's volunteer projects.

-NaNoWriMo writing

-No "Black Friday" mall trips. Period.

Podcasting and Streaming again

I've been listening to NPR and soaps again as usual.

The Bold and The Beautiful: Of all of the soaps on daytime tv now, this one with the exception of Passions and NightShift is the youngster. Unfortunately, it is the youngster that doesn't understand why it's bad to go 100 miles an hour in a residential area and runs itself off into a ditch and continues to do things that shock, thinking they are being clever and cool but they aren't. I intermittedly listen to the show. They only time I paid exclusive attention was when they had storylines concerning Bridget Forrester, when she was portrayed by Jennifer Finnigan (now Mrs. Jonathan Silverman). Once she left to do Crossing Jordan, I lost interest and I completely hate what they did with her character after she left. Today's story featured the quagmire that is Eric and Stephanie's marriage or rather impending divorce. Mixed in this is the "reprucussions" of a stupid storyline where Stephanie, in order to discredit her longtime nemesis Brooke, hired a creep that ended up raping Brooke and now Brooke's family in their ways want to get her and Stephanie's children somehow found a way to excuse her. This irritated me because it seems that this show plays fast and loose with the issues of rape and abuse-one could argue in a very Beverly Hillsian-Paris Hilton way.

As The World Turns: An excellent example of what happens when you run a car into the ditch and you keep the engine running. The Paul/Meg/Craig/Rosanna storyline is truly irritating. Then I always get irritated when smart people (Meg) do really dumb things for no real reason other than it serves the demeted plot the writers wrote after their bender. This goes for the Carly/Jack/Katie/Brad/Holden/Lily/Dusty quagmire. I have to ask-what toxic chemical are these people being exposed to at the Snyder farm?
None of the Snyders can make a smart move to save their lives except the kids and they are falling prey to their parents' bad programming.

The Young and the Restless: Still the best written soap by far-on CBS at least. Poor Victoria will either lose her life or her long hoped for baby and her parents are the one that have to make the decision and they are divided-Victor wants to save Victoria, Nikki wants to save the baby. Brad, the alleged baby daddy, has no say and for someone like him, that's not acceptable. It will force the issue of paternity.

What I like to do for the show archives for NPR is to pick a topic in each month of each year they have for archives in addition to listening to the daily broadcast. Today has been 'January Day.' Last week was 'November Day.'

What I heard on NPR:

SATs: They chucked antonyms and analogies (which I was really good) and the score was raised to 2400. They included more writing, which is good but is it serving a purpose-this test? I never really found that it did me any real good, the SATs. Personally, I think that if college is being paid for by the college or the government, then SAT testing may make sense. I imagine that it is a good tool to measure what is going on in terms of the education of merican students.

China in Africa: Sounds to me that China found a way to make a profit here and get away with it. I don't see the Chinese government as being particularly benevolent here. I think that they saw a buffet table called Africa's resources and the fact that the West is more interested in being missionaries at a distance in relation to Africa.

The Boston Weblogger November Meetup Group

A great opportunity to meet other local bloggers !

Host: The Boston Weblogger Meetup Group

Date: Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Algiers (cafe)
Street: 40 Brattle Street
City/Town: Cambridge, MA
Phone: 617.492.1557 (Algiers)
Email: alaiyo@gmail.com

Description
This month's meetup will feature a discussion about political blogging and will be led by local blogger, Ofer Inbar, who was a blogger and Internet advisor to several state legislative campaigns.

All are welcome to attend. We will be meeting upstairs at Algiers in Cambridge.

The Boston Weblogger Meetup Group is a monthly meetup group for people that are interested in blogging and meeting others who are interested in blogging. Topics discussed range from blog content to blog software. All interest levels are welcome.

The Boston Weblogger Meetup Group:
http://blog.meetup.com/3/

Give me a break...

There are times where I really hate being associated with Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I heard that Cambridge officials had put a stop to the local Boy Scouts care package drive for the troops in Iraq at polling places because "political messages are not allowed inside polling places."

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, not a fan of the Boy Scouts based on their history of and current practice of discrimination, particularly of homosexuals and not a fan of the war-we need to be out of there.

However, the troops need our support and care packages mean much. The scouts were supporting the soldiers NOT any political world order. IF you substituted "soldiers in Iraq" for "victims of wildfires" or "homeless families," it would be the same act. I think that is must also be said that many of the places where people voted in this past round of anemically attended elections are community places-churches, community centers, etc. where what these scouts did would not be out of the norm.

I don't understand where common sense has gone. The head of the election commission received the complaint from one resident that the message was "pro-war." I saw one of the bulletins in Cambridge mentioning that this was taking place and nothing about it was pro-war. If anything, it was pro-'so while you are taking time out to vote, you can do even more good by dropping something of for the soldiers in Iraq that may be your child, sibling, parent, friend or someone else's child, sibling, parent, friend. The city's law department was consulted and they gave the permission to pull them.

Based on one complaint? A complaint that apparently did not reflect the true language of the flyers? It usually takes a fatality in spite of many complaints for the city to do anything constructive in the interest of public safety but they jump because someone said that they saw care package collection boxes that might have read "pro-war"?

Of course those who have for years been skewering Cambridge for its more radical, liberals elements are having a field day-witness the editioral in the Boston Herald: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1044992

I can't says I blame them.

Those who want to support Troop 45's effort can send funds to purchase the supplies (toiletries etc.) for care packages for the soldiers in Iraq can send them to:

Boy Scouts
Troop 45
P.O. Box 381241
Cambridge, MA 02238.

Of course checks should be made payable to Troop 45.

Tis the season...

Tis the season...

The holidays are upon us. The first harbinger is the annual list of the most dangerous toys in America. Not surprisingly, many of them were made in China.

People are starting to get antsy with Thanksgiving only one week away. This weekend will be "fun." I still have to buy much of the fixins' for dinner and I imagine that much of this will be raped and pillaged by the time I get to shopping on Friday and Sunday. Still, to battle! Fortunately the turkey is spoken for. I ordered it from Bates Turkey Farm, which provides the best turkey in this country. They are located in Alabama and they have been the gold standard for turkey in this family.

Finalizing the Blogger Meetup (http://blog.meetup.com/3/) has been good. I've been posting far and wide about it. A local political blogger will be talking about what he does and how he does it.

I checked out my blog at MySpace and was pleasantly surprised to see that there have been views and other things. I got my highest numbers this time last year when I blogged about my time in New Orleans from November 8-14. I think it was some of my better blogging.

MySpace blog:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&friendID=3592208