Category: Just mumbling along

You say it’s your birthday?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
Coming soon to a post-office wall near you.
Coming soon to a post-office wall near you.

A bunch of us enjoyed a mass birthday celebration in Weirdcliffe last night. Herself, as has been recounted elsewhere, turned (ahem) 29 on the 12th. Our burro-racing buddy, Hal, hit the half-century mark yesterday. And tomorrow I will have achieved a venerable 56, like a finely aged cheddar, only smellier and less tasty.

As befits our advanced ages, we gummed down a little oatmeal, did a few shots of Geritol and called it a night around 9 (that’s a.m., not p.m.).

So here’s a tip of the Mad Dog sombrero to Peter for all the Mexican cookery, to Pueblo’s Hopscotch Bakery for the delicious cupcakes and to the Crusty County Sheriff’s Department, which graciously turned a blind eye to the drunken shenanigans in their bailiwick.

Ask not for whom the (Taco) Bell tolls

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments

Glen W. Bell Jr., founder of the Taco Bell chain, has gone to The Big Tortillera in the Sky. He was 86.

According to The New York Times, Bell opened his first Taco Bell in 1962, in Downey, California, and three years later sold his first franchise. In 1978, he sold his 868 Taco Bells to PepsiCo for $125 million in stock. Today, Yum! Brands is the boss, with more than 5,600 locations and 36.8 million customers per week, gobbling up 2 billion tacos and 1 billion burritos per annum. Yum! also owns Pizza Hut, Long John Silver’s, A&W and KFC, so if you get tired of eating fake Mexican food, you can have fake pizza, fake fish, fake burgers or fake chicken as an easy, greasy change of pace.

What with “the Daddy-O of SpaghettiOs,” Donald E. Goerke, shoving off last week at age 83, one might wonder whether God has had enough of people turning His plants and animals into tasteless, chemically “enhanced,” heavily processed foodlike substances. Probably not. Yum! claims to be the world’s largest restaurant company, with more than 36,000 outlets in 110 countries and territories.

One thing is certain. Bell and Goerke sure as hell didn’t make it into their 80s eating the shit they sold to the rest of us.

Apples, loaves and fishes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments

As we chat so enjoyably about $1,500 Macs and $600 image-editing software, my buddy Khal S. makes a good point in comments: “Don’t forget to save a little cash for your local food bank.”

Natural Grocers-Vitamin Cottage, the grocery I patronize most often — and not just because it sponsors a cycling team — has a nifty point-of-sale deal that supports the Care and Share food bank here in Bibleburg. At checkout you simply select the amount you’d like to add to your grocery tab so that some other hungry folks can get a little sumpin’-sumpin’ too and presto: You’ve engaged in an instant, painless act of basic humanity. What the hell, you were already buying something anyway. Couple more bucks won’t kill you.

I’ve been kicking in a few bucks every time I go grocery shopping, and we plan to write additional solstice checks to Care and Share and the Marian House soup kitchen. Can’t give it all to Apple and Adobe. Last I looked, those folks were sleeping indoors and eating regularly.

Ride up grades or buy upgrades?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Doing my part to get the global economy back on its aching feet.
Doing my part to get the global economy back on its aching feet.

Well, since I can’t do the former (too much snow, not enough fingers), I did the latter — went straight to the Apple Store and came home with a smoking Visa card and a brand-new 21.5-inch 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac, the model with the ATI Radeon HD 4670 video card.

Now I’m rearranging the office technology, which is a hodgepodge of ancient hardware and software. The G4 AGP Graphics Power Mac has been relegated to a corner near the drawing board, since I need its Classic mode and copy of Photoshop 4 (yeah, 4) to digitize and color cartoons. The Intel Core Duo MacBook will be relocated to the living room and dedicated to streaming video, a la the Pelkey Entertainment Network.

And the iMac will occupy the place of honor on my desk, hooked to a 22-inch ViewSonic VX2235wm monitor for greatly augmented pixel-pushing purposes. Fat city. More as it develops.

Meanwhile, I see Tiger Woods is taking a break from pro golf, triggering a spasm of shit-fits among the various parasites attached to him. I picture him taking his dick out for a long walk on some Floridian beach, letting it air out, cool down and dry off, all the while trailed by a weeping battalion of lawyers, flacks and other toadies driving golf carts. It will make Sherman’s march to the sea look like a cakewalk.

The forever war?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

Well, there you have it: More meat for the grinder, says the prez (video here). Can’t say I’m happy about it, especially the caveat about withdrawals beginning in July 2001 to be dependent upon “conditions on the ground,” the ground in that part of the world being unstable in more ways than one (earthquakes and crazy mean bastards). Here’s the CIA World FactBook rundown on the joint for those of you who, like me, have never been there.

I like the idea of a deadline: “You have this long to help us kick the bad guys’ ass or you can fight them by yourselves.” Ditto the diversion of American money from the mayor of Kabul — a.k.a. President Hamid Karzai, a gent who by all accounts is so crooked that he can meet himself coming around a corner — to local officials in the boondocks.

I also like the long-overdue recognition of the financial toll here at home: “Um, yes, wars cost money, just like everything else, only more so. This one will be in the budget; we don’t care how the last guy did it. Will there be anything else? May I interest you in some health care, environmental action and jobs, perhaps?”

The fact that the Repuglicans are lining up against the prez should be encouraging, but is not, given their behavior to date. It’s not hard to get a dumb dog to bark.

Dexter Filkins, author of “The Forever War,” appears to have his doubts. So do I. I just don’t articulate them as well.

• Late update: Looks like Steve Benen at Political Animal shares my skepticism.