South Dakota has a new Congresswoman

This is the second time in 2004 that a Democrat has won a special election for a House seat in a so-called Red state. I don't know if it's a trend, but I think it's a good indicator that Democrats are working a lot harder than Republicans, and if this continues, it's going to cost the GOP.

Some of it is the advantage in "soft money" that left-leaning groups hold, but it's more than that. Democrats are engaged on a personal level, which means that people are willing to do things like going out to register voters, knock on doors, work at phone banks. Ordinary people are turning themselve into campaign workers because they feel like they need to.

I have some Republican friends that support the Bush administration, but their support is different. It's not activist support at all.

So this should shape up to be a more interesting election season than I thought it might be, particularly in congressional races. I know it's rigged to favor incumbents, but we might be in for more surprise than we think.

How can I miss you if you won't go away?

This seems like a really stupid idea to me. How am I supposed to feel nostalgic about Stone Temple Pilots when I can turn on any RAWK station and hear their songs from the 90s.

I guess they'll come up with something, but, yawn. I may move the TV to the basement, where there's nowhere to plug it in.

In other news, I found the phone. I didn't even have to call the number to find it, I simply said "Hey, Idiot, is it in your backpack?" I opened one of the zipper pouches and -- lo and behold -- there it was, right next to my keys and my wallet.

I took my backpack to the gym on Thursday and apparently left all mu useful stuff in the pocket. I am such a dork.

Grumble. Pout. Whine.

I mean the important phone -- my cell phone. I'm not sure exactly when I became chemically dependent on the phone, but I at some point, I did. Without it, I'm nervous, even a little twitchy.

Sure, I have a land line, but I don't use it, because it doesn't have my numbers in it. I know exactly three friends numbers by heart: I know Ed's cell because I made a joke about it once; I know ZZ's land line because of the mnemonic, and I know Jesse's cell because I came up with the mnemonic.

So I guess if I want to call anybody, it's going to be one of those three guys.

Or I could just find the damned phone.

I am nothing if not responsive

And I don't think they do. Not sure why, exactly.

I suspect that the shift centers around the advertising dollar. You can cram more advertising into an hour when you are running shows, and if you have your audience trained that something lasts no more than three minutes, they won't sit still during a commercial. It's possible that teevee execs think a viewer is more likely to stay tuned in for show programming.

Seems like every time I flip past MTV I see three seconds of Real World-Road Rules Challlenge, which seems to be a vehicle in which people with very nice bodies exhibit themselves. They are generally wet, or at least sweaty. The most I've seen of this program is looking up from the treadmill at the gym.

VH-1 has become a mish-mash of coundowns and shows about personalities that range from bad biopics such as The Jacksons to Lifestyles of the Loud and Gaudy.

I couldn't tell you what the last actual video I saw was. I think that M2, a division of MTV, still plays videos, but since my cable system doesn't have it, I do not know that for a fact.

Videos used to be pretty cool, though, and the ones that were uncool were dramatically bad.

Why am I still talking about Rick Astley?

Also, back in the 80s he was everywhere. I guess. One of my neighbors had his CD. I, of course, was far too cool for Rick Astley.

So, basically, the whole premise of Awesomely Bad is Totally Bogus. With a few exceptions, the songs on the list are annoying in some way. Some are more annoying than others, but since the list came from a magazine I'd never heard of -- Blender? Is it a magazine about smoothies? -- and they got a buttload of pub out of the deal, and it was a pretty obvious stunt that we all fell for because it's May and there's just nothing good happening in the world of fun.

However, I'm not ready to cede the snark crown to these people. They have to come up with something better than "He stole that voice from a black man!"

-

Are you stalking me? No, I'm being paid to do this by your political rival.

Barak Obama is the Democratic candidate for an open senate seat in Illinois, and it looks like the Republican is scared. I think it's a pretty stupid move, because the best way to put somebody on his guard is to follow him with a camera.

Now, it is perfectly normal for candidates running to the same office to send operatives to their opponents speeches and appearances, but this goes into the realm of paranoia, if you're asking me.

If I were Mr. Obama, I'd get a restraining order, pronto. I'm sure it's not illegal per se, but it might qualify as harrassment.

Still not sure what "awesomely" means in this sense

As I recall, all Rick Astley's songs sounded pretty much the same. Maybe the people making the list thought they were actually naming a different song. Who knows?

Not me.

And now for something completely different...

I particularly like the effort that owners and operators of topless bars in America's Dairyland are making to get their patrons to register to vote, so they can vote against President Bush in November.

I wonder if this effort will spread to other states. I think that would be great.

If you aren't registered to vote for some reason, you don't actually have to go to a titty bar in order to register. Just visit this web site and have at it. Then you can fix yourself a drink, or if you want to you can dance around your house topless. It's still a free country.

Better than picking up my dry cleaning, that's for sure

Food really is a wonderful thing. I made the best dinner tonight. It was very simple, but extremely satisfying in the way that only food you cook yourself can be.

I marinated a package of chicken leg quarters in olive oil, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic and onion overnight, then grilled the pieces. Served with steamed broccoli and home made cheese sauce.

The chicken was so wonderful that I actually ate it with my fingers.

There is something wonderful about enjoying a meal enough that you'll use your fingers.

I guess this means I'm on a poultry kick. Ordinarily I don't like it much, but grilled so that the skin is crispy and the inside is all moist and tender... so very good. I'm all about the grill right now.

Doing another song wrong

Today, I'm wondering how Blender Magazine and VH1 managed to cobble that list together without "No One Is To Blame" as recorded by Howard Jones and Phil Collins.

I will admit to having liked Howard Jones back in the day, where "the day" equals, like, the mid 1980s. Howard Jones had weird hair and a sexless persona. Phil Collins was in Genesis, and by the 90s he was pretty much bald, but he also had a sexless persona.

So they recorded this horrible ditty that's jjust such a downer, but not in a good way. It's the song they must play at the Snivelers Club every night at closing time.

I'll grant you that it's not "Achy Breaky Heart," or even "Never Gonna Give You Up," but it's genuinely bad, and it was a huge hit, because I guess there are a lot more snivelers out in the world than you might imagine.

I'm just saying.

Incidentally, my brother's old band, the Spameaters, wrote a snarky "you done me wrong" song that included the line "you broke my heart so bad that now I sing like Howard Jones. Oh-whoa-oh whoa-uh-oh."

So the next time somebody needs to find 50 really bad songs, y'all know I'm available for a small fee, and I'll throw in the snark for free.

The sweet smell of shame

So I'm taking it to the next level. Next week, I'm going to vote for Fantasia Barrino, because she rocks. I've seen people comparing her to a young Aretha Franklin, and to Billie Holliday.

Now, I don't believe these comparisons for a minute, but the girl can interpret a song, and I think that's cool. She has a lot of potential. Plus, she seems to have the right attitude that it's all basically for fun.

I mean, maybe she's a backstabbing virago off camera, but that's OK too. She's definitely the least cringeworthy of the American Idol contestauchts. I know that's not saying much, but I think she's cool, and I think the other girls are uncool.

Cool + Uncool -Good sense on the part of most AI voters = Koog suffers the general embarrassment of dialing 866-IDOLS-0(X) next week.

In which I taunt the French a second time

This is kind of a big deal; I think I haven't been since, like, September of last year. I stretched, then I spent 45 minutes on the treadmill.

Instead of thinking that I didn't do very much, I'm congratulating myself for actually getting my ass to the gym. Good for me.

I am trying to apply the fundamental technique that got me through three years of having surgery every couple of months. It's really pretty easy, I just concentrate on the moment. Not "this will be done soon" or "I am going to look great in three months" but "I am working out now. Good for me!" There's no if and no when, just the verbs.

Pretty simple. That may be what it takes for me not to see the huge task ahead of me.

Now I'll see it works when it's "I am cooking broccoli. i like broccoli!"

(I do like broc, but j'adoooooore le chou-fleur. Cabbage flower. That's what the French call the magnificent cauliflower. Can you believe it?)

The responses varied widely, which surprised no one.

The other day I happened on an introductory French show on one of the many local PBS stations. I watched for about 90 seconds, during which the instructors were introducing verbs of preference. (This is generally a good way to introduce verbs, or at least that seems to be fairly standard in language classes.)

So one of the teevee teachers says "To make things interesting, we'll see how various people feel about John Tesh."

"J'adooooore John Tesh!" According to this instructional show, the french verb aimer, means "to like." They use adorer as "to love" the way you would love, um, John Tesh, or the Olsen Twins, or that guy from American Idol. Not the way you love your grandmother, which I think would still fall under the rubric of aimer. Please note that I, Koog, do not acutally adooore John Tesh. In any language.

Zut alors.

i was drunk the day my mom got out of prison...

Anyway, when I got in my car to run an errand today my radio was tuned (not by me) to one of those horrible work-safe stations, so as soon as they started yapping, I hit the seek button and landed on a country station. Reba McEntyre was singing "Why Haven't I Heard From You?" in a pretty cool arrangement, so I got to thinking.

It seems to me that everybody should have a favorite song from every genre, because it might help in relating to other people you encounter in your life.

These songs should not be too obvious, but they shouldn't be too obscure, either. I guess I'm still working on it.

As far as the country genre goes, I recommend "Red Headed Stranger," by Willie Nelson, because it contains the immortal sentiment:

You can't blame a man for shooting a woman who's trying to steal his horse.

Updates as I unearth favorite songs from other genres. When I have a favorite polka, we're going to have to celebrate.

... for their patients who chew gum

So the Daily Omelet is a thing of the past. It's too bad; I like omelets. I still want to lose weight, but apparently being diabetic for 20 or so years really screws with one's metabolism. It is very unusual to see a patient swing so wildly from highs to lows, but I may have had the makings of hypoglycemia all along, and they were masked my lack of insulin production.

If I sound like I think food is the enemy, not at all. In fact, I'm totally heading to Krispy Kreme as soon as I finish writing this update. No, I just can't take the easy way to getting back in shape. I'm going to have to determine how many calories I need and at what intervals, which I can do with the aid of my handy blood glucose monitor and some simple math.

And I'm going to concentrate on exercise rather than diet as my road to fitness. I'm not really going back to my old, bad way of eating doughnuts every day for breakfast (namely because there's no QuikTrip with the KK case and the Hot Chocolate Fountain around these parts). I will eat a reasonable diet with foods from all the food group, probably even including some of the things I love, like pho and Vietnamese iced coffee from time to time.

Through the beauty of my gym, which I really do love, I can find at least one class to take every day. Maybe I'll do something different like start running, which is the least likely fitness activity for me ever to do.

Instead of learning to love vegetables, I will have to learn to love exercise, or else I'm going to carry these pounds around, and that would be bad.

So, I tried the South Beach Diet, and it didn't work for me. Look for my copy of the book on a reseller web site near you.

Update from the basement

However, the basement is to a point where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have been able to stick to my plan and not make more work for myself in the process. Typically, about half way through the project I would start seeing the potential to finish the basement into rentable space, or a workshop, an office, a home gym, and the cleaning would never actually get done.

Instead, I am cleaning. Phase two of Operation Basement is to put a bunch of stuff on ebay, so I'm going to start that next week using the front part of the newly cleared space as base of operation.

It's not that I haven't had some delusions about moving down there while I redo my bedroom, but so far I am concentrating on the task at hand.

That's the latest from my life. Hope you all are well and happy.

Live from...

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my wireless router? I do. I love it bunches and bunches.

I did not think I'd get much of a signal down here (really, I just brought the machine down to have iTunes while I clean) but the Airport icon has three out of four bands showing.

Damn. I wonder if my cell phone works down here.

Tell him what he's won. Johnny.

Today's contestant is Green Jester, who seems to be about 25. I'm not knocking his desire to create, just these particular creations. Maybe we'll name the contest after him.

Rainy Afternoon Idea

One we used to enjoy quite a bit on alt.society.generation-x was "what's in your CD changer right now?"So I thought a modern update might be in order. Most everybody keeps music on his or her computer these days, or on portable music playing device like an iPod.

So put yours on random. Start it wherever you want, but after that first song, list the next five songs that random plays for you.

1. R.E.M. -- Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight
2. New Order 5-8-6 [razormaid mix]
3. Bruce McCulloch -- Al Miller
4. Psilonaut -- Third from the Sun
5. House of Pain -- Jump Around

Interesting, isn't it?

before - after