Monthly Archives: May 2005

Darwin In Action

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Authorities told CLTV a couple in their 40s had been drinking and were sitting in the front living room of the house when they allegedly decided to light a commercial firework they had obtained and possessed illegally.

The couple then allegedly could not figure out how to extinguish the fuse, CLTV reported. The device exploded, damaging the house and setting it on fire. Neighbors heard the blast, called 911 and rushed to the scene.

…

Carmen Morales, spokesman for Nicor, said the house did not have natural gas service at the time of the explosion. Eichelberger said the dwelling’s electrical meter was locked, meaning there was no electricity to the home. Lights were on, however, in an attached garage.

A for-rent sign was posted in the yard.

Okay. We got us some not-very-bright people sitting on the porch with no utilities, in a house that’s going to be rented out from under them, and they think it’s a good idea to light off something explody that they shouldn’t have had. Frankly, this is behavior you’d expect from crack-addled monkeys or speed freaks, not people old enough to know better.

And, it sounds exactly like the kind of thing a former cow-orker used to do, right down to sitting on the porch of a rented house they were about to be evicted from and thinking up stupid ways to get back at the landlord that had cut off their utilities.

So if it’s not my former cow-orker, who used to entertain us a few years back with lurid tales of bizarre hijinks involving alcohol, illegal drugs, and encounters with local law enforcement, she’s got a soulmate in the southwest suburbs.

Air America In Chicago

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It’s good news for lefties because local talk radio is now dominated by conservative voices. WLS-AM 890 has gradually sloughed off or muted its liberal hosts, while WIND-AM 560 is now a full-time outlet for syndicated right-wing programming.

It will be refreshing to hear steady chatter from Bush administration critics for a change, instead of the defenders and apologists who now dominate the dial. Even though my listening tastes run toward balanced debate and an illuminating clash of ideas and philosophies, I’ll take our side’s agitprop over theirs any day.

But it’s bad news for lefties because AM 850–now oldies rock station WAIT–is a weak, daytime-only station based in Crystal Lake. It sends out a 2,500-watt signal (compared with WIND’s 5,000 watts and WLS’ 50,000 watts) that reaches the west and northwest Cook County suburbs and into downtown, but is weak in much of Lake and DuPage Counties and southwest Cook County.

Eric Zorn is pessimistic because he things the weak signal of the station won’t be heard in downtown Chicago, which is pretty much a bastion of liberal politicos. I’m ecstatic because I live in the northwest suburbs and I’ll at least be able to listen to the show during the day. It’ll be broadcast in an area where people need to hear an alternative to Righteous talk radio.

Sure, I can listen on my computer during the day, but that sort of thing is frowned on at work due to bandwidth problems. So, my verdict is “yay.”

The Big News: 911 Transcript

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The big sad news in the area, of course, is the Vasilev murders. The satellite trucks are no longer gathering for “live updates” and about the only visible sign from the main street in the neighborhood is a white van (no, I’m not driving or walking down there).

It appeared that somebody had set up one of those shrine things for a while – 3 crosses on the corner – but they’re gone.

The Trib published the transcript of the 911 call today – it seems to take forever for the trained operator to comprehend that children had been stabbed by their mother. It’s agonizing. She cannot seem to grasp that he really means it when repeatedly says his children have been stabbed and he needs ambulances. Finally, she (I assume she) gets going with helping Mr. Vasilev and attempts to get him to report on their condition, if the mother still has the knife, and to calm down and breathe.

Sadly, from information that’s already been breathlessly reported in gory detail, it wouldn’t have mattered if the ambulances had rolled the moment he gave his address. He had the presence of mind to give his address the very first thing, too. He really did try to get the important facts across to the dispatcher.

I suppose that living out here in the “safety” of the suburbs, even 911 dispatchers don’t often get horrific calls like this one. It’s usually about a loud teen gathering or a drunk driver at 2am. Not horrors like this.

Crappy Weather And Stuff

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Hey, it’s May already. What’s the dealio with the spittin’ snow? I went to lunch in my car, and when I came back, there were little spitballs of the stuff coming down.

I suppose in a month we’ll be whining about how hot it is, but come on with the good weather, okay?

Under “Stuff” I’ll just add that I’m pretty much done with incessant screwing around with the blog design for at least a few months. I do have a few oddities to fix.

Feel free to stop by the “About” page, I stuck some fan merch links in there just for old times (Highlander) and new times (some new character in the next Star Wars movie).

My Powerful Happy Armpit Hair Death Ray

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happyarmpit.jpg

“You are no match for my powerful happy armpit hair death ray, which I can utilize for only 8,000 yen!” cries your savior, who rides to your rescue on a white coat and sporting a porno mustache. The happy armpit hairs quickly become sad, shaking in fear at what the stranger might pull out of his pocket.

My sister Timmy is not going to understand why this is funny. My sister Tudy is not going to understand why this is funny. My oldest niece Holly will probably get a kick out of it. Let’s love armpit happy! For my Brillo pads appear to have rusted.

I Give Up

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The Good Wife Strikes Back

The Good Wife Strikes Back
By: Elizabeth Buchan
Okay, uncle uncle already. Or auntie, auntie, same deal. I give up on this book. I bought it based on the cute, charming cover art and assumed that it would turn out to be a cute, charming tale of a lady of a certain age who Finds Herself just in time. It had some sort of British/Tuscan storyline hinted at in the jacket, and that seemed like a good start. Currently there are a number of books and movies in circulation featuring charm, villas, good food, good wine, ladies who live large and well, and Romance for people not in the first flush of youth.

Instead, what I got was a story of a political wife who’d just sent her daughter off on her first backpacking trip with friends to Australia and was still trying to come to grips with the social and behavioral demands of being married to a rising political star and member of Parliament. Her every action, word and gesture is scrutinized by the ever-present political aide. It sounds like she’d love to escape from this prison and somehow get back to Italy and take over the family business growing wine grapes, a career that she gave up “temporarily” soon after marrying and finding herself quickly pregnant.

Well, this book may appeal to many women for exactly that reason. But not to this woman. Remember? I’m childfree, though not as crabbily militant about it as I used to be in the days when I hung out with the hardliners online. And I just completely lack the “awwwww, it’s a sweet little baby” gene. And the “tell me all about your 18 hours in labor, with every gory detail” gene. I am just not into mommy-lit.

I figured if the book was clever and charming enough, it would turn out to be a completely diffrent kind of women’s novel. But every time the plot line in the present day would inch slowly forward, the action would shift to the protagonist’s past (Fanny? Was that her name? Can’t be bothered to go look it up). And everything in her past revolved around her increasingly unfulfilling relationship with her husband, and her increasingly more and more dewily fulfilling relationship with her baby. Entire chapters are devoted to the pregnancy, the birth, the rapturous breast-feeding, the tempestuous toddler years, and so on. Frankly, I wasn’t that interested in the kid in the past, but I did want to know what hijinks she was getting up to off in Oz with her girlfriends. She was slightly more interesting when she became a sullen teenager. I have a lot more in common with her than with her mum. And even the discovery of her husband’s infidelity paled in importance in the scheme of her life, because he swore it wouldn’t happen again, and anyway she had her precious child to care for and love. There was no explanation as to why there was just the one kid, though. That must have been in one of the bits I skipped. There’s a nephew and a dipsomaniac sister-in-law to add a bit of hectic upheaval now and then, but that’s about it for lively action in the past.

I started skipping a lot. There was a lot about her father, with plenty of foreshadowing of his inevitable demise before she’s able to realize her dream of growing grapes at his side on the family estate. There was even quite a lot about her first lover, a French wine grower of some standing who pops up in her life again and evidently adds the obligatory “problematic 2nd love interest” that tempts Fanny-whatsername to abandon her husband for good and all. Or something.

It was singularly lacking in charm, this book, even though the writer worked hard to inject some. I have absolutely nothing in common with the protagonist and never found her whingeing the least bit interesting. At about the point when Fanny takes a trip to Montana to visit with her mother and American step-father on their idyllic sounding ranch, I lost all interest, put the book down, and never picked it up again. It’s after this point that she apparently runs off to Italy for a sabbatical from her family and political responsibilities (it seems that in Britain, political wives have to swot up the issues, act as a sort of auxiliary secretary, and yet still look smashing in a little cocktail dress at diplomatic functions).

Gah. This one’s going in the Remaindered pile to be given away via Bookcrossings. Maybe someone else will adore and devour this book. I found it completely unloveable and indigestible.