more cowbell

Jimbo’s girlfriend had the flu last weekend and most of this week. We both figured that it was just a matter of time until I came down with it, too, as I was in close contact with her most of the time she had it. She’s feeling better, now, and went back to work yesterday.

The night before last I was driving home from work and I was starting to feel a little bad and I thought I might have a mild fever. Then, they played Don’t Fear the Reaper, by Blue Oyster Cult, on the radio station to which I was listening.

Many of you may remember the skit on Saturday Night Live re-enacting Blue Oyster Cult’s recording of that song and Christopher Walken playing the part of the music producer who wanted the band to increase the amount of cowbell they included. Perhaps you also remember Walken telling the band, “I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.”

Apparently that was the same fever I had, because I’m feeling fine this morning. To paraphrase Bruce Willis in the Atomic Shakespeare episode of Moonlighting, “I liketh a band that playeth the oldies.”

And we always will, here in Jimbo’s world.

on my hands and knees for you, baby

There’s a story today on Yahoo! about some limey who is crawling 55 miles for love.

Now I don’t know about you, but it is my experience that women like attention, and if you give them attention they appreciate you for it. However, it must be specific attention directed at one woman in particular. Otherwise they think you are a nut, and all your caterwauling gets you nowhere.

Anyway, it appears this British guy is a performance artist who has done some other unusual things in the past. His current adventure will take him thirty days to complete and he will follow the route taken by the pilgrims in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. He is doing this for the dual purposes of finding love and to point out the plight of those who are alone during the holiday season. Apparently, we are told, that sometime during his past he was alone at Christmas and didn’t want to be around his family, so he stayed home alone and prepared fish sticks. This sounds like the basis of a good blues song, but, unfortunately, Elvis covered that territory in Blue Christmas, and said it as well as it could be said. Plus that, it’s been my experience that being around my family can cheer you up at Christmas, no matter how low you get.

It seems our British friend has performed a stunt where he did cartwheels to make everyone aware that people were taking beach rocks to use as landscaping and he kissed a picture of Tony Blair 100,000 times on Election Day. The story points out that our crawling compadre is single.

No shit?

I would like to think that if I were to kiss a picture of Tony Blair 100,000 times that people might look at me askance. I don’t think that is something that would motivate women to want to be around me. If I were to crawl on my hands and knees for love, I’m afraid that any women one would want to be with would suggest that I should crawl on by and continue crawling until I was out of sight.

And, those of you expert in fourteenth century literature would be quick to point out that Chaucer never finished The Canterbury Tales. I wonder if our crawling cockney will endure a similar fate. I would say his heart is in the right place, but perhaps he hasn’t thought this one all the way through.

Good luck and Godspeed, my English friend. I just wish you had given this one more thought.

At least, that’s what we think here in Jimbo’s world.

happy holidays

Merry Christmas

a small phish in a large pond

Well, it finally happened. I guess I have abused PayPal’s policies and ripped someone off again and they have suspended my account. Here is some of what they had to say to me in an e-mail this morning.

...as we try to verify your personal informations. If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choise but to temporaly suspend your account.

I guess I should feel really guilty. I guess I should respond and give them my personal information. What harm could they do if I give them my user name and password? Oh, and why can’t PayPal spell or use proper grammar?

Unfortunately for them, I’m too slick for them to catch me. I’m going to sleeze out of this one. One way I’m going to do it is by not sending them my user name and password. I'm going to squirm out of this one because in addition to being too slick for them, I don’t have a PayPal account, a user name nor a password to send them, anyway. I just hope their phishing trip doesn’t net them any big phish. I just hope the CIA is on their spamming list.

That would make it a joyous holiday season for all of us here in Jimbo’s world.

lullaby of ebay land

I had an Ebay account once. As a matter of fact, I probably still do. I just haven’t logged on for a few years, since the primary reason I use Ebay is to find out what certain items are currently selling for. I can do that without logging on.

It is my opinion that Ebay is probably the best thing that has happened to commerce and e-commerce in the twentieth and so far in the twenty-first century. However, there is one caveat. Ebay has opened up previously unexplored territory in person-to-person and business-to-business and business to person online commerce. In doing so, it has unleashed bands of desperados stalking the Internet, trying to steal everyone’s money in the name of Ebay. Using the marketplace provided by Ebay these low lives have corrupted this Internet swap meet much the same way AIDS messed up free love.

Every week or two I get a very official-looking e-mail from Ebay complete with logos and not distinguishable from the official site. These e-mails tell me my account has been suspended for some little peccadillo I have foisted upon someone and asking me to respond with my user name and password. The e-mail I received today tells me that I ripped off someone by selling them a Pep Boys gift certificate that was no good. Since I have never purchased or sold on Ebay, this is likely not a valid complaint, or e-mail for that matter.

I once went on Ebay’s site to try to tell them about this, but the mechanism isn’t there to do it. You have to figure Ebay knows it is happening, but they obviously are powerless to do anything about it.

Many of you are probably asking right now, “Jimbo, what do you want us to do about this?”

I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose. I just needed to bitch about it, I guess.

Bitching is something we do well, here in Jimbo’s world.

dying laughing

Knowing that the movie The Producers is in theaters this weekend and knowing that I will probably go to see it sometime soon, I TiVo’d the original 1968 movie. It was showing in that 2:30 am time slot Thursday morning—the one coveted by advertisers-- on AMC. It had been a while since I had seen this movie, but I watched it on Friday. Although I’ll bet they will have changed a few things in the new version to update it, the movie pretty much stands the test of time. However, I came to one inescapable conclusion:

Dick Shawn was frigging weird.

You may (or may not) recall that Dick Shawn played the part of Lorenzo St. Dubois, whom everyone called by his initials, L.S.D. He was cast in the role of Hitler in the stage production of Springtime for Hitler, the play in the movie that was to be a sure-fire flop. In the movie, the play was a success because when Shawn took the stage, people had to stop and stare, point and laugh. This is because Shawn, and I’m sorry to repeat myself, was just so frigging weird.

Friday evening, in the course of a conversation, I asked, or was asked, whatever happened to Dick Shawn? Thanks to the Internet we were able to research his life and find out that he is no longer with us. As a matter of fact, he died at his craft. Although one could say he died laughing, it would be more accurate to say he died making other people laugh.

He who laughs last laughs best, it is said.

It seems as if Shawn was onstage in San Diego in1987, doing a monologue about the holocaust, when he had a heart attack and died. From what I read, it took people a while to realize that this was not just a part of the act. One of the versions I read said that audience members laughed as he lay there dying. While this might seem too incredible, I would like to emphasize that Dick Shawn was frigging weird.

I guess, in retrospect, if comedy is your game, then dying laughing or going out to the sound of laughter may not be the worst fate in the world.

I’m just sorry Shawn is not still around today. Maybe he could loosen up some of the people in the Bush administration. Perhaps he could perform his holocaust monologue for the leader of Iran. You don’t see the leader of Iran laugh much. Perhaps he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, or perhaps he doesn’t believe that a little laughter makes life better. Maybe he doesn’t believe in the holocaust any more than the religious right believes in Darwin.

You know, maybe Dick Shawn wasn’t so weird after all.

recipes for quick holiday meals

It’s a snowy Saturday afternoon and here at chez Jimbo’s girlfriend, we are staying inside and trying not to venture out into the cold. Knowing that we both are going to be hungry sometime in the next hour or two and knowing that we really don’t want to go outside if we can avoid it, I am making my famous chili for supper. You recall that I gave you the recipe for my chili earlier this year. Here is the link.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/01/jimbos-chili-like-coat-from-cold.html

As I was putting the finishing touches on the repast, my girlfriend made a comment about holiday meals and suggested I could make chili again on Christmas Eve. I told her I could make it every night, if she wanted me to. I compared the chili to poker tournaments. I told her I occasionally play tournaments and usually don’t do well, but each time I play, I get a little better. I told her that if I made chili every night that I would improve a little each time.

It was about that time I realized to my horror that if I made chili every night, we’d get bored with it after a while. That’s when it occurred to me that I have an obligation to bring you good readers some quick and easy meals for these days leading up to the holidays, when you don’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen.

I’ve decided that I’ll give you the basics of preparing my two super-quick favorites, cheeseburgers and fries and tacos and burritos, and I’ll show you a trick that can bring these items to your table at a substantial price savings.

First of all, you need to go to your local grocery store to pick up the needed ingredients to make these fast meals. First and foremost, make sure you stock up on plenty of drinks. I like the idea of the two-liter bottles which will give you several meals, depending on how many of you there are, but the aluminum cans work well too. You have the option of picking up whatever varieties of drinks that fit your palette. Remember, while you’re at the store to pick up some chips and dip and maybe some cheese cubes or blocks of cheese you can cube. Don’t forget to get a wide variety of crackers, too. And candy! Whatever you do, don’t forget some candy. As you know I am quite partial to M&Ms, plain, peanut and almond. If they make any other kinds I’m sure I like them, too. Maybe you should stop by the liquor store on the way home and pick up some wine to go with the cheese and some beer. I personally like Michelob Ultra in bottles, but keep in mind your own personal favorites and those of your family.

Anyway, after you’ve bought all that stuff, your budget may be strained, and here comes Jimbo to the rescue.

Cheeseburgers and fries

I’m going to give you the recipe for enough food for one person. Just multiply the amounts in the recipe by however many there are you are feeding.

First, you drive into the drive-through at Wendy’s and drive up to that post in front of the large illuminated menu and stop so the post is right outside the driver’s window of your vehicle. If you haven’t rolled down your window, do so at this time. You’ll hear a voice at this point that will say something like this:

“Welcome to Wendy’s. Would you like to try the combination today with the super-sized drink?”

Now, you are allowed to substitute other brands, so they might say McDonald’s, Hardee’s, Burger King, etc. No matter where you are, however, the initial spiel will be approximately the same. And, hell no, you don’t want the super combination deal, because when they throw in the drink, the cost of the meal goes up. That’s why I had you buy your drinks earlier. By buying your drinks at the supermarket you are going to save a butt load of money. But, just remain calm at this point and say:

“No, thank you. I would like the single with cheese, with lettuce and tomato, and a regular order of fries.”

The voice on the speaker will ask, “Can I get you a drink with that?
You remain firm, but polite at this point and simply reply, “No, thank you.”

The voice at the other end will then say something like, “Would you like mayonnaise on that cheeseburger, sir (or madam, if you aren’t male)?”

Dear God, no! This is America and generations of Americans have died so you can have the freedom not to eat your cheeseburger with mayonnaise on it. I believe it is your constitutional right—no, your constitutional duty—not to eat mayonnaise on your cheeseburger. But, instead of taking the flag and waving it over your head as you swear oaths, remain under control and simply say, “No, thanks.”

The voice coming out of the speaker will now ask, “May we supersize those fries?”

Perhaps, if your are really hungry you could say yes, but I would recommend that you stick with your original plan and politely say, “No, thanks.”

At this juncture, you are probably saying to yourself, “What kind of diabolical scheme has Jimbo gotten me into? Is it too late to turn and run? Wouldn’t it seem a better plan to fall to ones knees, raise ones arms to the heavens and shout to our deity to deliver us from this evil?”

Relax. You are home free. The next thing you hear the voice say will be, “That will be $3.49. Please drive through.”

At this point, you just drive to the window, exchange your money for your food, drive home and eat it. Wash down your repast with the drinks you bought earlier and you have just had a quick meal and saved money doing it.

Tacos and burritos

Drive to you local Taco Bell. You may have some other options, but from a financial point of view, you can’t find a less expensive meal than the one you’ll get at Taco Bell. Again, as with the previous recipe, it feeds one person. Multiply by the number of people you are going to feed. Drive up the illuminated menu and there will be a post with a speaker next to the driver’s window of your car. The voice at the other end will say the following or something similar:

“Good evening and welcome to Taco Bell. Would you like to try the super combination with three taco supremes, one burrito supreme and a super sized drink?”

You reply, “No thanks. I’d like two crunchy tacos and a bean burrito, please.”

The voice will respond, “Would you like anything to drink with that?”

You answer, no thanks and they give you your total and tell you to drive to the window. Your total will be less than three dollars per person. You can’t do any better than that. You take your tacos and burrito home and eat them, washing them down with the drinks you bought earlier.

Obviously, with either of these recipes, you can make some changes. Just be sure not to order any kind of a combination with a drink, or you’ll defeat the whole purpose of the economy we’ve just achieved. You’ll find both of these recipes to be quick and convenient, economical and good.

Just think about old Jimbo and all the time and money he saved you as you nourish yourself and your loved ones. Happy holiday eating.

snow for christmas

In the heart of America, we don’t have snow for Christmas very often. Most years we went Christmas shopping at the stores downtown and the only snow was the plastic variety in the window displays of all the stores up and down the avenue. Every storefront on the street was transformed to a Christmas scene or jammed with special presents which to give those precious and close. The only exception was the Army Recruiter, in whose window was depicted a battle scene, made up of tiny soldiers killing each other. The centerpiece of the battle scene was a tiny soldier with a flamethrower from whose weapon streamed a colorful red and orange arc, which rose across the battlefield and fell on two small warriors, causing their immolation.

I can remember a couple of times when I was a child that we had white Christmases. The first one was when I was just eight or nine and I remember the big snowflakes falling, being highlighted by the streetlamp across the street from our house on Christmas Eve. We played in the street, under the streetlamp, while the snow piled up on the ground. When we woke up the next morning, the snow had stopped and the sky was clear, blue and cold. I remember on Christmas morning the snow was knee-deep and I spent most of the morning running through it.

My father always drove a pickup truck. He had a blue 1950 Chevrolet he had bought used, that someone had painted with a brush, because the brush marks on the hood and fenders were obvious. There was a sheet of plywood in the bed of the truck, to cover holes in some of the wood slats in the bed that were broken or rotted away. The truck had a rack over the bed made up of 2” steel-galvanized pipe, for carrying boards, ladders and pipes. The truck was old enough that the ignition key had only two positions—on and off. To start the truck, one turned the ignition to the “on” position and pressed a small starter pedal on the floorboard to turn over the starter motor. It had a three-speed manual transmission with the stick shift on the column.

My memory is a little hazy, but I believe it was that truck in which my father and I set out in the snow a day or two before Christmas a long, long time ago.

There was an area of town called Armourdale, which received its moniker from a family named Armour, who were meat packers. Armourdale was a small town that was merged into the metroplex, but the area retained the name, despite the fact the city as an entity ceased to exist. There were some diners, bars and some stores in the Armourdale district where bargains were available and dad went there in order to buy a Christmas present for mom. He took with him his eldest, and only, son.

It would seem that an impressionable young man would remember exactly the year of that Christmas and remember exactly the gift purchased by his father for his mother, but I don’t have a clue. I just remember the lights in the store windows and on the buildings and houses in the area. Even though it was the middle of the day, the overcast and the falling snow made it seem to be almost dark and all of the Christmas lights were glowing. I could speculate about the gift, as there were no jewelry stores or fine clothing stores in that area. It would probably have been something along the lines of an electric frying pan or some sort of utilitarian kitchen item. Back then we didn’t have hot and cold running money, so the gifts dad gave mom were not luxury items.

I remember walking through the snow and into the stores and not spending a lot of time shopping. As his son would decades later, my father would walk into a store with the idea of the item for which he was looking, pick it off the shelf, pay for it and go. Our shopping trip was brief and mom’s present—like thousands of Christmas presents before and since—was temporarily in the possession of the giver but destined to be in someone else’s possession soon.

Before we took the present home, however, dad drove a few blocks to a place he had an obvious familiarity but which I entered for the first time. It was a tavern where we took seats at the bar. We took off our coats and laid them on empty barstools. The man behind the bar exchanged words with my father indicating they knew each other well—so well, he put a brown bottle on the bar before my father without dad ever telling him what he wanted. The bartender placed beside the brown bottle a small clear glass. The bartender looked at me and dad asked me what I wanted. I asked for seven-up and the man behind the bar opened a green bottle, set it in front of me and put beside it an identical glass to my father’s. I saw my father pour some contents from his brown bottle into his glass and I did the same from my green bottle. Dad took a drink and I did, too.

I sipped from the clear effervescent liquid in my glass while my father drained his in a couple of gulps and refilled the glass. While I continued to nurse my seven-up, dad refilled his glass and drained it again. He poured the remaining contents from the bottle into the glass and the bartender whisked away the brown bottle and replaced it with another. My father and the man behind the bar had chatted occasionally since we arrived, but I hadn’t heard either of them say anything about needing another bottle. My father was a man of few words.

I finished my glass and poured in some more soda. My father continued his routine of drinking and refilling. The bartender displayed a small bottle of whisky and asked dad if he wanted a “Christmas” shot. My father declined. When my father drained the last of the contents of his second bottle, the bartender removed it, without words and without replacing it with another. Dad emptied his glass and the bartender took it away. I poured the last of the contents from my green bottle into my glass and the bartender removed the bottle. Dad and the bartender made small talk as they waited for me to empty my glass. When the glass was empty, dad put some coins on the bar and the bartender took them along with my glass. Father slid off the barstool, and stood up, so I did, too. We put on our coats and went back outside into the falling snow.

My father usually worked two jobs when I was a child and he seemed to work a lot of overtime at his primary job, so he was not around much of the time. When he wasn’t working, and his time was his own—which wasn’t very often—he would spend his time on a barstool. Looking back at it, taking me to one of his favorite places and spending some of his precious time with me there was probably, in his mind, the best Christmas present he could give me.

All I know is this: I can’t remember what we got my mother and I can’t remember any of the other gifts I received that year, but what I can remember is my dad and I having a drink together and I remember having snow for Christmas.

putting the OT in psychotic

A couple of weeks ago I railed on about the marquee in front of a local church. There was an insane question posed on this marquee, which I couldn’t understand. Here is the link to the blog in case you don’t remember.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/11/on-news-media-doughnuts-lotteries-and.html

I ran into my son on Friday night and he mentioned reading the blog and he was able to use almost psychic powers to help me understand what I couldn’t on that recent Sunday morning. Here is what was on the marquee.

Why do you never see the headline psychotic wins lottery

Whoever put the words and letters on the marquee must have put in some OT in order to get it done, because if they had not put the letters o and t in the word psychotic, it would have been psychic and would have made sense.

It has also led me to question why we never see the headline, “billionaire wins lottery?” I wonder, at around seven on Saturday evening, if Bill Gates or Warren Buffett don’t look at the clock, and shout “Oh, crap!” Then, they run for their car and head down to the Seven-Eleven to buy their Powerball ticket.

Your first reaction might be that they probably don’t buy Powerball tickets, and that’s why you never hear of either of them winning. I would offer a different explanation. Because there are so few billionaires, the odds of one of them winning is miniscule. I say that they probably play, just like the rest of us do.

Bill Gates probably goes into his convenience store in Washington, puts a dollar on the counter and says, “Quick pick for tonight, please.”

The middle-eastern guy behind the counter recognizes him and starts telling him about a problem he is having with Microsoft Outlook as he hands the ticket to Mr. Gates. Bill listens for a moment, says “reboot,” and walks out of the store.

In Omaha, Warren Buffett drives into his local gas station, counts out four quarters, lays them on the counter and says, “Powerball quick pick, my friend.” The Indian behind the counter prints out his ticket and asks if Buffett can get him a deal on a leather sofa at Nebraska Furniture Mart. Warren Buffett tells him that they are going to run the eighteen-months-same-as-cash promotion next weekend and that is as good of a deal as anyone can get.

Bill and Warren probably thumb through the Sunday morning paper to look at the numbers. Bill will probably tell his wife, “I got two numbers, but that doesn’t pay anything.”

Warren compares his ticket to the numbers in the paper and says, “I guess I’m just not very lucky.”

And, once again, no billionaire wins the lottery. And we can all hope that no psychotic wins either.

bush wins heisman?

I saw a headline on Yahoo! this morning that made me rub my eyes. But when I wiped the sleepy from my ocular orbs, it still read the same. I didn’t have time to read the story, but here was the headline.

Bush Wins Heisman

Now, for those of you not familiar with college sports, the Heisman is the award for the top college football player in the nation. I haven’t followed college football (nor professional football for that matter) this year, so I didn’t even know who the candidates were, but it was always my assumption that the person who won the award had to be a current college player. You can bet I won’t start following college football anytime soon if they are going to hand out this prestigious to the President of the United States.

Back in my day, it took a really special athlete to win this award. Dubya is way too old to be able to strap on the pads and go out there every week. I am just concerned there were some shenanigans in the Heisman voting this year—probably something like what happened in the 2000 Presidential election.

Hang your head in shame, New York Athletic Club. Hang your head in shame.

I am tempted to read this story to find out how he pulled it off, but I can’t dignify this injustice with any more of my time. I’m sure there were some fine athletes who deserved this award more than our President and it is a pity one of them didn’t achieve their due recognition.

At least that’s our opinion here in Jimbo’s world.

out of whack

Several times in the last couple of weeks at work, I’ve heard people say that something was “out of whack.” In each instance, I was reasonably certain what they meant, but in each case I couldn’t help but think about the parameters of “whack.”

Unless you work under different circumstances than I do, you’ve probably never heard anyone say something was in whack. Is there a metric we can use to determine the dimensions and the boundaries of whack? Is it time in our society for us to define what whack is?

Now, don’t get me wrong. When someone says something is out of whack, I usually know what they mean, even if I can’t define the exact guidelines of whack or find the exact terms to describe it.

Perhaps whack is supposed to be nebulous and is one of those words that can be used to describe anything that is not good, when proceeded by the words “out of.” Having been around during the 1960s, I remember another phrase that was used back then. The phrase was “out of sight,” usually shortened to “outta sight.” It simply meant that something was good, rather than indicating its being hidden from view, although the phrase could also mean that it was hidden from view. There were a couple of expressions in common usage back then that had multiple meanings. I would cite, for example, the word “bad.” Although, in context, the word could mean something was not good, it could also mean something was good.

For example, when someone showed up driving a really nice car, sometimes observers would say it was a “bad” car, meaning it was a very good car. While many of you would conjecture that in modern times such imprecision of language is not seen, I would argue that I remember seeing and hearing Dr. Dre refer to something as “dope,” meaning it was good. Back in my day when you hollered, “dope” at anyone without an interrogative inflection it was considered not to be an act of friendship. If you heard the word used with the interrogative inflection, it was considered a solicitation to buy or sell and those people who said it should be avoided to all extremes.

So if something is out of whack, then that is bad, but if something is out of sight, then that is good. If something is bad, it can either be bad or good. But, I’ve gotten off track again. Let’s get back on the subject of whack.

I’m wondering if we ought to create a six-sigma-type code for the measurement of whack—whether something is not within tolerance and therefore out of whack or something is within acceptable boundaries and therefore in whack. Or, perhaps I have complicated this too much and made too much of a big deal of it. Maybe I should be quiet now, before someone says this weblog has gotten out of whack.

Because the last thing we want to do is be out of whack here in Jimbo’s world.

internet commerce dying on the ruins of missolonghi

I hope to God I didn’t watch the commercial possibilities of the Internet die before my eyes today. I also hope my resurrection of Eugene Delacroix for the second time in as many months is not too much of a stretch. I’m sure that most of you have an academic familiarity with Delacroix’s painting Greece Dying on the Ruins of Missolonghi and the story behind it. You may recall that the people in Missolonghi destroyed their own town. Like those nineteenth century Greeks, I’m afraid that certain internet retailers may have inflicted wounds upon themselves.

I remember back to the mid-1990s and my first windows-based computer. I bought it for the spreadsheets and the word processing program, but it had a phone cord which I plugged it into the wall jack when I was assembling the machine and connecting all the wires. A free trial subscription to an internet service came with the computer, so I logged on. It was pretty neat and it changed my mind about the internet.

Prior to that, my vision of the World Wide Web was a couple of geeks typing code into their computers tied together with 9600 baud modems and talking geek talk to each other. I was favorably impressed with the internet during my first venture inside, even though I was only surfing around inside my internet service provider’s pages. When I finally figured there was a bigger world out there and wandered into it, I was even more impressed. Still, I thought, this is just some fancy toy, useless for anything practical, but fun to explore.

It was about that time I saw some guy on television—Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com—talking about the commercial possibilities of this new medium. Yeah, I thought, nice going, geek. You are using the internet to sell, of all things, books. Won’t people start reading things on line and won’t that hurt the sales of traditional print media? Books, for example? What a dork! Now, there was a guy who wasn’t looking very far down the road. The guy that was interviewing him had the same thought I did and asked if there was a future in his business. Bezos said there was. Then he said he could use the Internet to sell other things, too, besides books. All of a sudden the dork on the television metamorphosed into a genius before my eyes.

Oh, my God! A light went off.

It was like the first time I saw a woman naked. I spent the next few years piling money into the stocks of e-commerce companies with some successes and some failures. I was only disappointed that the Internet never seemed to gain the level of acceptance as a commercial tool as quickly and universally as I expected it would.

Anyway, it is ten years later and my zany kid sister told me she tried to buy some things on line and had trouble and was not able to complete her transaction. Ironically enough, she was shopping at Mr. Bezos’ store. She asked me if I would order an item for her and I said I would. The purchase went as smoothly as imaginable. A couple of clicks and the order was placed; the next day I received confirmation of shipment. After getting the confirmation, I dropped by the website of Best Buy, where I have made scads of Internet purchases and I bought a Christmas present. It was smooth as silk. I received confirmation that my order shipped the next day. Oh, my silly younger sister! Had she only put a little more effort into her shopping it would have been as easy as my own.


My sister’s present arrived by US Mail, and Saturday morning; there it was in the mailbox. Unfortunately, that happy moment was the last. I reached into the mailbox and removed all the other mail and then tugged at the package. It would not come out. We have one of those community mailboxes where everyone has their individual box with a locking door on the front. While the postman had no trouble fitting it diagonally into our box from the back side through a door that opened to expose all of the individual boxes, the package was more than one inch too big to fit through the framework on the customer side. If I could have bent the package in half, I could have gotten it out. However, knowing what it was and that bending it would be synonymous with breaking it, I had to leave it there. I put a note on the package (reaching through and putting the note on the postman’s side for legibility and easy notice) asking the postman to put the package in the door of our house. It was not read or it was ignored and the package was still there the next afternoon. I took off work early the next day and went to the delivering post office to explain the problem. The following afternoon the box was in our door. I figured this was one rare setback, and one could blame the postal service. This could have happened to a mail-order order from Sears fifty years ago, so it could be argued that it was not necessarily related to the Internet.

On that same day, there was a sticky note on the door from UPS, in addition to the Amazon package being inside the door. The note from UPS said that someone over twenty-one needed to be home to sign for the package before they could deliver the Best Buy parcel. I wrote a message on the sticky note, telling the UPS man to put the package in the door (as he had lo those many previous deliveries), as there would not be anyone home to sign for it. Then, I sent an e-mail to Best Buy telling them of the problem. I’ve ordered dozens of things via Internet from Best Buy. Never before have the shipments come with the prerequisite that I had to stay home from work in order to receive them.

The next day, there was another note on the door from UPS. It had a phone number to call. I called the number and they advised me that I could pick up the package at a local UPS warehouse. While there was a time I would have embraced going to the area where the UPS warehouse is, and bragging afterward how I had gone in and come back out alive, from where I live and work, that trip would be a major inconvenience. Earlier in my life I would have welcomed the opportunity to chat with the whores who troll the corner where the UPS warehouse stands. At one time I would have enjoyed trying to guess which of them were actually men in drag and speculating on what sort of weaponry both the males and females were sporting. At this point of my life, such danger holds no appeal.

When I opened the response to my e-mail from Best Buy, their non-answer was for me to contact UPS. Here is what I responded.


The story goes that the management at Archer Daniels Midland had an organizational mantra that the customer was the enemy. Obviously one or more of them who escaped prison must have found a job in management at Best Buy.

Picking this package up at the UPS terminal is going to be a wasted couple of hours for me and the irony is that had I picked up this item at one of your stores, it would have taken less time and been more convenient.

Thanks for nothing.


So much for the convenience of Internet shopping. I’ll be taking the day off work on Friday and going down there to get my package. I heard last week on the news in a story about cyber shopping that it is safer to use your credit card to buy something on line than it is to use it to purchase something at the mall. It may be safe and it may be easy, but we still have some kinks to work out.

It could be easily argued that the problem in both cases rested with the traditional media of delivery rather than with the on-line merchants. However, having had some experience in supply chain management I contend that the deal is not done until the purchased item is resting comfortably in the hands of the purchaser. While many other of the supply chain managers out there are wanting to remind me at this point that settling up the money is usually the final step, in a internet transaction, the money changes hand prior to shipment. No matter how good of a product you have and no matter how much I want it, the marriage of supply and demand doesn’t consummate until you have my money and I have your product. The online retailers, in order to achieve that nirvanic state of excellence, must guarantee all the links in their supply chain are in place to do that.

Thank all of you for listening to me bitch, which is something we do well and often here in Jimbo’s world.

...and a chicken in every pot

On Friday, the government reported statistics that would indicate that the job market is robust. The unemployment rate is near an historic low at 5% and the economy appears to be growing (at a 4.3% rate in the third quarter). On the news Friday night I saw a report that said workers were in short supply in certain areas and that jobs were going unfilled. Oh, yes, and inflation is under control. This, many of you might conjecture, debunks much of the doom and gloom about which Jimbo has moaned and groaned over the past year. Based on these data, it appears that life is good and that the current administration is doing a superb job of managing the economy. I can only borrow a phrase from that rotund young man, Eric Cartman to describe my feelings about the accuracy of the government’s statistics.

“That’s a bunch of crap.”

Mark Twain said that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. I have not seen around me evidence that there is an economic boom. I have always asserted that the unemployment numbers reported by the government are based on claims for unemployment insurance. I contend that the number would be higher if people who are not eligible, don’t file or have run out of benefits were included, and my own empirical data have brought me to come to a different conclusion about the economy.

As a minion of a manufacturing company that has difficulty paying its bills and whose management frequently reminds us we are navigating through troubled waters, it is my habit to look through the want ads in the Sunday morning newspaper to see what else is available. I can’t help but notice that the employment advertisement section of the paper continues to get smaller. As far as jobs in my own field, there are rarely more than one or two and they are rarely better than the tenuous one I already occupy.

When they announced to us last week that our health care benefits would be reduced after the first of the year—resulting in what is basically a salary reduction for everyone—they pretty much told us it was “take it or leave it.” They could do that, knowing that because of a tight job market, we would, for the most part, “take it.” After work on Friday, one of the senior managers told a group of us that he would be hit hard by the change. Then he told us that the company hadn’t given us raises for years and that they had been reducing benefits as well. He said that, perhaps, if things turned around and our business picked up, that perhaps the salary increases and improvement of benefits would follow. I don’t think he actually believed it, and none of the rest of us bought into it either.

Being new at the company, I was not aware that we were not getting raises. At job offer time, the HR Manager didn’t tell me that and my boss indicated he had the authority to give us salary increases commensurate with our performance at any time he saw fit. Unfortunately both of those people have been laid off since I came aboard and the part about raises, I notice, was omitted from my offer letter.

When we go to the grocery store to buy food and go to the discount store to buy necessities, I can’t help but notice the price of most everything is going up. When I look at the financial stability of our country, I can’t help but be concerned.

By the way, the area where workers are in such short supply and that jobs are going unfilled is New Orleans. This is a city of half a million that is currently occupied by 60,000 people—many of them construction workers, clearing debris and rebuilding. Well, duh. Of course workers are going to be in short supply under those conditions.

As the government has cut our taxes, telling us that this is “our” money and it should be returned to us, somehow they have managed to piss away billions and billions on themselves, looting the treasury and social security fund. You can figure that when they have spent every last dime, they’ll slither away like serpents and leave a mess for the Democrats to try to fix.

“Well, Jimbo,” I’m sure many of you are saying right now, “You certainly know how to brighten up a Sunday morning. Do you have any predictions of Armageddon or thermonuclear war?”

Well, no. I do have a prediction of better times, though. Like a cheap trollop or a gold digger, when all our money is spent and our debt is even more astronomical, this administration will take out a third mortgage, take the money and our car and book it out of town. They’ll leave us with our pockets turned inside out and not knowing where our next meal is coming from.

“How, Jimbo,” you may ask, “does that qualify as ‘better times?’”

Well, at least we won’t have to look at Dubya’s dumb-ass sneer on the television, telling us how good we have it.

At least, that’s our take here in Jimbo’s world.

o xmas tree, o xmas tree

Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said that a Christmas tree by any other name would still be as pretty? Or did he say, holiday tree? Maybe it was someone else. Maybe I’m confused on this one.

What I’m not confused about, however, is that there is some serious insanity going on between hard-line Christians and hard-line others about what to call that tall green thing with all the lights and balls on it.

You may recall that last year, a similar argument raged and here is what I had to say about it and a couple of other things during the holiday/Christmas season in 2004.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/12/christmas-bloody-christmas.html

It seems to me that we have the right to celebrate the season the way we want. We have the right to believe what we want to believe, but when it comes to the point of intolerance of the other fellow’s point of view, then somehow we have lost the spirit of Christmas.

This is the season of peace on earth and goodwill toward men (or women, if, like me, you share an affection for a member of the fairer sex), and it’s time to put aside all the fussin’ and fightin.’ Let me enjoy the season the way I want and I’ll let you enjoy the season the way you want. If I want to call it a Christmas tree, that’s my right; if I want to call it a holiday tree, it’s my right, too. If you want to call it Xmas, feel free. Just don’t tell me what I have to call it, and I won’t tell you what you have to call it.

There are places on this planet where the theocracy dictates how one is to celebrate religious holidays, but not in this country. Despite whatever you hear from Dubya, we’re still a free country and we have the right to religious freedom. If you are reading this in some country that doesn’t enjoy the same religious freedom we do, you have my sympathy. That freedom is ours and we are going to keep it, despite attempts from both sides to mold the season into their own image.

Attend your parties; send out your cards; buy your gifts and trim your tree—by whatever name you choose to call it.

That’s what we do, here in Jimbo’s world.

going ape over the female form

Earlier this year I told the story of a simian named Koko, her lust for boobies and the lawsuit that emerged from this tangled affair. Well, thankfully this whole sordid situation has been resolved. First, you may review the original tale at the following address:

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/02/too-much-monkey-business-or-tall-cold.html

It appears that two female employees at a California Gorilla Foundation claimed they had been requested to bare their breasts for the viewing pleasure of this gorilla named Koko. Koko, it seems, makes some sort of hand gesture when she wants to see naked breasts. I don’t know if this is the traditional gesture of cupping one's hands, holding them in front of one's own chest, palms toward the body and moving the hands with a slight up-and-down motion, or if the monkey just snapped her fingers or something like that. However the simian communicates this desire, the employees claim they were requested to display their racks, and refused. The story I read claims the women went to OSHA, which sent someone out to the ape farm and found some violations. The women claim they were terminated because of their actions.

Today I read that the women had reached a settlement with the monkey foundation, so, it appears on the surface that we can put this one to bed. There is still one nagging question in my mind, however. There is some monkey out there that seems to have a thing for boobs and I am concerned that she will try this same thing again. My resolution is that the ape foundation gets a subscription to Playboy magazine for this monkey. I haven’t seen Playboy for a while, but I assume they still depict boobies. Perhaps the ape will enjoy reading the fine articles they have in there, too.

At least, that’s what we think here in Jimbo’s world.

twelve high-dollar days of christmas

Every year about this time, PNC Financial Services calculates the cost of the items in the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Those long time readers may remember my commentary on the numbers they presented last year. For those who may not remember, may not have been readers or just want to review those thrilling days of yesteryear, here his what I said.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/11/twelve-days-and-sixty-six-large.html

Well, I read on their website today the updated numbers for 2005. Since they obviously went to a lot of trouble to compile these numbers, I thought it was only right that I include a link, so you can read their report, yourselves. Here it is.


http://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/pressrelease.htm



Not to rehash this too much, but you will remember that in the song, everything the protagonist gives his true love is repeated on consecutive days. For example, the first day it is a partridge in a pear tree. In addition to adding a new gift each day, in quantities increasing by the number of the day in the series, the dude repeats everything he has given before. Therefore, he eventually gives his true love twelve partridges in pear trees; two turtle doves eleven times, three French hens ten times, etc.

The aggregate cost of the individual gifts this year is a little over eighteen grand, an increase of 6.1% over last year. However, because of the generosity of the giver and the repetition of gifts, the overall cost of this operation is $72,608, an increase of 9.5% over last year. This is because some of the more expensive gifts are repeated quite a few times.

My first question is, what about this inflation our government tells us doesn’t exist? If it looks like inflation; sounds like inflation; feels like inflation and smells like inflation, then I contend it’s inflation. And what if the brother would have come across with some practical gifts like fuel for his true love’s car or some food, instead of dancing girls, musicians and birds? If our hero would have purchased items from the “volatile food and energy sectors” which the government leaves out of its core inflation numbers, we would have seen even more inflationary pressures. What if his gift the first day was a health care insurance policy? That poor dude’s wallet would be flatter than a pancake by the third or fourth day—and that is only if his true love was lucky enough not to have any pre-existing conditions.

Hang your head in shame, John Snow. Hang your head in shame. You too, Dubya. You two make the Grinch seem like a pleasant fellow.

It seems to me that inflation is eating us alive but our leaders are trying to convince us that everything is fine. They are trying to convince us that inflation is under control and our economy is booming and everyone is working.

The good part of this whole thing is that Jimbo’s girlfriend is a practical woman, and she would never want him to, or expect him to cough up the seventy-two large to come across with all of the crap that is described in the song.

We should all give our true loves practical gifts, but most of all we need to remember to tell them that they are our true love, and save the seventy-two grand for something like retirement.

At least that’s what we think in Jimbo’s world.

a gift from the wise men

Jimbo has made mention, on occasion, that he is a working man. I’ve discussed my business travels, but I haven’t delved very deeply into my workday experiences. One reason I have stayed away from the subject of my employment is that I read early on about bloggers who commented negatively on their place of employ and were shown the door by management where they worked. I have a crappy job, just like most of the rest of you, but it keeps half of the food on Jimbo’s girlfriend’s table, so I didn’t want to take the chance of getting canned and not knowing where the next half of my meal was coming from.

The hell with that. Today it is work related and it is serious.

When I first came to the place I’m working, the Human Resources Manager told me the health insurance wasn’t very good, but she hoped we’d have something better next year.

They gave us the forms last week for enrollment in the health insurance plan. I noticed the premiums were going up, but it seemed a modest increase compared to the horror stories I had heard about companies suspending their plans or seriously ramping up their employees’ premiums. They sent some lady from the head office in today to explain our package and answer our questions about the plan. I would learn in that meeting that our premiums actually have gone down. This was sort of a new concept for me. My parents taught me that when you pay a certain amount for something and then the price is increased, that the cost of that item has gone up. I found out today that when your insurance premium increases, it means the premium for your insurance has gone down. Had I understood this concept better, it would have better helped me to understand why the price of gasoline went down so appreciably right after the twin hurricanes this fall.

Anyway, the premium increase—er, decrease—wasn’t that dramatic and I was fat and happy. That is, however, until they explained that our $250 deductible will now be $1400, and that our prescription co-pays will not go into effect until our deductible is met. For a family plan, the deductible is $2800. I work with a guy who is a single father of two and he was particularly concerned about the change. Because of the extra insurance cost, he and I and all of our fellow employees will be taking a dramatic pay cut at the first of the year. I guess this is our Christmas gift from the wise men that run our company. It reminded me of a little ditty I wrote last year around the Christmas season, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to link it. The link is below, with the caveat that it is a tad long.



http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2004/12/gift-of-magi.html


Well, there you have it, along with all the best to the guys who messed up what little good health insurance I had. We wish them all a Merry Christmas, here in Jimbo’s world.

on news media, doughnuts, lotteries and psychoses

On Sunday mornings Jimbo journeys forth to purchase the local newspaper and sometimes a half-dozen doughnuts. We like to read the paper on Sunday morning—especially Jimbo’s girlfriend—and we like to eat an occasional doughnut—especially Jimbo. On the way to the quickie mart, I pass a church that has one of those marquees out in front, white, with removable black letters behind a pane of glass.

The marquee usually has some sort of maniacal phrase on it. These are not verbatim examples, but rather a taste of the sentiment expressed on the marquee.

It’s easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a gay to reach the kingdom of God

God loves us all, but he hates queers

Today, Jimbo made his usual journey to the quickie mart to acquire the news medium and the Krispy Kreme. On the way past the church, I noticed the marquee read as follows:

Why do you never see the headline psychotic wins lottery

That is a good question—a stupid question, but a good one. Perhaps they were too embroiled in their psychoses to find the time to play. Perhaps they were too afraid to play. Perhaps the newspaper was too busy to have them psychoanalyzed prior to going to print. Perhaps they were too busy putting letters on the marquee in front of their church and didn’t have time to buy a ticket.

All I know is that I bought a ticket, but I haven’t checked the numbers yet to see whether this prediction came true.

On the other side of the marquee it read as follows:

Too many people confuse loose talk with free speech

Yes, how true. My response to that is, please see other side.

One sees the strangest things when one circumnavigates Jimbo’s world.

shop until you drop

Today is a day that defines us as Americans.

Today is the day when millions of us get up early on a day we could sleep late, but we head off to the mall or the super center to plunk down our hard-earned money on those things we want or that we wish to give someone else. Today is the busiest shopping day of the year and all of the retailers extend their hours and reduce their prices in order to make it even busier. Some might say that this is evidence of what is wrong with America and evidence that we are taking Christ out of our celebration of Christmas. Many of you might assume that Jimbo would be among those making that criticism.

However, the truth of the matter is that our celebration of Christmas necessarily reflects who we are, and we are a capitalist country. Sure, we have gotten a little too materialistic, but as materialists, spending money on gifts for other people is our way of communicating affection. All of that spending helps to provide the fuel that keeps our capitalistic society running. The extended shopping day, today, puts a few extra dollars in the pockets of low-wage earning retail workers. Granted, it’s a shame they have to get up and go to work at an indecent hour, but capitalism, at its core, is not necessarily pretty, but effective.

At this point, I should slick back what is left of my hair, put on my dark suit and power tie and do my best imitation of Gordon Gekko and say that greed, for lack of a better word, is good and that the profit motive is what keeps most of us in business and working. Instead, I think I’ll remain in my pajamas, have another cup of java and tell anyone who will listen that I would never consider getting up before dawn and fighting the crowds. They’ll be plenty of time for spending later this holiday season.

My point, though, is this long shopping day is the starting point of the Christmas season. Celebrate Christmas the way you wish, and if it is your wish to go head-to-head with the shoppers today, then more power to you. Today doesn’t represent the totality of the holiday season, but it is a necessary aspect.

And, at the risk of pissing off a bunch of people on the religious right:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

a hymn of thanksgiving

I’m thankful this morning we live in a country that can find its own way. I’m thankful we live in a country where the people are smart enough to govern themselves and will eventually do the right thing.

Sometimes I’m a little disappointed that we put the wrong people in power and that the special interests who put them there take it as their authorization to meld everyone into their own mindset. I’m thinking today specifically of Dubya and his many followers in the religious right. They have chosen to re-create us all in their own image, much as God did when he created man in Genesis.

I guess it’s pretty easy to agree with them when they talk about leading their lives according to the good book, and not to kill, to steal or to hate. We could all strive to live by that creed. We’ve all known Christians we could look up to and to whom we could aspire to lead our lives by their example.

Unfortunately, history is a littered with the corpses of the victims of Christians and other monotheists who used the symbol of the cross of Jesus or the Qur’an as their license to hate, steal and kill.

It seems as if Dubya and his followers have gotten more conservative in their emulation of their model, Osama Bin Laden. The truth is that they will never be more focused in the pursuit of their conservative ideals and the worship of their God as Osama is, because we are Americans and our constitution prevents it. Plus that, why would anyone want to be like Osama, anyway? He’s a jerk.

Sure, Osama’s religion puts women in a subservient role just as that of the Christian right. Osama hates gays just as much as they do. Osama is just as opposed to modern thought and new ideas as they are. The difference is that Osama really believes that the life we live is just a temporary detour on the way to the afterlife. We believe we are here for a reason and we plan to make the most of our time on this earth.

If you want to know why I am thankful today, it is because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can see the evidence that at least a few people are trying to differentiate us from Osama and are distancing themselves from the religious right. Earlier this month, voters in Dover, Pennsylvania, voted out their school board, which was championing “intelligent design.” It happened on the same day the Kansas Board of Education approved new standards ensuring intelligent design will be taught in Kansas. I guess you could say, win some; lose some. When it came down to it, however, the people of Dover decided that in the final analysis, when we put morality and beliefs on the line, that we are not going to put our children at a disadvantage by not allowing them to be exposed to modern thought. A year of two from now, the voters of Kansas will come to the same conclusion and make the same decision.

Pat Robertson went on record suggesting the people of Dover turned their backs on God and God would do the same to them, if they ever needed him. I think Pat Robertson is as appropriate a spokesman for God as Osama Bin Laden is. If there is a God, I would like to think he would turn his back on Pat Robertson or Osama long before he would desert his people in Dover. But, there I go, putting words in God’s mouth, again.

Anyway, it’s Thanksgiving, 2005, and I hope yours goes well.

Happy Thanksgiving.

more changes

When my blog became black a couple of months ago, I felt it reflected my “bad-boy” image and I felt it gave my blog a look that reflected my own personality. Those of you that know me are aware I’m kind of a rebel and a hard-guy. I’m a guy that is out of the mainstream, and what could be more like me than a totally black blog. It’s kind of like the Oakland Raiders. You may hate them, but you have to respect their blackness.

My son, who studied Advertising, as well as Business Administration, told me that there is a cardinal rule against an all-black page in advertising. Sure, the kid is a lot smarter than me, I thought, but this is blogging, not advertising, and I’ve been doing this a while. I know what I am doing. It turns out the boy was right. I spent some time this morning reviewing some of the Christmas-related blogs I did last year, because I will link some of them in December. After a while I thought, damn, this is hard on the eyes.

Although I predicted that my blog would change from time to time when I changed it to all-black, I didn’t think I would be changing this soon. However, for the sake of my eyes and yours, we have a new look this morning.

I’m sorry for any discomfort I may have caused.

the truman show

On November 14, 1959, a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas, was slaughtered by two men who came into their house to rob them. The murders, the capture of the killers and their ensuing trial and execution were the subject of Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood. The movie, Capote, was based on those events. Jimbo and his girlfriend saw the movie last night and I’m adding it to the recommended list.

First, I noticed a bit of a boner. At the very first of the movie they display the date and then fade to a field of ripe Kansas wheat. In Kansas we grow hard red winter wheat that is planted in September or October and looks like a field of green grass until about March of the following year. Sometimes farmers plant spring wheat, but it is harvested by September. Sure, wheat is a great symbol for Kansas, but we don’t have ripe wheat fields in November. Right now many of you are probably saying, “Picky, picky, picky.” All right, I’ll drop it.

The movie begins with Capote reading about the killings in southwestern Kansas and he and longtime friend Harper Lee travel to Holcomb so Capote can do research for a book. The following year, Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird was published, making she and Capote two of the literary notables of the twentieth century.

Anyway, Capote, with Lee’s help and using his own fame and notoriety, is able to put himself into a position to get the details of the story from witnesses and law enforcement. When the agent in charge of the case is not forthcoming, Capote discovers the agent’s wife has read his work and uses his fame to get a dinner invitation, and therefore access to the agent in charge. When the suspects are arrested and jailed, he is able to gain access to one of them by leveraging his celebrity and a signed copy of a book. He is able to cultivate a relationship with that suspect, Perry Smith that lasts for several years and allows Capote access to information necessary to complete his book.

The movie shows Capote using his money and fame to “buy” the data he needs. When the murderers are convicted and go to death row at the state penitentiary at Lansing, Capote gives the warden an envelope of money so the “people of Leavenworth County” won’t have to absorb the expense of the author’s unimpeded access to the prisoners. Capote has frequent visits with Perry Smith over the next few years, while helping him obtain a lawyer for an appeal and doing other favors for the murderers. Capote is able to gain the confidence of Smith and able to probe the psyche of the convicted murderer by intimating to Smith that Capote is his friend. Perhaps Capote, himself, is convinced that the two are friends, but we are able to determine that it is a manipulative relationship. We see Capote tell Smith the things he thinks Smith wants to hear, and not hesitate to tell any lie he thinks will cement their relationship.

The one thing Capote wants to hear from Smith, however, is a detailed recounting of the night of November 14, 1959, which Smith will not tell. Finally, like the gold-digger that wants unfettered access to your bank account, Capote uses the “you’re not really my friend if you can’t tell me” tactic. Smith finally comes across with the details of the grizzly murders and Capote has his book.

Capote visits Smith on the night of his execution and is overcome with grief. He stands at the back of the room and watches with a tear in his eye like every Mata Hari or most any femme fatale, as Smith dangles from the gallows and eventually all movement stops. He speaks to Harper Lee on the phone and says he did everything he could to stop the execution, but was unable to do it. Lee tells him that is not true, that the execution was necessary for him to finish his book. Capote acted as if he may not have known it, but Lee did, and we knew it, too.

This movie was not funny; it was not lighthearted. It was, however, damned good. Philip Seymour Hoffman was spectacular in the featured role. Overall, the quality of acting was excellent.

For those of us old enough to remember Truman Capote as a raconteur, and a talk-show regular in his later years, who jabbered on about other celebrities, acted flamboyently gay, and accomplished little after writing In Cold Blood, this movie provides us an insight into his character. In a society where we don’t much care how something gets done, but what the results are, then Capote, as a writer, may have foreshadowed our times.

If the opportunity arises to see the movie, Capote, I say you should probably do it. Plus that, you won’t have to wade through an ocean of kids like at the Harry Potter movie in the next theater.

At least, that’s our view in Jimbo’s world.

the cold hearts of crime

Years ago, while attending a state championship basketball game, I couldn’t help but notice there was a group of young men wearing matching “letterman-type” jackets—the type made of a fuzzy material with leather sleeves. Usually these are worn by members of the sports teams, with their letters sewn on to the front. I’m sure there is a name for the fuzzy material, but I can’t think of it and Jimbo’s girlfriend is, unfortunately, no help this morning.

Anyway, this group of young men were probably not sports lettermen, but they were likely all fellow members of some sort of a youth group. On the back of all of their jackets, in identical lettering, was the phrase “Cold hearts of crime.” I’m certain that was the name of their youth group. I’m guessing they probably celebrated their comradeship by doing helpful work around the community and supported civic causes.

I am reminded of that long ago spring evening today in reading two separate stories about cold-hearted bank robbers and their modus operandi. First, there is a woman in the suburbs of Washington D.C. who is robbing banks while talking on a cell phone. The story I read describes her opening her purse and showing the teller a gun and a note demanding money, all the while jabbering on a cell phone. Police may have connected her to several other bank robberies, where the robber was also chatting on a cell phone during the holdups. A police spokesman suggests she may be using the cell phone to look like everyone else.

I think this speaks unfavorably for our society as a whole. It is criminal how many people you see in malls and supermarkets and on the street with a phone pressed up against the sides of their heads. Doing it while knocking over a bank adds even more criminality to the act.

The other bank robber is operating in Canada and uses recipe cards to communicate his demands to the bank tellers whom he encounters during his caterwauling. One can assume his recipe cards call for a cup of flour, a pinch of salt and a wad of bills. Police say that they have connected him to thirty bank holdups, but they are closing the net on him.

One hopes that when the law catches up with these two desperados and they are put in the slam that their tools are taken away from them. Otherwise what prison is going to hold a woman talking on a cell phone? The guards will watch her walk by talking on the phone and it won’t occur to them to stop her from walking out the front gate. After all, who will suspect a woman talking on a cell phone of being up to anything. And once she is out, she’ll blend in with the surroundings.

And somewhere in a Canadian prison the bank robber will pass a recipe card to the guards with the following written on it:

“Guards,
Let this man go.
-the Warden”

I’m afraid it going to take an effort to keep these two behind bars and keep us safe from their cold hearts of crime.

a year and counting

Today marks two anniversaries.

It was thirty years ago today that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a storm in Lake Superior. As Gordon Lightfoot sang in The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald:

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.

I mentioned in my blog a year ago today about the demise of the Edmund Fitzgerald. That is the other anniversary. A year ago today was the first blog I ever posted. Those of you who are long-term die-hard readers may remember the short murder mystery that was included in that very first blog. Oh, that’s right. Most of you would prefer to forget it.

A lot of things have happened during the past twelve months. I started a new job and the company I work for is still in business (but for how long)? I moved into chez Jimbo’s girlfriend. Jimbo’s son graduated from college. I sold my house. I broke a finger on my right hand and I butchered a finger on the other hand.

Mostly, I’ve had a good time telling you what I think about things and I plan to keep doing this blog thing. Maybe by this time next year, I’ll figure out how to do this.

Anyway, thanks for reading and coming back for more.

spiders and snakes

This week at work, someone made a comment to me about their pets and how close they were to them. I commented that Jimbo’s girlfriend and I have no pets or creatures around chez Jimbo’s girlfriend. I think I spoke too soon.

This morning, while assembling my blog about the coins, I had a confrontation with a wolf spider. At least, I’m pretty sure it was a wolf spider. One of the guys who was in here earlier this year giving a quote to spray for termites identified a similar spider as a wolf spider. They are scary looking bastards. Please observe the photo below. Or, at least it should be below when I get this thing organized. If it is someplace else, I apologize in advance.




wolf spider
Posted by Picasa

The spider walked up the wall next to my desk and gave me a nasty look. I don’t want to offend anyone who is an animal lover, but I took a junk mail envelope out of the trash, put in on the wall on top of the spider and smacked it. I somehow missed hitting him and he ran down the wall and hid behind my desk. I pulled out the desk and sent the spider to his reward with a shoe, repeatedly bashing him.

Then, this afternoon, we cleaned up the yard and I cut the grass. Afterward, when I was putting away the mower, I noticed a dead snake at the front of the garage. It appears he made a dash for freedom or a dash inside out of the cold one night this week and only got as far as the garage door, where he met an untimely fate. It looks as if he was crushed by the door on the downward cycle. I looked up the snake on the internet and found some that looked like he did. Their countenances are below, again if I get this thing laid out correctly.





ringneck snake
Posted by Picasa

yet another ringneck
Posted by Picasa

I've read the wolf spiders aren't deadly, which is good. I also read the ringneck snake is not poisonous but will bite viciously. I hope the snake is indeed a ringneck and not an eastern diamondback rattlesnake, or that deadly little bastard that Aldo Ray had in the movie We're No Angels.

All of this had led me to rethink my statement of earlier in the week. While we officially don’t have any pets, it appears we have more critters around here than Ellie Mae Clampett.

Now all we have to do is get us one of those cement ponds.

a penny, a quarter and heartbreak

a penny and a quarter. heartbreak is more difficult to picture
Posted by Picasa

Jimbo has money on his mind, this morning.

Many months ago, when it appeared my house was sold and I was going to have a few pesos in my pocket, I saw a desk at Nebraska Furniture Mart that I decided I wanted to buy. I made the leap of the imagination that if I were to have a nice desk on which to keyboard, the quality of my weblogs would improve. The desk was too expensive just to grab a wad of bills out of my pocket and throw them on the counter, but they had a “twelve months, same as cash” payment plan that would have eased the pain of the financial outgo.

Last weekend, after the sale of my house was finally completed, and I had a few coins jingling in my pocket, my girlfriend and I went back to look at the desk and I still liked it and the payment plan was now twenty-four months. That made me think I should buy the desk, but I decided, as I do with any major purchase, to think about it for a few days. I became convinced late in the week that I should act, and so last night we went to make the purchase. The result was less than satisfactory.

I found out that delivery would be an extra $50. With diesel fuel and gasoline prices up, they have to charge for delivery, now. I could have lived with that, especially since the salesman hinted that he could waive the delivery charge. In the jargon of business, that means I would have had free delivery, had I insisted on it. However, I found out that the twenty-four-month interest-free payment plan was over. It is now sixty days. I told him I was no longer interested. He followed us for a while sweetening the deal, but he couldn’t do the financing, so we walked out. If one reads Chester Karras, the accepted master of negotiating, his principal is to be able to walk away if the deal isn’t what you want. I applaud you, Mr. Karras, and I followed your advice, but I don’t have the damned desk. Oh, well, this is just reward delayed, rather than reward denied. My love for that desk will not be unrequited. I’ll have it someday on my own terms. You’ll just have to be content with lower-quality blogs for a while.

The other financial episode about which I wish to inform you happened on Thursday night. Jimbo and his girlfriend decided we would take advantage of the Arby’s “five for $5.95” deal for supper. Procurement of the evening repast fell into the capable hands of Jimbo—a man whose litany of journeys into fast-food establishments are epic as the tales of Homer. Anyway, Jimbo ordered two roast beef sandwiches, two orders of fries--one regular and one curly—and mozzarella sticks. I tendered a $10 and the total, with tax, was just over $6, so I received three ones and a handful of change.

After dinner, sometime later in the evening, I emptied my pocket, so I could put my coins in a jar. In among my change was a 1941 penny—which I will add to my coin collection—and a 2005 Kansas quarter. I have scanned both of them for you viewing enjoyment, however the penny is pretty much unreadable. My bad.

The Kansas quarter has a bison on the back and sunflowers beside him. There is a herd of buffalo along the highway between chez Jimbo’s girlfriend and Jimbo’s son’s new residence. Some days the bison come out and stand by the fence so you can see them as you drive by. It is pretty impressive to see one (or a bunch of them) in person. They are a lot bigger than you would imagine. I think this is a good symbol for our state. If you don’t live here you probably have the impression that we are pretty backward, but we have had our share of intelligent people. When you read the news and find out we are still debating evolution eighty years after Scopes and 150 years after Darwin, you probably have to wonder. But even though Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts are from here, we have produced some leaders who knew what they were doing. You may recall Dwight Eisenhower, who was also a Republican. He was a “conservative,” but not conservative by today’s standards.

You may recall I talked about the movie Good Night and Good Luck last week. It was actually the Eisenhower administration that Senator McCarthy targeted. McCarthy was diminished while Ike survived. I thought it was appropriate that, in the movie, when all the dust had settled, Eisenhower was shown giving a speech, basically defining American civil liberties.

This is a place where William Inge taught high school in Columbus, and William Allen White published the Emporia Gazette and advised Presidents. Langston Hughes matriculated elementary school at Pinckney in Lawrence. Kerry Livgren, Steve Walsh, et. al. rocked Lawrence, Topeka and most of the rest of the world.

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see

I defy you to show me a better song that rhymes see and sea. I defy you to show me a better song, period.

Melissa Etheridge came from here, as did Jimbo’s girlfriend and Amelia Earhart.

Many of you are probably asking yourselves right now, “How can Jimbo go on and on about twenty-six cents? How long could he have jabbered if it had been a dollar?”

I don’t have an answer, but if I find a dollar, somewhere, we’ll find out. But, for the time being, I guess I’ve put in my twenty-six cents worth. And that is about what it is worth, here in Jimbo’s world.

a tale of the small screen on the big screen

Jimbo saw a movie last night and when it was over the audience clapped. It’s been a while since I witnessed such an occurrence, but it was a movie like none other I have seen for a while. The movie was Good Night and Good Luck, and I would recommend you see it, if it plays anywhere near you.

The movie was about Edward R. Murrow and his using his television program to denounce the caterwauling of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The movie begins and ends with Murrow giving a speech in 1958, before some members of the broadcast media, warning that television was being used more to entertain than to educate and inform. He made dire predictions for the future of the medium were that to continue. It’s just a shame he couldn’t have fast-forwarded to the future and caught a few episodes of Lost, Survivor and Entertainment Tonight, so he could have eased his troubled mind.

Between the bookends of his 1958 speech was the story of how Murrow took up the cause of an Air Force man, Milo Radulovich, who was discharged from the service because his family had leftist leanings. Murrow presented his case to the American people and Radulovich was reinstated by the Air Force.

The primary story the movie told, however, was Murrow’s crusade against McCarthy and his struggle inside of CBS to air such controversial material. David Strathairn played Murrow; McCarthy played himself. George Clooney played Fred Friendly and also directed the movie. I’ve never given to much attention to Clooney, although I particularly liked O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. I have to think that he must have considerable directorial talent, because of the way this movie looked and felt and the way the actors were able to tell the story with actions and not just words.

Clooney used tight close-ups and focused his cameras into the eyes of the actors, who completed the illusion by letting us feel we were looking down into their souls. It was a very tense and intense movie and the actors were able to communicate with us by just diverting their glance. For example, Robert Downey, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson were able to tell us there was a common skeleton in their closet. Throughout the entire movie, we wondered how horrible could it be? When it was revealed, we realized we knew it all along. Ray Wise manufactured a smile to disguise his discomfort about accusations that the former war correspondent he portrayed was a “pinko.”

It is a black and white movie, but the lack of color adds to the drama of the movie and it helps to take us all back to a time when right and wrong, good and evil were more easily defined in terms of black and white. It is an independent film, so it won’t be showing at all the mega-theaters, so you may need to look to find it.

If you can find it, I think you ought to make a point to see it.

At least, that’s what we think here in Jimbo’s world.

a sale, a move and a cleaning

Yesterday was kind of an important day for me.

Many months ago I wrote a blog saying that I had sold my house; my son had taken a job in another city and he was putting in the long hours. Here it is.

http://jimboandhisfriends.blogspot.com/2005/05/good-news-bad-news.html

Well, a lot of things changed, but I didn’t record them for posterity, as I should have. The buyer on my house changed her mind at the last minute and didn’t show up for closing, so my house didn’t get sold. I got $500 in earnest money the buyer forfeited, but I later found her buyer’s agent had fronted her half of it, so the balance came out of his own pocket. A lesson learned for him, and me, too. When one is presented a contract and the earnest money is a photocopy of twenty-five twenty-dollar bills, it’s time to be suspicious.

My son had the good sense to realize that the twelve hours a day he was working were not what he was looking for and took another job, closer to home. He’s still putting in nine or ten a day, but time-and-a-half looks good to a young man. We’ve all been there. I encourage him to stop and smell the roses, but you know kids. They’re going to do what they’re going to do.

Anyway, yesterday I took a day of vacation. In the morning I went and signed some papers and they gave me a big check. I won’t be making payments on a house in which I don’t reside, anymore. It is sold and the couple that bought it seemed really nice. I’m glad I had the landscaper cut the grass the day before yesterday, so they can move in without having to do that for a week.

After I made sure the money they gave me was resting comfortably in my bank account, I spent the rest of the day helping my son and his girlfriend move to a place that is only about ten miles from chez Jimbo’s girlfriend. They had a bunch of their friends helping and it went really smooth. Jimbo is at that stage of his career where he let the young people do the heavy lifting and he engaged his intellectual capital on things like hooking up the washer and dryer and drinking beer. That said, however, I must have lifted something because I was used up when we moved furniture out of chez Jimbo’s girlfriend last night. I am feeling a little sore this morning.

By the way, we are not moving out of chez Jimbo’s girlfriend, we are just preparing to have her carpet cleaned. “Carpet cleaning,” I know many of you are asking right now and wondering if Jimbo is getting the job done, man-wise? Just relax. Jimbo is doing his share, but right now the carpet we walk on could stand some freshening up.

On the way home last night, the highlight of the evening was when my car turned over 200,000 miles. It seems one always remembers the mileposts, like where I was when I turned over 100,000 and where I was when I turned 100,000 in the truck I sold recently. My son was behind the wheel of the truck when it turned 200,000. Sometimes, I remember, I was not looking at the odometer at the exact moment and later I noticed the vehicle had 100,002 or something like that. Last night I saw 199,999, and I watched it turn over.

Yesterday was another eventful day in Jimbo’s world and we wonder what today will bring.

portrait of a young man named bill

Today during lunch I was checking the news on Yahoo! as I always do when I saw the mug shot of Tom Delay. He seemed jovial enough. Under his mug shot was a link to a website that shows other peoples’ mug shots. I was surprised to see the mug shot of the richest man on earth, taken in 1977, when he was just the son of a wealthy family. He too was smiling. Here it is.

http://www.mugshots.org/misc/bill-gates.html

The first thing I thought about was that he didn’t have the look of a hardened criminal. The second thing that crossed my mind was, I wonder what was the crime for which he was arrested? To the best of my recollection, looking like a nerd is still not punishable by time in the pokey.

He wore his hair very similar to the way I did in 1977, and his glasses were much like the ones I wore. Dammit! How did he end up with $50 billion and I end up driving a Toyota that will turn over 200,000 miles this week.

I can’t help wondering what he was smiling about. Maybe he was thinking as he looked at the cop snapping the photograph, “Hey, my family can buy your family ten times over, and someday I’ll be able to buy them 500,000 times over.”

Maybe he was thinking, “Damn. Here I am in jail. I’m never going to amount to anything. This morning I was thinking, where do I want to go today, and tonight I’m in the slam.”

I’d like to think that the cops rousted Ol’ Bill for getting drunked up and chasing the working girls around a cathouse somewhere. Maybe he got Old Testament with some bikers and whipped their asses.

No, more than likely he was thinking about some computer software code and he forgot to watch his speedometer and got busted for ten miles over the limit. Okay, I just went out and did the research and found out his crime was speeding—35 miles per hour over the speed limit.

Either way, I’d feel a lot better if he didn’t have that dorky smile on his face.

Hey, Billy boy, slow that Porsche down. Knuckle down and I bet you could make something of yourself. After all, you can’t be a slacker all your life.

sunday morning gettin' up

It’s Sunday morning here in chez Jimbo’s girlfriend.

You may recall, if you are familiar with the works of Kris Kristopherson, he had a negative opinion of Sunday morning. In his song Sunday Morning Comin' Down he sings,

There's nothin' short of dyin'
half as lonely as the sound
of a sleeping city sidewalk
Sunday morning comin' down

That's where Kris and I have a divergence of opinion. Here at chez Jimbo's girlfriend, it’s time to read the paper, drink coffee and relax.

It's a good morning; a day of rest.

One may recall, if one reads his scripture—particularly the old testament—that even God took the day off.

dead man parking, or the dead man from the land down under

From Australia this morning word comes that the dead are not immune from the long arm of the law. An elderly gentleman in suburban Sydney parked in the lot of a shopping mall and then proceeded to die. A few days later the cops came by and ticketed his car. It seems the dead man didn’t have the foresight to move his car to another parking spot after his demise, so he probably broke the law and deserved the ticket.

The concern I have is that the cops didn’t roust the old dude. As a matter of fact, it was another 24 hours after they gave him the ticket before they realized he was dead.

If the guy had been here in the states, he would have been treated differently. The first thing the cops would do is to yell at the guy and mess with him. They’d want to put the ticket in his hand personally. It’s been my experience that when given an opportunity to hassle someone or boss somebody around, the cops here seem to make the most of the opportunity.

“Hey, buddy, move that thing along,” they’d tell him, here.

When he didn’t respond, they’d pull him out of the car and mess with him some more. If they didn’t realize he was dead, they’d assume he was drunk and haul him into the station house. Somewhere along the line, however, someone would make the connection and realize his incarceration was futile.

Thank God we have sophisticated justice here and not the questionable frontier justice they have down under that allows this type of travesty to occur.

sucess and failure

I don’t know why, but if you go to Google, type in the word failure and hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button, up pops the white house website with the biography of the president.

I can’t explain it, but try it, before it goes away.

talking a good game

Yesterday and today it was all about communication. It was about my annual presentation and it was about the phone I found. I’ll start at the beginning.

I may have mentioned a few days ago that the staff and supervisors where I work each preside over a monthly safety meeting where all of the shop floor employees attend and we try to make them safe. The subject for October was hand safety and the presenter was yours truly.

Let me preface this by saying that Jimbo was never noted as a great orator. Let me further go on to say that Jimbo is less than an adequate public speaker. Oh, heck, let’s not sugarcoat this. Jimbo gets nervous and forgets what he is going to say and, in general doesn’t come off as being intelligent. I didn’t sleep well the night before. I spent a lot of time doing research and setting up my presentation on PowerPoint, inserting a number of pictures into my slides. I decided to lead off my presentation with the story of my hurting my hand last Friday night.

We are assigned shop floor workers to be our teammates and we had a meeting last week to discuss the presentation and for them to give me ideas. One of my teammates, Ron, told me that we had a boring subject. Another teammate, Elbert, told me that half of the people sleep through the safety meeting, anyway. My third teammate, Doris, reminded me about an hour before the presentation that the month before last, the day shift workers got hostile and shouted down the speaker. She said she expected the same would happen to me. My already-shaken confidence began to wane.

When it came time to give my presentation, I got off to a reasonably good start and I was able to tell my story fluently. As I got toward the end of my story and was a few minutes from presenting my statistics, I began to see a loss of interest in the faces of the crowd. I knew after I had used up all the story about the emergency room and the pain and the blood of life streaming from my broken body, there would not be enough no-doz in the world to keep these people awake. Ruth, a machine operator to whom I speak every day and who seems to like me, was in a chair next to the wall and she was using the wall as a pillow. Dreams of the end of the workday were dancing in her unconscious head. I ended the story of my injury by showing the slide of the utility knife blade, which I posted on this site a few days back.

Instead of saying “this is the utility knife blade that cut me,” I decided to wake them up.

“This is the little rat bastard that got me,” I said.

There was a wave of laughter and I paused for a moment and sort of waited for the commotion to stop. I saw a dozen pairs of sleeping eyes open to the conscious world. Ruth sat upright, faced me and never went to sleep again. People actually began to listen to me and I was able to make a lot of eye contact, working about 75% of the rest of my presentation without reading from my notes.

Did you know there were 4.4 million on-the-job injuries reported in 2003, the last year for which we have complete data, and that one out of four work-related injuries involved the hands, fingers or wrists.

I felt that if I got someone’s attention, and they listened to what I told them about working safely, then I was successful. They clapped when I was finished.

I went and sat down beside the guy who is temporarily in charge and he told me not to use the expression “rat bastard,” so I didn’t when I made my presentation to the night shift. I don’t think I did as well with them and I don’t think they paid attention like the day shift did.

If that little rat bastard made someone listen and, by listening, they pay attention to working safe, then that little rat bastard did his job.

I was on the way to work by six this morning, so I could make my third and last presentation to the graveyard shift. A few blocks from home, there was an open, clamshell cellular phone in the middle of the street. There was no traffic, so I drove up to it and picked it up. It was open and on, but I didn’t see anyone around. I decided I would try to find the owner after work, because I had to get to work and get the laptop and projector set up for my PowerPoint presentation. The boss wasn’t there for my final performance, so I called the rat bastard a rat bastard. We gave the abbreviated version and I don’t know how well we got through, but I was glad to have it out of the way for this year. A couple of people on the shop floor made comments today about the rat bastard, so I’m convinced they were listening. I hope they listened all the way through.

When I got in my car to leave work tonight the cell phone I found was ringing and I answered it. A little girl on the other end didn’t seem to know what to say, so I told her where I found the phone and got her home number and told her I’d call when I got home. When I called, her mother answered and we met at a local park and I gave her the phone.

Well, two good deeds done, so now I guess I can go out and do something bad. Well, probably not.

marching to la mirada

I read on Yahoo! this morning that there is a national conference in California for bloggers whose subject matter is religious blogging.

Now, those longtime readers know that Jimbo is not one to shy away from an occasional quotation of scripture. I consider the Bible to be entertaining literature and a worthwhile read. Also, reading the Bible helps me better to understand the nut cases who swear by the holy word, yet somehow don’t seem to have any idea what their book is telling them.

The “God Bloggers” are meeting at a place called Biola University in La Mirada—a school that indicates it offers a “biblically-centered education.” I tried to pull up their website, but I couldn’t for some reason. Maybe it crashed due to the volume of interest, or maybe Satan put a worm in my computer to keep me away.

Anyway, one of the bloggers compared blogging to the 95 Theses of Martin Luther that launched the protestant reformation. Yeah, right. If I ever tell you this blog is comparable in importance to the writings of Shakespeare or Hemingway, please have the good sense to un-bookmark me.

However, one thing that struck me about the article is that these bloggers don’t appear to be your typical “yes-Mr.-Rove-we-will-crucify-some-non-believers” religious right followers in lockstep.

Maybe blogging is good for something, after all.