House and Ojamas
I was thinking about a Mother's Day gift for Junie, who loves our president. Here were some of the finalists:
Obama O's
Obama Family Bottled Water
The Amazing Obama-Man Comic Book
Obama Keds
Talking, Animated Action Figure
Barack-in-the-Box
I will spare you the Ojamas.
~~~
Some selections from Harper's Index from the latest issue: 70% of this
year's college seniors will graduate without a job; 29% of all U.S.
corporations will end or reduce 401(k) matching this year; 42% of unemployed
Americans are not eligible for unemployment benefits; Total wealth decline for
U.S. households was $11.2 trillion last year; 52% of all charities report
reduced giving; 55% of all U.S. millionaires said they are unable to maintain
their lifestyle; in January of this year, the Chinese bought more cars than
Americans for the first time; 90% of all guns recovered from Mexican crime
scenes can be traced to U.S. gun shops; of the 70% of Tennesseans who said they
had heard a racist joke about Obama, 16% said that they thought it was funny and
15% told the joke; ABBA did a concert for Putin in January for $27,500 ;
Texas is 3d highest in the nation for teen pregnancy and 94% of all Texas
schools teach abstinence-only sex education; The World Bank reports that 1.4
million children will die in the next 7 years because of the recent financial
crisis.
~~~
I watched the Denver Nuggets do a number on Dallas last night. It was a
great show and I love watching people do something that they so amazingly good
at. Even though it's one of the sports that I didn't play in high school
or college, I always loved playing basketball more than anything else. I
would rush through my chores as a teen and drive over for the many pickup games
at high school. When I got older, I would drive to Ft. Belvoir, where my
dad was stationed and play for 6 hours in a big metal quonset hut with local
pickup teams. I was never more than 6 feet, so I was destined to be a
guard and my shooting and ball-handling were never quite good enough.
Still, I loved the sport and watching somebody like Carmelo Anthony is a joy.
Particularly, because . . . well . . . he just doesn't look that athletic.
It doesn't seem to hurt his shooting, though. I liked Dirk Nowitzki of
Dallas, too. Obviously very talented with good moves for big man and the
discipline to make free throws like clockwork.
~~~
I'm still struggling with The Big Project with the Serious But OK We'll Push It
Out Farther deadline. Most of the problems aren't my fault. I'm not
sure I could even have anticipated them. Stuff that is supposed to work
out of the box, directly from Our Chip Vendor just doesn't. The only
relief to my 12+ hour days is imagining that I'm House, writing the symptoms on
the blackboard, giving sh*t to Cuddy, goading the troops to come up with a
better diagnosis.