The Bananaverse

Last week I had a lot of crappy days. All kinds of bad stuff happened, and normally I would have considered it a very VERY bad week.

It wasn’t.

My attitude was fine. I just kept coming home in a good mood, sounding almost chipper as I related that day’s tragedies to Mister Fishbones. I felt really weird about it and then I finally figured out why I felt so upbeat.

I had a chiropractic appointment, a massage appointment, and a friendly get together during the week. Since the get together was friendly, I was hugged a lot, and obviously getting cracked and kneaded meant there was laying on of hands (and elbows and whatever else).

I was supposed to be having a miserable week and it just didn’t happen because I had a whole lot of physical contact, and all of it was pleasant so it totally cheered me up. My fundamental outlook wasn’t bad at all, even though things were showing obvious signs of coming apart.

So if you are having a really bad week, or just a crummy day, find someone willing and get a hug. Or have your sweetie hold your hand awhile or whatever. Just get to touching already!

I like to think that I can reach out and “touch” people on the interwebs with my blog, or on Twitter, or through IM or what have you, and to some extent that’s true. But to really get the full range of human interaction you have got to drop those quotes and actually touch people.

If you are reading this when it’s posted, GO TO BED! It is late. Get some snuggles in before your sweetie is completely asleep. If you read this when it isn’t bedtime, find someone today who needs a hug* and hug them. It’s win-win, really.

*I would prefer you were trying to hug people you know. Look where trying to just give hugs away will get you:

I am liveblogging each episode of Doctor Who as I watch it. I am publishing a raw stream of consciousness list of things I am considering and wondering about as I watch. In the interest of not spoiling anything for anyone I am putting all of it behind the jump.

This episode is the tenth episode of Season Four (or Thirty depending who you ask), called Midnight. From the site: The Doctor is trapped, powerless and terrified, on the planet Midnight, as the knocking on the wall begins…
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I am liveblogging each episode of Doctor Who as I watch it. I am publishing a raw stream of consciousness list of things I am considering and wondering about as I watch. In the interest of not spoiling anything for anyone I am putting all of it behind the jump.

This episode is the ninth episode of Season Four (or Thirty depending who you ask), called Forest Of The Dead. From the site: As the shadows rise, the Doctor forges an alliance with the mysterious River Song. But can anyone stop the Vashta Nerada?
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I am liveblogging each episode of Doctor Who as I watch it. I am publishing a raw stream of consciousness list of things I am considering and wondering about as I watch. In the interest of not spoiling anything for anyone I am putting all of it behind the jump.

This episode is the eighth episode of Season Four (or Thirty depending who you ask), called Silence In The Library. From the site: The Doctor and Donna enter a world of terror inside an abandoned library. They’re given only one warning: ‘Count the shadows’.
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In my last post I briefly mentioned at the bottom that John McCain can’t send an email. Since his campaign does not deny it, I am going to presume it true.

You know what really grinds my gears? (Or as The Ambassador would prefer me to call it, You Wanna Know Why? I’ll TELL You Why!) Here it is: McCain’s campaign is having like six different varieties of cows over Obama QUOTING MCCAIN. What’s their excuse? “Oh you shouldn’t be mean he can’t type because he is a POW are YOU a POW too Obama then you can’t say anything you are a mean jerky head and YOU ARE NOT READY TO LEAD! VOTE MCCAIN! CHANGE 08!!!” and so on.

Guess what? BULLSHIT. (Sorry Mom, if you read this, but it is.) I have a friend who is deaf. She plays video games and she’s on Twitter and has a computer and does all kinds of things effectively. I used to know someone who had a degenerative eye condition and she kept a blog and used instant messenger and SENT EMAIL and did all kinds of things. With her computer, no less. So that means a deaf person AND a blind person both use their computers successfully. I know there are people with other sorts of handicaps as well who get around that pesky keyboard issue JUST FRIGGING FINE thank you very much. Some people have a computer as their only means of communication with the rest of the world. It certainly doesn’t stop them. So why is it stopping John McCain? You’re going to have to try a little harder than “it hurts when I type” because NaturallySpeaking is one such bit of software that allows you to talk to your computer to control it. It’s easy to use and would allow people who are unable to use a keyboard, for example, to be able to control the computer with their voice. I am not shilling for them, I just know they are one of the more popular software packages with this capability. So learn to talk to your computer and then you can send email with the best of them!

Here’s the thing: My great aunt was older than Senator McCain when she passed away. She had email and went to websites and was capable of all of this without getting someone to do it for her. My mom can run a spell check competently, and I have an aunt who is set up with her own gMail address now. I used my mom as a test case at a startup I used to work at. I would look at different UI elements and complain to engineers: You guys, my mom will never find this button. Can we put it at the top? Because we had decided everybody’s mom should be able to use this software, so she was my example. Also she lives in Eastern Oregon in a town of about 15,000 people. They have one “nice” restaurant in town, a couple of Mexican food places, and I think one Chinese place. It’s not the biggest place nor is it central to anything, so when my mom asks me about things (what is this Twitter I heard about?”) I can pretty much presume they’ve been around. My mom totally knows how to get her machine to check email, what her homepage is, and how to report spam. These are BASIC skills.

I am not saying McCain’s service to our country is useless or stupid. However that service does not entitle him to the Presidency. This seems to be his belief and I disagree. This is America and I am well within my rights (at least for now) to do so. I think Obama was well within the bounds of a “clean campaign” to point out that McCain doesn’t know how to send an email. It is yet another startling contrast between the candidates, and I think a valid thing to point out. My issue lies entirely at the feet of Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager. He is allowing this campaign to make McCain out to be a victim of his handicap and if someone wants to be The Leader Of The Free World they’d damn well better act like it and not let a little thing like “typing hurts” turn into the big issue of the day.

I would also like to point out, while I still have on my PunditPants(tm)*, that Karl Rove is absolutely the last guy on earth who gets to piss and moan about being taken out of context. Bitch all you want, turd blossom, the part you don’t seem to get is that I learned it by watching you.

*I have no actual graphic for PunditPants(tm), but I am accepting submissions. For now this photo will do since I only wear my PunditPants(tm) for blogging:

(Or: The Day Banana Lee Stayed Home and Accidentally Watched Hardball.)

At the very end of Hardball today with these two particular guests on (whose names escape me at the moment) Chris Matthews asked, “You know, every candidate for President in our lifetime has had a very succinct message if he won the Presidency: ‘Get this country moving again’, Jack Kennedy, ‘It’s the Economy stupid’, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’, I can’t think of the line from Obama yet.”

Buchanan (OMG yes THAT Pat Buchanan*): We can’t stand four more years of what we’ve had for the last eight years?
Matthews: Do you feel like four more years of this!? That’s what I’d say.

(he goes on)

“All I know is I’d go to the numbers…every time the Senator from Arizona spoke, I’d say let me read those numbers to you John McCain, you got a tough act to defend here, and you gotta defend it because you’re the republican candidate that’s why you’re standing here. You got an unemployment rate that’s spiking, you got a debt that’s growing, you’ve got a surplus that’s disappeared into a deficit and you’ve got gas prices at four bucks, your side has BLOWN IT, don’t ask for four more years.”

To which I say AMEN! I don’t want Obama to go out and say terrible things about McCain (and while he doesn’t know how to send email is TOTALLY TRUE it is one that they are crying foul about), but I want him to go out and speak truth to power as it were. If repeating “I said thanks but no thanks to that bridge to nowhere” over and over is going to make it true, then why not repeat things over and over that ACTUALLY are true? I wonder how well THAT would go over. How do you beat him up over things that are TOTALLY accurate? More “sex ed to kindergarteners” nonsense? Even KARL ROVE said your campaign is a little out of line.

*Not only is it THAT Pat Buchanan but that link is to his blog. McCain can’t send an email, but Pat Buchanan has a blog (E I E I O).

Once again, nobody asked ME if it was a good idea. If anyone had bothered to say “Hey there Banana Lee, you come from a place with colorful language. You can still say ‘lipstick on a pig’, right?”

Because, you see, if they had, I could have said “Oh, no no no. Don’t do it. You will have nothing but heartache. Someone will misquote you and use it to drum up outrage against whatever you represent. They’ll gladly strip you of context and try to work people up about you criticizing something you never criticized at all.”

And they would have listened to that answer and said “My goodness Banana Lee, you certainly sound like someone who’s been there. Is this your area of expertise?”

To which my reply would only be, “Why, yes. As a matter of fact, it is.”*

*Seriously, I got misquoted about lipstick on a pig myself. It was stupid then and it’s stupider now.

Cliff Richard, who’s been making music for FIFTY years, is coming out with a book and a box set. I like some of his songs, and happened across an article talking about his book and how he refers to his “companion”. I presume they mean partner or boyfriend or husband or something like that, it sounds like he’s a bit more than a roommate. I don’t care though. Neither does he. From the book:

“I think the Church must come round and see people as they are now. Gone are the days when we assumed loving relationships would be solely between men and women. It seems to me that commitment is the issue, and if anyone comes to me and says: ‘This is my partner; we are committed to each other’, then I don’t care what their sexuality is. I’m not going to judge; I’ll leave that to God.”

And to that I say AMEN! This is line I referred to in the subject. Who are you to stand in judgment of someone’s personal decisions? Isn’t the whole point of things like Christianity that you are to stand in judgment after you die and that’s when you find out if you chose correctly during life? (Mormons was the correct answer.) Because, you know, when I went to church I remember the lesson being “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” But then I haven’t set foot in a church of any sort for full mass in a long LONG time so my memory might be fuzzy.

I am liveblogging each episode of Doctor Who as I watch it. I am publishing a raw stream of consciousness list of things I am considering and wondering about as I watch. In the interest of not spoiling anything for anyone I am putting all of it behind the jump.

This episode is the seventh episode of Season Four (or Thirty depending who you ask), called The Unicorn And The Wasp. From the site: In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 10 days. Was it amnesia? A nervous breakdown? Or a Giant Alien Wasp..?
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I am a little biased, since she did guest host for my man Keith and I love that show. So I wanted her to do well because when she does his show I like her. She’s smart and funny, and I like to know what she has to say about things. I also like her because she is making her way even though she’s not Barbie which means she basically has to be twice as smart as all the boys to do half as well. Oh I was born and bred an NBC news girl but come ON, tv news is not a place where good girls go. Y’know?

So when I heard Rachel was gonna get her own show I was very pleased for her. She does a great job on Olbermann so I was looking forward to seeing how she handled things on her own. I was also looking forward to seeing what her show ended up being since she does fine wtih Keith’s format but when it’s HER name on the title, what will it look like? So tonight I got a chance to see.

I like her show! Right now it’s a fair amount of campaign coverage, so I also want to see how her show evolves when the campaign is over. But for now it’s campaign coverage and then some time with Pat Buchanan and some guy who “gives me enough pop culture knowledge so I can be allowed out in public”. I liked that part because they touched on Britney and he said “I have more if you want it…” and Rachel said “No, I’m good.”

So here’s the show:
I like Rachel. She asked some interesting questions of all her guests who actually weren’t the Keithy usuals.
I liked that she had “my fake uncle Pat” (Buchanan) on, and that she stood up to him on some things. It was fun to watch civil disagreement instead of just shouting. What a switch!
I liked the pop culture bit and it was a brief snarky thing that was a nice change of pace from politics.
I felt like they were trying to show that Rachel could do it on her own, but I also think she really shines when she gets to put the hard questions to guests, so I would like to have more back and forth.
I think this could do well for a number of reasons. I like that she’s a girl but I don’t watch JUST for that, it’s bonus. (grumble McCain playing me grumble) I will save the politics for a different post. But I wanted to say that Rachel’s show is interesting and fun and I think she gives me a different enough perspective from Keith that I can watch two shows for a nice perspective and get info from another source.

Believe you me I have so much to say on politics lately that I barely know what to do with myself. I need a good outlet for all that political opinionating and pontificating. Maybe I’ll find one, you just never know. (:

I am liveblogging each episode of Doctor Who as I watch it. I am publishing a raw stream of consciousness list of things I am considering and wondering about as I watch. In the interest of not spoiling anything for anyone I am putting all of it behind the jump.

This episode is the sixth episode of Season Four (or Thirty depending who you ask), called The Doctor’s Daughter. From the site: On the planet Messaline, in the middle of an endless war, the Doctor meets the most important woman of his life.
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