The State of the Union and some stuff they can all agree on

I used to look forward to the State of The Union speech.  In a real way it was like watching an episode of The West Wing except in one where Martin Sheen gets interrupted by SUPER-ANNOYING cheering from people who supposedly like him every time he strings together 7 words in a row.  Tonight I caught some big chunks of this year’s speech – and I’m suddenly pretty worried about my own attention span.  The speech lasted 70 minutes officially, but it’s entirely possible that it’s still going on regardless of when you’re reading this. 

Barry had about 4 complete sentences flowing from the teleprompter, but each moment he moved his mouth he was interrupted by snarkily-cheering Democrats, some of whom were holding sings up that simply said, “Nee-nor-nee-nor-nee-nor.”  (I guess being in the majority feels good)  And if that wasn’t enough, the folks on the other side would vocally sneer (harder to do than it sounds) at the President or at least try to appear so stoic that they may or may not have been mannequins.  At times there was even some bizarre retaliatory cheering where they would take turns yelling “We have spirit yes we do!  We have spirit how about you!.”  At one point Nancy Pelosi actually threw her ubiquitous pom poms at some not-so-limber Republican senators who looked to be easily over 100 years old.  But sometimes, both sides cheered at exactly the same time as if they actually agreed on something the President said OR because it had been 20 whole seconds since the speech was interrupted.  Some of my favorite “unanimous cheering” lines were:

“We need to support doing things that will help people to find more money to donate to political campaigns.”

“I love dogs.”

“Your government totally has your best interests at heart – all the time – so just keep sending in those taxes and we’ll do some good stuff.  And, even if you don’t send enough, don’t worry, we’ll go ahead and spend what you didn’t send in anyway.”

Isn’t it great that our impartial CongressPeople can all get along sometimes when they’re not accusing each other of devil-worship and being against children?  Speaking of impartiality, after the speech I watched some of the super-fair analysis on the FoxNews from objective people like Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin.  After hearing them talk, I’m kinda convinced that The President is about to rob my house, sell my stuff to the chinese, and then give the proceeds to the terrorists.

But I’m not that worried, cuz he’s probably still trying to wrap up his speech.

My Little Bro on Conan!

Yeah, I’m a little bit proud.  My brother, Rob, is playing the bass guitar here.  Pretty good week to be on Conan – there were a few people watching!!  The new record is Awesome!

That Lady In Chicago

A few nights ago my always-looking-out-for-me wife told me I needed to sit down and watch a particular episode of Oprah with her.  Now let’s be clear – I’ve been there done that with the Big O (in that sentence “big” refers to her being HYPER-FAMOUS and INSANELY-WEALTHY, it had nothing to do with girth).  Over the years I’ve seen a few of her shows that I thought were awful good, and I’ve also seen a few that I thought were, well, awful.  This particular show was about the dangers of cell-phoning (texting and yapping) while driving.  Of course the way Oprah makes her point is with multiple real-life stories.  After a few of these incredibly depressing, but sobering accounts, Traci had to stop me from using a sledge-hammer on my phone.  Do not question the effectiveness of Oprah’s producers and her “how do you feel…” questions aimed at tearful guests.

I am sold.

I do text and drive, sometimes e-mail, sometimes IM, sometimes Facebook.

I won’t do that anymore – and suggest you do the same.

My hat tip to Harpo.  And gracias to the Mrs HTF, who is right more often than I care to admit.

And People Vacation Here . . . On Purpose?!

I got this note a couple days ago in the HTF mailbox from the always inquisitive CM:

Dear HTF:

Do you think falling iguanas are a sign of the Apocalypse? 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100107/ap_on_bi_ge/us_winter_weather

I think if the Apocalypse was happening, it would probably begin in Florida, don’t you?

CM

First, thanks for the question.  The short answer is, “YES.” And the medium answer is “WITHOUT A DOUBT.”  How do I know that?  Because I happen to actually be sitting in a hotel room in Ft Lauderdale of all places.  And after being here for a few days I can confirm that whatever apocalyptic chicanery (good name for a rock band) you’re referring to isn’t just going to start here, but I’m pretty sure it started some time ago.  When I got off the plane the wind chill was below freezing.  How weird is weather like that in Miami?  It’s roughly the same weirdness level as an NFL Offensive Lineman winning the Ice Dancing competition in the forthcoming Olympics.

Next, there MUST be something crazy going on because humans don’t drive the way Floridians do.  It’s like EVERYONE hasn’t eaten in 3 weeks and they’re on their way to the Chuck ‘O Rama – ain’t nothin’ getting in their way or even slowing them down.  Also the cars here are wired differently because whenever people push the brake their horn goes off.  After a couple days I don’t even notice horns or people driving on the sidewalk anymore.

Also, I’m pretty sure there’s something biblical that says “And it shall come to pass that the Lions will hang out with the lambs AND the 15-foot-long alligators will roam freely as if they were insurance salesmen.”  Tonight we had dinner sitting outside near a canal.  This wouldn’t be a dangerous thing in most any other part of the universe, but while we were eating I heard a huge splash.  I’ll admit we didn’t see what caused it it, but unless someone dropped a Mid-Size-Volkswagon in the water we were dining near an alligator – guess he was into Chinese food.  Lets be clear, this doesn’t happen in the real world.

The last thing – if you watch the local news here, you’ll never go outside . . . ever . . . because you become convinced that something terrible will happen to you.

So I could go on, but your super-accurate guess about where the end of things will start seems spot on!  Congrats on your wisdom and for living not in Florida.

Here’s a photo from yesterday of me at Ft Lauderdale beach – note the layered clothing and the shifty eyes looking for bald-man-eating alligators and/or self-important people driving their Escalades on the beach in a huge hurry:

PS – I do love me the Palm Trees

Finally Getting to the list and a Random Winner

You might be thinking that my New Year’s Resolutions was - “Don’t blog.”  Well, not so much.  I want to thank those of you who played along with the little “favorite posts of 2009” thing.  That was helpful – and a little surprising at times.  Also, huge congrats to the Fabulous CM who wins the prize.  I just used a spreadsheet to generate a random number to pick the winner.  Let there be no challenge to my geekiness!  So off to the right on my blog you’ll see the new list of top posts of 2009.  I’ve also been working diligently, by which I mean that I thought about it a couple times, on a new HTF music playlist.  So far I’ve identified about 25 songs and I’ll add a few more and post it soon.

Anyway, I want to be the last to say Happy 2010 to you!!

Here’s a can of tuna to help you celebrate: