Out of the many things I hate about South Dakota, driving presents several of them.



#1: Non-commercial drivers. Not only are they clueless and almost without exception fail to use turn signals along with pretty regularly driving on the shoulder, but what is it with speeding minivans? Does the extra speed add enough coolness to your persona to offset the fact that you are driving a MINIVAN? I think not.



#2: Commercial drivers: They have NO problem causing you to lock 'em up and squeal sideways down the highway because they just pulled out in front of you at 5mph while you were about 200 yards away going 65mph. Many motorists are killed each year as a result of this exact behavior. Enough said, I think.



#3: Tailgaters: You will all burn in Hell and I will laugh with glee. Remember that next time you think you can insert your Honda Civic up the tailpipe of my Jeep Cherokee. You probably can, and someday I might make you do it, and then your insurance company can buy me an even newer Jeep with even fewer miles on it. How's that sound? Sounds like good fun to me.



Notes on the boss today:

Be warned that you won't be told the rules until after you have violated one of them.

Note to self: probably should sign up for that psychic divination class at the local food co-op.



Notes on endocrinologist today:

His score is now 0-2 for times visited withOUT him having made a crass remark. First visit it was "So you were always heavy?" when I told him I weighed 140lbs when I graduated high school. Hello! any less than that and I look like I've been hitting the crack pipe. Today it was "That happens when you replace them with food." when I told him I instantly gained 7 lbs after quitting smoking. Needless to say, I didn't replace the cigs with M&M's; I actually had replaced them with sit-ups. Fuck you, doc, seriously.



Gonna have to get new running shoes, the Adidas are still making my feet numb.

Gerald, aka "Mr. Fishie", passed away in the night. He was given a sentimental burial in the kitchen garbage bin. He is survived by the ugly black algae-covered snail, who has relocated to the kids' tank. He was approximately 4 years old, which is about it for a betta.



Drew says: "Truly a sad day for ichthyology fans everywhere. Mr. Fishie was truly a prince amongst fish. His community service and philanthropy will be remembered far beyond his few years."



I think I will pack his tank away for a bit.

I was **trying** to watch the Dbacks while I was at the gym today but then some weightlifting gorilla changed the TV channel to "elimiDate" (wtf is that???) for his girlfriend on the elliptical machine next to me without even asking if i was watching the game.



I couldn't reach the TV controls to change it back :((



Exercising will not make me taller, but it will eventually make me able to kick that guy's ass. Or maybe just outrun him. Maybe. ;>

I rushed out to Kmart (which i hate) to get some last minute needed things for my gym date (which i ended up not getting to attend because of work), and while shopping there encountered the absolute worst behaved child I have ever seen in public or otherwise. It was mesmerizing. I was truly impressed that such a child had lived to his current age and not been treated earlier on to a fatal beating.



I must admit I found him fascinating in a sick train-wreck kind of way. I wandered around the store in his vicinity for a bit, taking in the sheer magnitude of his absolute atrociousness, until I found him right next to me, yelling to someone in his party another aisle over, and I spoke quietly to him:



"Have you seen that movie with Harry Potter?"

Puzzled look that a strange adult would be addressing him, then mumbling, "Yeah."

"Do you remember his cousin, the one who got the pig's tail put on him by magic?"

"Yeah."

"He wasn't very nice, was he?"

"No."

"Did you know you act just like him?"

Blank stare. Runs away after a moment. Is much quieter the rest of his shopping trip.



I must be evil, but that was darn fun. I'd say I deserve a Diana Trent Award for that one.



I MUST MUST MUST start using the caller ID on the phone after working hours.

If I legally changed my name to "Randomly Selected", could I sue all the sweepstakes companies for the winnings saying I was the winner?



"If your name is randomly selected, then you will win..."

"Our winner will be randomly selected..."

"Winner is randomly selected..."

Who: Sheryl Crow

Where: Orpheum Theatre, Sioux City, IA

When: Sept 16, 2002, 8pm.



A few show notes:



To Michelle [Branch, opening act]: All your songs sounded the same. You have a great voice, some variety would be nice though.



To Sheryl: In the Orpheum in Sioux City, if you stand at the front edge of the stage, those of us in the nosebleed section can't see you. Just in case you ever come back... Also, were all 6 of those busses YOURS? You were awesome, thanks for a great show.



To the people seated behind us for part of the show: You are fucking idiots. While I found the details of your personal lives simply FASCINATING, as I am sure everyone else within earshot did, I did not pay $50 to sit and listen to your loud, pathetic, ignorant whining. I know, you'd had too many Miller Lights and probably weren't raised any better, but here's a free clue to learn, know and live: YOU DON'T TALK LOUDLY DURING THE SONGS AT A CONCERT. It's just not cool to try to out-yell the PA system, which you nearly managed to do. I heard some of what you said to me after I asked you to be quiet, and I was hoping that you'd take a swing so I could have thrown your stupid Iowa cornfed inbred ass down the stairs, but alas. Oh yes, and one more thing: you couldn't find the BEAT in a song if it was delivered with a baseball bat, so if some other poor sods should have the misfortune to have to sit near you at another concert, please DO NOT CLAP. You were so far away from the beat that you weren't even in the SAME STATE. Thank GOD you left early, you BOTARDS.



To the parents who brought their young children: When did rock concerts become kid-friendly and parent approved? Kinda takes some of the fun out of it if it's appropriate for a 7 year old to attend...



To the people who didn't stay for the encore: Heh. Suckers. You missed a rockin Zeppelin cover and Ms. Crow wiggling her ass barefoot on a baby grand piano. Guess you had to get your little kids home since it was darn late on a school night. Get a babysitter next time, seriously.



To McDonald's and Burger King in the area: You really should be open at 11:22pm on a Monday night. People gotta eat. God Bless Subway.



Good night! :)

National Public Radio (NPR)

My dog is really afraid of thunder. This is not a good place for her to be living.

How to translate Yankton, South Dakota time to real world time when referring to auto repairs, medical tests, or other time-sensitive issues:



They say: "a couple of days."



What that really means in real world time: "a couple of weeks."



Don't be fooled, boys and girls.

The following is a rather elegant essay, by Mr. Reed, regarding the failings of a system and a culture. Please note that he elegantly describes the mood of many white Americans and does so without predjudice.



Oh, Lord. I'd pull my hair out, if I had more.



On the Web I find that Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Afro-American Studies at Harvard, is demanding that whites, pay reparations to blacks. It's because of slavery, see. He is joined in this endeavor by a gaggle of other professional blacks. I guess he'll send me a bill.



Huh? I feel like saying, Let me get this straight, Hank. I'm slow. Be patient. You want free money because of slavery, right?

I don't blame you. I'd like free money too.



Tell you what. I believe in justice. I'll give you a million dollars for every slave I own, and another million for every year you were a slave. Fair enough? But tell me, how many slaves do you suppose I have? In round numbers, I mean. Say to the nearest dozen. And how long were you a slave?



Oh.



In other words, I owe you reparations for something that I didn't do and didn't happen to you. That makes sense. Like lug nuts on a birthday cake.



Personally, I think you owe me reparations for things you didn't do and never happened to me. I've never been coated in Dutch chocolate and thrown from the Eiffel Tower. I'll bet you've never done it to anyone.



I want reparations.



Kinda silly, isn't it?



But if we're going to talk about reparations, that's a street that runs in two directions. You want money from me for what some other whites did to some other blacks in another century. How about you guys paying whites reparations for current expenses caused by blacks? Not long ago blacks burned down half of Los Angeles, a city in my country. Cities are expensive, Hank. Build one sometime and you'll see what I mean.



Whites had to pay taxes to repair Los Angeles for you.



You can send me a check.



Now, yes, I know you burned LA because you didn't like the verdict in the trial of those police officers. Well, I didn't like the verdict in the Simpson trial. But I didn't burn my house and loot Korean grocers.



Over the years blacks have burned a lot of American cities: Newark, Detroit, Watts, on and on. Now add in the fantastic cost over the years of welfare in all its forms, of large police forces and jails and security systems in department stores. I can't live in the capital city of my own country because of crime committed by blacks. Toss in the cultural cost of lowering standards in everything for the benefit of blacks.



See what I mean?



Now, I'd view things differently if you said, "Fred, blacks can't get anywhere in a modern country without education. We know that. We need better schools, smarter teachers, harder courses, books with smaller pictures and bigger words. Can you help us?"



I'd say, "Hallelujah! Hoo-ahh! Not just yes, but hell yes. Let's sell an aircraft carrier and get these folks some real schools and get them into the economic mainstream." I'd say it partly because it would be the right thing to do, and partly because I'd like to add you guys to the tax base. The current custodial state is expensive. I'd just love for blacks to study and learn to compete and stop burning places.



But is it going to happen?



You may not believe it, but I, and most whites, don't like seeing blacks as miserable and screwed up as they are. I spend a fair amount of time in the projects. Those places are ugly. It's no fun watching perfectly good kids turn into semi-literate dope dealers who barely speak English. It just plain ain't right.



But, Hank, what am I supposed to do about it? I can't do your children's homework. At some point, people have to do things for themselves, or they don't get done.



Maybe it's time.



I'll tell you what I see out in the world, Hank. I think blacks are too accustomed to getting anything they want by just demanding it. True, it has worked for over half a century. Get a few hundred people in the street, implicitly threaten to loot and burn, holler about slavery, and the Great White Cash Spigot turns on.



Thing is, whites don't much buy it any longer. Most recognize that what once was a civil-rights movement has become a shakedown game. Few people still feel responsible for the failings and inadequacies of blacks. Political correctness keeps the lid on--but everyone knows the score.



Which scares me, Hank. On one hand, blacks hate whites and incline toward looting and burning. (The whites you hate are the ones who marched in the civil-rights movement. Ever think about that?) On the other hand, whites quietly grow wearier and wearier of it.



Not good.



On the third hand (allow me three hands, for rhetorical convenience) blacks keep demanding things. As I write, you demand reparations for slavery. Blacks in Oklahoma (I think it was) want money for some ancient race riot. Other blacks reject the Declaration of Independence, blacks in New York hint broadly at burning and looting over a trial, yet more demand the elimination of the Confederate flag, and the federal equal-opportunity apparatus, which means blacks, wants to sue Silicon Valley for not hiring nonexistent black engineers.



That's a lot of demanding for one month, Hank.



What happens if whites ever say, "No"?



Now, how about you? You've got a cushy job up there at Harvard, and you can hoot and holler about what swine and bandits whites are. I guess it's lots of fun, and you get a salary for it. But don't you think you might do blacks more good if you told them to complain less and study more?



For example, if you want blacks to work in Silicon Gulch, the best approach might be to find some really smart black guys, and get them to study digital design, not Black Studies. That's how everybody else does it. It works. Then blacks wouldn't feel left out, and racial tension would decline.



Sound like a plan?



Just out of curiosity, how many hours a week do professors of Afro-American Studies spend in the projects, encouraging poor black kids to study real subjects, Hank?



Oh.

I had an idea about a good story today during my massage. I don't know if it's a story I will be able to write, but I sure would like to read it.



The premise is that there really is predestination. There is some higher being, God, if you like, who has a mastermind plan to acheive [something I haven't come up with yet] and every human being who ever lived and ever will live is a part of that plan. Everyone has a crucial role to play, however small, and the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.



For example, your name is Henry, and your purpose in life is to let your dog out of the house into your front yard at 3:12pm on July 13, 2003. There have been billions of small events leading up to you making this seemingly insignificant move, but it's a piece in the giant puzzle that must fit into place for the final goal to be met. Perhaps the dog, when let out at precisely that time, frightens a bird who happens to be feeding nearby the yard. That frightened bird flies off around the corner and zooms in front of a car, causing the motorist to swerve and causes a head-on collision with another vehicle, killing the other driver. Perhaps that other driver, if not killed, would have given birth to another Hitler. Or another Mother Teresa. Or another Oppenheimer.



But I'm not saying that "the plan" is good. Or that the final goal is good. Or that any part of it is actually "good". Just that it is very, very complex.



And what were to happen if some small part of that plan were to go awry?



Well, that's actually the crux of the story. Another person, say, Peter (for lack of a better name), somehow, due to some unforeseen glitch, fails to perform his part in the master plan. Now I realize that this might be a blatant ripoff of The Matrix, but this event allows Peter to glimpse a part of the master plan, a part of the huge web of events. And the plan shifts itself, trying to make amends and get back on track, presenting Peter with the same opportunity to do his bit over and over again. Only it's already so far off kilter that he misses every time, and every time he's able to see more and more of the plan, more and more of the interconnections and dependencies.



Until...



I don't know. Until what? Until he sees the final goal and reveals it to the reader? It would have to be something pretty spectacular and shocking. Of course I haven't come up with what that pretty spectacular and shocking thing would be, so it isn't much of a climax at this point.



Oh yeah, and I'm worried I am going to lose my job.



Ini