Like a Bug on a Windshield

    My best friend in the entire world died last week and I am struggling to cope right now. I'm afraid I don't have it in me to blog at the moment, so I will be suspending my updates for the immediate future. I will return when I can. --Stephen P.

    When I die, I want to go to doggie heaven with my dog. I mean, doggie heaven just seems like it would be better than people heaven. For one thing, there'd be dogs. For another, if there are other people there they'd be dog people (I wonder if doggie heaven is cat people hell?).     Just think how nice it would be, dogs running in the park all day, perfect spots to bask in the sun or rest in the shade. For dogs who like water there would be ponds and lakes and streams. For dogs who don't like water, there would be no baths. Motion-activated treat dispensers would proliferate. Chew toys would grow on trees and squirrels would be dumb and slow.     I suppose there would have to be some people around to throw all the sticks and balls and Frisbees. Me? I'd be there because my little dog would be there and I love my little dog. Rose is cute and sweet and funny and she loves me. It's hard to imagine eternity without her.     On the other hand, she is a bit demanding

    Only a few days left until the rapture. May 21, 2011 is the day. That's this Saturday. While all the best of the best Christians are ascending to heaven this weekend, I'll be hauling compost for my backyard garden. Okay, side yard. See, it's the lying. That's why I won't be going, 'cause occasionally I indulge in fibs and free compost. It's not that I'm not a Christian, I'm just not a good, self-righteous, mega-church-going, right-wing Christian, so I'm doomed to be left behind. It will be interesting to see who else is left behind with me. I'm pretty sure anyone who reads this will be around to read the next one.     In case you haven't been keeping up, this all stems from some radio evangelist who claims to have done the research and the math and determined that Saturday's the big day. I don't really care enough to look up the name of the preacher or his organization of RV driving doom announcers, but these people are so co

    Let's see how long I can go without getting all political. I thought I'd ruminate on how my past week has been. Aside from irrational political entities driving me nuts.     Television is driving me crazy.     Hawaii Five-O had its season finale (spoiler alert in case you TiVo'd it). Steve McGarrett, attempting to solve his father's murder, has been thoroughly framed for murdering the governor of the island state (by the guy who killed his father). He's also been framed for the murder of the whistle-blower assistant to the governor and one of the members of his team has been arrested for stealing $400,000 from the police evidence locker (which she actually did, but for a good cause). I don't see any way this situation can ever be resolved and I have to wait until the fall season to find out how the writers work this out.     Really, Hawaii Five-O is just awful. The show has some really bad acting and plays like a tourism promotion for the fiftieth state,

    Today I'm very proud of myself! It was only yesterday I demanded that billionaire real estate developer and 2012 Republican presidential candidate-wannabe Donald Trump produce his real birth certificate or admit to being Russian and this morning Trump withdrew from possibly entering the race. I must be really, really awesome! You're fired, Donald Trump! Now to get to work on all those other people who are still in or considering entering the race.     First of all, I've heard all those rumors going around the internet that Sarah Palin is actually a man in drag . Let me just say I don't think I believe that. I'm pretty sure she's just a really homely woman. However, there's a good chance the rumor that Palin and her family are a highly trained, tightly disciplined, heavily armed strike force, comparable to the Navy Seals, is true, so all you bloggers better lay off the Grizzly Mom.    Then there's Tim Pawlenty, whose rapper name is T-Paw. What'

    So where's the real birth certificate, that's what I want to know. Donald Trump posted his alleged long form on the internet, but I checked it out on my iPhone. The thing is tiny! I haven't actually checked, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any states that issue postage stamp sized birth certificates. And where was he really born? He claims he was born in Queens, New York, but I checked and there is no city of Queens--it's a borough. And when I enlarged certain areas of his posted certificate, I saw that he was actually born in Jamaica hospital. Last time I looked, Jamaica isn't in America.     When will the Donald come clean? I demand that he release his real birth certificate. The big one. The one that shows he was actually born in Russia, which is also not in America. If he wasn't born in the USSR, why does he keep marrying women with funny accents? Why won't he tell us that? And what about his college transcripts? He claims he has an educati

    It's that time of year again, when all of my favorite television shows have their season finales. All my favorite "regular season" shows, at least.      When I was a kid (back when dinosaurs had studio contracts), many TV programs had 52 new episodes a year. The years passed and 26 new episodes became standard, with the season beginning in September, taking breaks for various holidays, and ending in May. Reruns and summer "replacement" shows took over for June, July and August. These replacement shows were often pilots for new shows the networks were iffy about, but a few exceptions were long-running summer programs we looked forward to year after year.     These days, through the magic of cable networks, more and more programs run a mere 13 episodes a year and there are three seasons. As if it isn't bad enough waiting all summer for my favorite shows to return, I now have to wait 39 weeks for some of the best.     One really irritating trend, lately

    Writing a blog is hard. Not that I ever thought it would be easy. Not that I ever really thought about it.     Although I've been something of a computer nerd since before there were personal computers ( PCs for those who never knew what "PC" stood for), I'm a slow adopter of social media. I don't ichat, I don't have a personal web page, I don't do Myspace or Facebook and I don't tweet. I only started texting a couple of months ago.     I've never really been clear as to what a blog is or isn't supposed to be. The early blogs seemed to be little more than online diaries, places for people to document the details of their daily lives. After a relatively short time they became known as sources of investigative journalism and editorial opinion. Now, every company, product and television show seems to have a blog. What are these blogs and why do they exist? I'm sure I don't know. And I'm pretty sure I don't really care.    

    Among the many people who were elected last year on both national and local levels are a number who would like to fix this country. They say that we're heading for destruction, or at least misery, if we don't start to put things back the way they were in some long-ago-and-far-away once-upon-a time. It's pretty much a time and place that never existed, but hey, it's worth a try.    In nearly a dozen states, the governors and/or legislatures are trying to reduce or eliminate unions. They say that unions drive away jobs and confiscate money from people's paychecks to pay for political causes their members never approved. But unions work hard to keep corporations honest. They push for a reasonable share of the company's wealth for the workers, for safer working conditions and some level of job security. Many unions provide scholarships for workers' children and emergency relief funds for sick or injured workers. In many cases, unions provide job training

    I think America is in trouble. We seem so distant. We don't talk anymore. Things are getting really tense. It seems like we argue all the time and we fight about things that didn't used to matter. The top one percent in this country, the wealthy and the corporations, are acting like an unfaithful husband getting ready for a divorce, moving money out of joint accounts, hiding income, transferring assets and taking way too long driving the babysitter home.      The rest of us Americans are all like "but we've tried so hard to make this work" and the one percent are like "well maybe if you'd been a little sexier, hadn't had so many unions and taxes--maybe if you'd been more like Ireland." And we're all like "well maybe if Ireland had been up all night with a sick baby!" Then One Percent says "It doesn't matter. I'm taking the house. You can have the kids, but good luck even trying to collect child support!" An