Jeff's Journal

01:14 am - Chupacabra on a cruise ship!

As I am heading to bed here (cough medicine, check.  Vick's vapor rub, check.  Flosinax, check)  I am watching the sci-fi channel.  Today has been all about cryptozoology (for the most part).

Some of the movies featured today were Sasquatch Mountain.  Yeti was the centerpiece of the night. 

The lastest film has someone smuggling a chupacabra onto a cruise liner.  This is going to be such a disaster.  LMAO

12:53 am - 2008 Presidential Election

I'll admit I sat up late Tuesday night watching the election returns.  I voted for Cynthia McKinney, the green party's candidate.  I voted for her for a couple of reasons:
     1.  NY polls indicated Obama would carry the state by a large margin.
     2.  The Green Party needed 50,000 votes to ensure it would be able to be on the
2012 ballots without going through the whole petition/signatures thing again.

To be honest, I wasn't overly impressed with Obama.  I watched the debates and countless TV appearances.  He seemed a bit dull to me.  I couldn't, in good conscience though, vote for McCain, even if I personally think that McCain isn't a bad guy.  In fact, McCain would probably be fun to sit down to lunch with.  I like the man, but detest his politics.  I'm not going to comment on Palin.  Don't even get me started on that fool.

I was very surprised while watching the election returns.  When Ohio was projected to go for Obama, I pretty much knew it was over for McCain.  Hell, there were states that they couldn't declare immediately that really surprised me.  North Carolina, Georgia???  Indiana, Montana.  Even Texas at one point.  When the polls closed in NY they declared "CNN has projected that Obama will win New York".  

I expected to hear them say that McCain had won some of the places mentioned above, but they didn't.  Texas???  That's pretty bad.

I watched McCain's concession speech, and have to say that I was really impressed by him.  It was gracious and kind.  It was a different side of McCain.  Hell, if he had campaigned like that maybe he would've won.  I do feel bad for the man.  He had a passion.  He believed that he was right for the job.  He's a war veteran and really loves his country.  I felt bad for him.  

I was equally impressed with Obama's victory speech.  He was humble and didn't sugarcoat things.  It's going to take time to undo eight years of W.  I have to wonder.  At the moment he won, was he thinking "Ooooh shit.  I won.....what have I gotten myself into???"  

It was amazing watching the crowds - from the crowd in Chicago he was speaking to, to the crowds that were celebrating in cities across the country and around the world.  I have to wonder if people would've celebrated if McCain won.

Last, but not least, W.  I really feel bad for the man.  I'm not becoming a W supporter by any mean here.  I do feel bad for the man though, only because those celebrations of Obama winning were also a celebrationg that W's time is coming to an end.  In some cases it was expressed ("Good Bye George" in France).

I am glad that in a little over seventy days the W nightmare will end and after watching his victory speech I have confidence in our newest President.  I hope he is able to get done what needs to be done.    

    

12:44 am - Here's a first....

I went to the local walk in clinic.  It was time.  A nasty bug was brought home and after a week of sore throats, coughing, sinus pressure, etc, I decided it was time to go see a doctor.

I got there at 10 am.  I was done by 10:30.  The Doctor I saw was pretty intense and headstrong.

She didn't prescribe antibiotics, despite the fact that I get chronic sinus infections.  She said nothing looked infected to her and she was not going to prescribe anything.  Kudos to her.  Most doctors are quick to prescribe antibiotics.

Her diagnosis was Sinusitis and I got a nasal spray steroid that's supposed to help with the inflammation.  She also told me to become friends with Mucinex DM.  I told her that I got nosebleeds the last time I was on the steroid she prescribed.  She replied matter-of-factly "that's probably because you shoved it straight up your nose.  It has to be used at an angle."  LOL

She was young and I like younger doctors.  They're more up to date with things and they actually take the time to educate patients.  My primary physician is an bumbling idiot.  I wish she could be my primary.

Her bedside manner sucked, but I respected her. 

11:52 pm - Drugs

There's tons of commercials for new prescribed drugs for everything from migraines to erectile dysfunction.  I have to laugh when I hear the possible side effects.  A recent drug for migraines can cause heart attacks.  Who the hell would take a drug that has a possible side effect of causing a heart attack? 

I can't recall the name of the medication for migraines, but I do recall the heart attack side effect.  One can argue that when you have a migraine the pain is so bad you're willing to risk it, but damn.  You might as well just take a gun and point it to your head....

11:27 pm - AMC Horror Today

Today sucked.  It was all repeated movies.  Jeepers Creepers, Bride of Chucky, American Werewolf in London.  Their "BIG" premier was Friday the 13th - Jason Goes To Hell, which is perhaps the worst in the franchise.  It's the one where people were being possessed by Jason.  Often times the only time you saw Jason was if there was a mirror around.  Pretty sad stuff.

Willard is currently on.  I do enjoy this movie, but I'm not sure it falls into the horror genre.  It sort of does, sort of doesn't.  I don't know.  Maybe if I was afraid of mice and rats it would be more scary, but I think it's more funny than anything else.

Rodents don't bother me.   I've never been afraid of them.  Growing up we had gerbils and hamsters in school, and at home we had guinea pigs and a chinchilla (Not sure if chinchilla are rodents.  They might not be due to differences in gestation).  Living in an old farm house, we often had mice (the cats took care of those that came in).  One of my best friends had pet rats and they never bothered me. 

Now spiders and bugs....that's an entirely different story. 

12:35 am - Jason - Michael - Freddy

AMC has been showing non-stop horror films since Friday.  I'm totally loving it!  I did take a break from it today and watched two Return of the Living Dead films I had never seen before though, which were on Sci-fi channel.   They both sucked.  One was Necropolis the other was "Rave to the Grave".  Pretty corny stuff.

I've seen all of the films AMC has been showing - the Halloween films,  Bride of Chucky (One of the classic movie scenes of all time is Chucky having sex with the Tiffany doll), Nightmare on Elm Street (the first one), Pet Semetary, American Werewolf in London. 

It made me realize how bad current horror films have gotten.  Hell, most of them suck.  The Americanized Japanese films (Grudge, Ring) suck.  I haven't seen The Strangers or Happening, but hear they weren't very good (The Happening made it onto the top ten worst horror films list).  Aside from Jigsaw in the Saw films, there are no iconic slashers out there.

And of the traditional slashers - Michael Myers, Freddy and Jason - which one is the best?

Freddy became a bit too campy at one point.  The one-liners and comments....don't get me wrong, I love the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but at some point into it Freddy stopped being scary and became funny instead.

That leaves Michael and Jason.  Which one was the scariest?

Michael seemed intent on one thing - killing those that were related to him.  Sure he offed a lot of people along the way, but Jamie Lee Curtis was always his main target (and later her kid).  He was territorial - if you went into his house, he was going to kill you.  If you get in Michael Myers' way, you're dead.

Jason, on the other hand, was territorial, but also more random.  There was no "connection" to his various victims.  If you were alive and in his vicinity, your life expectancy went down considerably.

11:54 pm - Worthless trivia

5 "cute" animals that can kill you:
     1.  Hippos
     2.  Chimps
     3.  Dolphins
     4.  Platypus
     5.  Geese

A pissed off goose can easily break a man's arm by hitting the man with it's wings.  The platypus have these nasty little things on their back feet that can inject you with poison;  A dolphin is a fast moving torpedo that sometimes will attempt to mate with swimming humans;  Chimps are six times stronger than humans and go for the face and hands first.  Last but not least, the hippo's teeth are so big and its jaw so strong it could slice a person into three pieces with one bite.  Hippos last year accounted for 200 deaths in Africa, twice that of Crocs & Lions.  Go figure.

Beer can make women's breasts grow bigger.  The hops in it stimulates breast growth.

If given the choice between eating cat or dog meat, Dog meat is better in stews and tastes better but is less healthy than cat meat.  Cat meat tends to be stringy.  *yuck*

To go to a posh minimum security prison you must meet two criteria - the crime must not have been violent and has to be less than fifty million dollars.

A woman who suffers from dwarfism, if she becomes a prostitute, will make double the money a woman of average height will make.  According to the pimp talking about this, it's because a midget prostitute is a novelty.  Statistically, 1 in 25000 people are born with a form of dwarfism.  And only ,02 percent of the population work as prostitutes.  However, one midget prostitute stated she makes double what the other hookers make because she has such tiny hands that make everything look big.

FYI - I learned all of these wonderful bits of trivia on TV tonite.  Don't ask....

11:40 pm - Miss Piggy Lookin Fool....

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on your TV's again, VH1 has unleashed a new barrage of train wrecks. 

Starting off the night was "I Love Money" the Reunion.  If you're not familiar with the show, it featured 17 people who appeared on Flavor of Love 1 & 2, Rock of Love 1 & 3 and I Love New York 1 & 2.  The winner of the show got $250,000.  The winner was Hoopz (Flavor of Love 1).  Some of the highlights of the show included Mr Boston, pitching what he feels would make for a good reality show - him going over seas and finding out which countries have the biggest sluts, Meghan fighting with Heather and Pumkin, and well...it was sort of boring.  No brawls, not too much screaming....

Then Rock of Love Charm School debuted.  There was previously the Flavor of Love Charm School, which featured selected girls from the Flavor of Love show.  This one features the Rock of Love girls with headmistress Sharon Osbourne.  This was much more entertaining.

From the moment the girls arrived in the house, thing went to hell very quickly.  Heather discovered she would be rooming with Meghan (who screwed her over in I Love Money).  Lacey would be rooming with Dallas.  Lots of drama there.  The girls immediately went to work, hitting the bar.  At one point Lacey was groped Dallas' ass.  Dallas got pissed and poured her drink on Lacey.  Lacey threw her drink at Dallas.  Dallas retaliated by throwing an apple at Lacey and hitting her in the left ear.  While this was going on, Courtney got plastered (Courtney was on Rock of Love 2 and was passed out on a bed during the first elimination).    Then it came time for the formal admissions into the school.  Poor Courtney could barely stand.  Sharon recommended that she go lay down and had two of the other girls help her up to her bed.

Other highlights included Lacey grabbing Raven's hair.  She thought Raven's hair was a wig, but to her surprise it wasn't.

It's trashy TV at its best.  For those interested in it, it airs on Sunday nights at 9 pm on VH1.  And if you should miss it, they usually repeat it later.

01:26 am - 25 Best Sci Fi Series

Another "best of" list that was up on AOL....

25.  The Jetsons
24.  Wonder Woman
23.  Tales from the Crypt
22.  Andromeda
21.  Quantum Leap
20.  Hitchhiker
19.  Dark Angel
18.  V
17.  Firefly
16.  Flash Gordon
15.  Logan's Run
14.  Star Trek Voyager
13.  Outer Limits (Original)
12.  Xena
11.  Lost
10.  Sliders
  9.  Mystery Science Theater 3000
  8.  Dr. Who
  7.  Twilight Zone (Original)
  6.  Stargate SG1
  5.  Babylon 5
  4.  X Files
  3.  Star Trek The Next Generation
  2.  Battlestar Galactica (new)
  1.  Star Trek

This was actually a top 50 list, but I was too lazy to type it all out. 

Stargate Atlantis made it onto the list, as did several others that are missing, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the original Battlestar Galactica, Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman.

Deep Space Nine did not make it onto the list.  Neither Did Heroes, nor did Planet of the Apes.  Interesting enough, the adventures of Lois and Clark and Adventures of Superman were on, but Smallville was nowhere to be found.  Star Trek Enterprise also didn't make the list, and despite my dislike for that series, I still think it was better than the Wild Wild West, which did make the list.

Not sure what criteria they were using.  Some of the shows don't necessarily fal into the Sci Fi genre.  I know when The Dark Knight is released it probably won't be placed in the sci fi bins in the stores so why should the Adventures of Lois & Clark, Wonder Woman and Batman be included here?  And if super heroes are to be included and cartoons are included (Jetsons, Futurama) why didn't the X-men or Justice League International, Batman, Superman, Teen Titans.  Then there is the horror based shows.  Tales from the Crypt & Buffy the Vampire Slayer?  Horror.  Some of the shows on the list really didn't make much sense to me at all.

11:43 pm - Apples

Went to the Apple Farm today.  It was a nice day and the place was busy, if not expensive.  It got me thinking about apples so I did some research when I got home.  Here's some interesting trivia....

- October is National Apple Month.
- There are over 2500 varieties of apples grown in the US.
- Washington, New York and Michigan produce more than half of the apples grown in the US.
- Apples can be grown in every single US state.
- Apples are believed to have been brought over from China.
- Apples are the second largest fruit crop in the US (Oranges are number one).
- Apples are vital for digestive health - they pack a lot of fiber.
- The Crabapple is the only native apple of North America.
- The Pilgrims were planted the first apple trees in Massachusettes.
- Apples are a member of the rose family.
- 25 percent of an apple is air.  This is why they float.
- It takes 36 apples to make one gallon of cider.
- Nearly one of every four apples harvested in the US is exported.
- Red Delicious is the most commonly grown variety.

12:13 am - What am I going to watch?????

This totally sucks....

A few of my shows are ending.  How the hell they have a season finale in the first week of October amazes me.  Isn't this the time when they're watching the viewing patterns?!?  Isn't it sweeps time???

Tonite was the season finale of Tabatha's Salon Takeover.  If you've never seen it, it features this woman Tabatha who goes to failing hair salons, takes them over and cleans them up.  She's a bitch, but I love the woman!  I don't have a Thursday 10 pm replacement show!

Next Wednesday Project Runway ends.  What the hell am I going to watch on Wednesdays at 9?!?

New York Goes To Hollywood, I Love Money have both ended on VH1, freeing up time slots on Sundays and Mondays that I haven't found replacements for, although Rock of Love Charm School starts this coming week, so I'll get my fix of trashy reality shows.

And where the hell is Battlestar Galactica?!?!?!  BSG is in it's final season.  Translated it might be two years before the damned show is finished....

So what am I currently watching?

Project Runway
Survivor Gabon
Stargate Atlantis
Sanctuary
America's Next Top Model
CSI NY

Last week I was brain dead from watching five days of Married with Children marathons.  The previous week, Spike was airing a week long CSI NY marathon. 

On a positive note, Bravo's Top Chef NY starts soon.  I love that show although after watching it I feel like I can't cook at all. 

01:33 am - 31 scariest Movies as per movoefone

04:46 pm - Survivor China Episode 1 Prediction

That time of again!

First episodes are usually difficult to predict, but the morons at CBS have given out a clue.  There was a shot which looks like it's from next week's episode.  The yellow tribe clearly has seven members, while the red team has eight.

The yellow tribe at seven has four women and three men.  Of the three men, it's easy to see which one isn't there - the bearded one, so I'm going to say the Chicken farmer is the first one gone.  I don't even know his name.... 

06:23 pm - Survivor Fiji Prediction - Episode Two

So last week the 19 castaways built a nice shelter and were then divided into two tribes.  The losing tribe was then sent to a new location with very little of anything.  The first person voted out was Jessica.

Of the nine tribe members, five of them voted for Jessica.  

Jessica was in an alliance with Erica and Rocky (James). 

From the previews I've seen and the clues on the CBS website, it would appear that the same tribe goes to tribal council tonite, and I think that the vote will go to Erica.  Couple different reasons...

First, she isnt part of the five strong alliance.

Second, the tribe is actually voting out its weakest members.  And while Erica may not be the "weakest" by any means, she is still weaker than some of the men who make up the bigger alliance.  They'd rather throw her out instead of Rocky.

06:00 pm - Survivor Cook Islands Episode One Prediction

And So it Begins (again)  

This time around we have 20 Survivors.  Sheesh.

Based on tthe previews I've seen and interviews I've read, the African American tribe goes to tribal council tonight and one of the women gets booted.  The problem is I don't know which one it is.  From what I understand the woman who is voted is bossy. and I've narrowed it down to two:

Rebecca and Stephannie.

Of the two, I'm going to go with Stephannie.

Done.

11:02 am - Food for Thought....

I talked with Eric's sister in law Cathy yesterday.

For those who don't know who she is, she's Emily's aunt and the sister of Emily's mother. She's a licensed psychologist and during all the crap happening with Emily's mother, she stood one hundred percent behind Emily. She even stated she would get up in a court of law and testify against her sister if need be.

I called her yesterday for a couple reasons. First, to see how she was doing. She lost a couple dogs a few months back and their deaths have had a huge impact on her life. I also called her because my Father told my friend Tiffany that he thinks I need to be in therapy.

So Cathy and I discussed therapy.

She asked why he thinks that and I told her because he believes I wrote a letter to my sister-in-law's family and because he thinks I have a lot of anger and bitterness.

She asked about my family, the history, dynamics, etc. I told her about the issues that currently exist: My father has cheated on my Mother. My Mother is an alcoholic. My brother Greg takes every opportunity to degrade me, Jason (my other brother), my father and mother to anyone who'll listen.

When I was finished talking to her, she was silent. She says she could tell me stories about some of her patients but never has she heard of such dysfunction within a family. This prompted her to ask more questions, the answers to which shocked her even more! LOL

"How did you manage to come out of such dysfunction with your head on so straight?" she asked me. Heh. A psychologist asking me how come I'm not more fucked up because of my parents. Got to love it!

I told her that a long time ago I was able to see what they were doing. From my mother with her guilt trips and passive aggressive behavior to my father with is detached involvement, blatant favoritism, and being unable to express any feelings for anyone whatsoever. Growing up, he called me "lard ass" because I was overweight. Cathy was appalled and likend that to abuse.

I explained to her that I understood what he was trying to do though. He is unable to express his feelings and concerns. So rather than saying "I think you might have a weight issue Jeff" he instead humiliated me by calling me "lard ass". He was never able to express affection as we grew up. He rarely ever told any of us "I love you...I'm proud of you...etc". Instead he would show his affection by buying us gifts.

I don't fault him for doing any of it, nor do I hold it against him. It's just his way and you can't expect people to change. In his defense he has gotten a bit better - he's mellowed with age.

Regardless, growing up with that, it forced me to be more independent. I learned how to pat myself on the back for doing a job because I knew he would never do it. When I was working as a technical writer/courseware developer and making $55 an hour - not once did he congratulate me or say he was happy for me. Instead he bragged to people at the diner about how much I was making. I would later hear of it through others that he was proud of my accomplishments.

This isn't to say what he did wasn't wrong. It was. It was a really rotten way to treat a kid. I pride myself that I've never once called Emily a "lard ass", because I know how much something like that can hurt. I've learned to give praise when she's done something good and to be happy for her when she is happy with herself. It's amazing how much her face lights up when you say "Emily, you're doing great! I'm proud of you."

So I learned to be independent. I found friends who became "my family" who helped me through a lot of tough times. In reality it would be the only way I would survive. I think of many of my friends (and they know who they are) closer to siblings than my actual brothers. Case in point - Tiffany. I've known her for over twenty years. We've had our ups and downs. At times she could (and still manages) to drive me crazy. Bit if either of us needed anything, we both know, we could count on the other. There's no doubt in my mind about that and I can easily extend that to several others, some of which I've listed as friends here on livejournal.

Things haven't always been easy between me and my father. Not by a long shot. Let's face it - he was out of his league with me. A gay son. A son who was far more interested in music, art and literature than in cars. He had no way of knowing how to relate to me as I was someone he never would've befriended in life. I can understand the favoritism he showered upon Jason and then Greg. They were at least straight and each was marginally more interested in cars than I ever was. LOL. He used to take me to Shangri La. I was more interested in the toys at the concession stand (and later working there) than I ever was in the cars themselves.

And that continues. Our interests are very different and at times there is very little common ground. Politically we're on opposite ends of the spectrum although I have to admit it still bothers me that he supports a political party that is dead set on denying me the ability to marry. He gets excited about new cars, dirty jokes and everyday news events, whereas I would prefer to discuss quantum physics, literature and the arts. In some ways I feel like he has written me off as my Mother's son. Not out of malice or intention but purely due to circumstance. I don't fault him on it by any means.

I do feel he has made me a better person though. As odd as that may sound. He supplied me with a blueprint of what not to do. Sheer empathy has prevented me from falling into his patterns and made me a stronger and better person for it.

Which leads me back to my conversation with Cathy. Damn. I don't really know if she spells her name with a "C" or a "K". According to Cathy, I'm not a good candidate for any type of counseling largely because I've got a grasp on all of my issues. I'm aware of any issues I have. I am able to discuss them with those I am close to. Most importantly, any issues I have with anyone would require I confront those who've created them, something that simply won't happen and besides that, I really don't care enough to go there at this point.

Is there going to be any resolution by me confronting my father saying "it was really mean of you to call me a lard ass when I was heavy?" It's in the past. Can't be undone and why throw that guilt out? What is it going to change? Nothing especially since I've already processed it and put it to bed.

There are other issues that do need discussion and resolution, but sadly, those issues too won't ever be resolved because neither he nor my mother is interested in hearing about it and if by some fluke they did manage to listen, they'd do nothing since it's much easier to pretend everything's fine than address the issue at hand. In that respect, Greg will continue to talk badly about me. He will continue to rake Jason over the coals to anyone will listen. He will continue to bitch to the help about how my Mother is a drunk and tell the same help about how my Dad got a DWI and has cheated on my mother.

Cathy seems to believe that if anyone in the family needs counseling it's Greg as he is simply malicious. She cannot begin to fathom how any child is going to expose his own family to non family members and especially employees. Sadly, this has bit Greg in the ass more than once, but as I was saying earlier with my parents, not only is ignorance bliss but so is denial. And it's not confined just to my parents.

And if I'm the latest scapegoat in their manouverings, so be it. I'm not losing any sleep over it. Frankly, I think the whole thing is sort of funny. My father when he sat there on the phone accusing me of it, never once would say what was in it. It wasn't until I talked to Amy Sue that I heard and aside from the stuff about Greg having an affair, the rest of it was true. My father has had affairs. This is common knowledge that I won't go into here. He claims he was humiliated by it, yet never once did he deny the truth of it. Sometimes the truth hurts and sometimes it comes back to bite you in the ass. As far as him having affairs, did he honestly think the Millers didn't already know about it? Especially in light of Greg's newest revelation? If Christina told Greg about it, is he really that naive to believe that she didn't mention it to her parents as well? Not very likely. That, by the way, upsets me a bit - but I'm going to devote another entry on that one altogether. Actually several.

Oh and before I close, Cathy informed me that writing stuff down in a diary or journal is very therapeutic. Gives a person a chance to sit and reflect on things. That came as no surprise - even my Mother's therapist told her to write letters to my Grandmother. It's amazing how much better you feel after jotting down your thoughts and reflecting on them. There are several others in my family that would benefit from doing the same thing.

My conclusions from all this? I don't need therapy. Won't do any good since any issues I might have won't be resolved anyway. To date, I've successfully dealt with a lot of stuff - being gay, my blindness, not to mention the dysfunction of my family. I've emerged from it all with a pretty good head on my shoulders. I have excellent coping mechanisms - I write my frustrations, venting them, reflect on them and put them to bed.

I'll be posting more entries later concerning a lot of what I've touched on here.

Current Mood: cheerful

01:31 pm - Grandchildren

My friend Tiffany called last night. I guess she talked with my father yesterday at some point and he said that he and my mother think of Emily as their Granddaughter.

I had a good laugh with that one.

With the recent weather and flooding, did he call to see how things were going?

No.

With school at an end, did either of them call here to see how she did in school?

Nope.

Did he ever stop and think of the loss he was inflicting on Emily by taking away the little amount I earned while making pies? "Sorry, Em...no allowance this week..."

Again, No.

Current Mood: amused

11:37 pm - The Things We Do When We're Bored....

Okay, so in on friend's page there was a link for a video. It was posted in the cryptozoology group and it said it was actual footage of Bigfoot. I checked it out.

It was a joke - a funny one at that and I sent out an email to probably too many people with a link to the video. In the video, someone was dressed in a hairy suit and had a blonde wig on their head and danced to this song. It was called the Numa Numa song, but after some investigation I found out it is really called Dragostea Din Tei and was performed by a Romanian group called O-Zone.

That led to me looking up info on Romanian itself and to make a long story short, I've spent the last half hour looking at the Romanian language. It's actually quite interesting. It's one of the Romance Languages (French, Spanish, Italian being the big three) and there are similarities to each of them, but there are some very distinct differences. Unlike the other Romance Languages, it uses cases with its nouns (so in some ways it remains close to Latin). Pronunciation of words is enough to give you a headache, as there are ao many different exceptions to the rules. C is pronounced CH and there is an "a" (dont have the correct symbol for it here) that is pronounced like the "u" in but. That particular a loves to show up at the end of words and I had a dificult time trying to pronounce them correctly...

Current Mood: geeky

10:41 pm - Sometimes it's best to let things die...

I got the latest itunes new releases email and ran across something that made me cringe: The New Cars.

I liked the cars back in the 80's, although they were far from one of my favorite groups. Still I owned Shake It up, Drive, and several of their other singles.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the New Cars link. To my horror, there were all the classic Cars singles re-recorded with a new lead singer.

It was just so wrong!

It would be like the Go-Go's losing Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin and the remaining members deciding to move on with a new lead singer! Actually, that's sort of a bad analogy, since that would still leave Charlotte and Kathy - who wrote most of the group's songs. It would be like Siouxsie and the Banshees continuing without Siouxsie Sioux. There. That's a better one. It would be like Heart continuing without Ann and Nancy Wilscon. You get the picture...

In some cases, a group can continue with new band members. Hell, the Pretenders proved that one, but then the Pretenders were basically Chrissie Hynde with some other people who really weren't all that important...I even enjoyed the last Berlin album, even if Terri Nunn (the lead singer) is the only original member of the band left. In other cases, like the New Cars it simply doesn't work.

05:10 pm - Another Crazy Idea....

Eric stopped at the store and brought me home some popsicles. I wanted some since my throat has been so sore today. As I was sitting here eating one of them a crazy thought came to mind.

Why doesn't Gatorade make popsicles? I mean I know they make like half a dozen different types of sport drinks, but why not popsicles?!? They would be great if you've been sick like I have. I mean you'd have the electrolytes of the sport drink and the soothing coolness of the popsicle. Okay, so I'm getting a little away from the whole sports drink thing...but still.

So anyway, I went to the gatorade site and made a suggestion. If gatorade popsicles show up six months from now, you'll know who to thank! :)