Random Thinking

The other night I fell asleep while Michel was downstairs cleaning. She sometimes gets into the cleaning mood around bed time but since I have to get up at 6 AM, I don’t stay up to help her wipe down the bottom of the refrigerator with a toothbrush. (Really - she does things like that, but only late at night!) Anyway, I woke up around midnight and the lights and TV were on and Michel was nowhere in sight. I went downstairs and sure enough she was lying unconscious on the floor in the living room. I wasn’t sure if she had fallen or if she had just passed out. I was able to wake her up and since she didn’t seem to have broken anything I skipped the ambulance and instead I helped her upstairs and put her to bed. The next day she didn’t remember any of this. From now on I have to make sure that she is in bed before I fall asleep.

The Echo Maker
by Richard Powers

If you spent a week reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat while watching the Hallmark Channel, you might end up writing this novel. Mark Shluter has crashed his truck and his sister, Karin, quits her job and dumps her boyfriend to take care of him. But Mark suffered a brain injury in the accident and insists that his sister is not his sister but someone pretending to be his sister. A famous neurologist, Gerald Weber, arrives to see Mark so he can write about him in his next book. And some cranes fly through town on their way to Alaska.

The main problem with the story is that Powers does nothing with the story. His characters are uninteresting to start with and are completely unbelievable. They don’t react to situations, they overreact. Everything that happens is the most important thing that has ever happened and every character reacts that way. And Powers doesn’t tell a story, too often he tells us about a story. For example, when Weber goes on a television show, we only find out that he embarrasses himself during the interview but not what he said that was so terrible that it destroyed sales of his book. Weber, a crucial character in the story, is the weakest written character in the book. It is virtually impossible to justify or understand his actions. And if two people have sex in the mud, don’t you think they might want to shower or at least change their clothes before going off to lunch and then on to some tourist attraction?

There are some good parts of the book. The mystery of the letter left at the hospital is interesting and is wrapped up quite nicely. In a clever and effective technique, Powers writes alternating sections from the point of view of the various characters. But the book would have been much better if Powers had reduced the length by about 200 pages. I found myself becoming bored with the characters and the story. Serious editing and the elimination of certain story threads could have kept the book short enough to make us not care that the characters are completely unlikeable and unbelievable. But at 450 pages, the holes in the characters shine through.

Tags: books, review

Here are two strange stories that seem related in a way.

This first one is rather tragic. In Australia, a 72 year old man tried to climb a tree to get his pet cockatoo which had escaped from his house. The man fell out of the tree and was seriously injured and had to be taken to the hospital. So his neighbor decides that he will climb the tree and get the bird! Unfortunately, he fell out of the tree also but landed on his head and died.

The second one is about a man trying to change a tire on his car. The 66 year old from Washington state was able to remove all but one of the lug nuts. He decided that the best way to get the remaining lug nut off was (and he wasn’t drunk) to use a shotgun. The ricocheting buckshot and debris from the wheel rim struck the man from his feet to his abdomen. He was taken to a local hospital in serious condition.

Some days it may just be better to stay in bed.

Since it was Beth’s birthday last week, I took her over to our favorite music store, All Music, and let her pick out a new guitar. The sales guy was pushing the Fender guitars (mostly the Strat) on us and Beth liked them but she wasn’t thrilled with them. I asked to see the Ibanez and when Beth tried out the SA260FM, she fell in love with it. I think it had to do with the neck feel because Beth has small hands so she likes the thinner neck on the Ibanez. The guitar has a mahogany body and maple top. It’s very pretty with a bright amber finish. It was probably a little too expensive for a birthday present so it will be part of Christmas too.

Once again, a product made in China is being recalled because it was made with toxic ingredients. Aqua Dots, beads used for arts and crafts, were manufactured with 1,4 butanediol, a chemical that converts into the powerful “date rape” drug gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB) when ingested. Several children have been sickened by the toy in the US and Australia.

Apparently, the factory in China that manufactured the product switched to a much cheaper but toxic glue. 1,4 butanediol is about ten times cheaper than glue that was supposed to have been used.

The question is, how was this product allowed to be sold in the US? Isn’t anyone at the CPSC testing any of these toys coming from China? These toys were sold in every major toy outlet in the country and yet they contained a deadly poison. It is a miracle that no deaths have been reported. What is the Bush administration doing to protect the American consumer?

News Report

Tags: poison toys, Bush is an idiot, China

It’s been birthday week around our place. Saturday was Beth’s birthday. She had a bunch of friends over all day. I chased the boys out at midnight and three of her girlfriends slept over. Yesterday was Matt’s (Beth’s boyfriend) birthday. Matt is a very nice young man and Michel and I both like him. I met his parents last night and they are also very nice. Beth, Matt, and his parents went to a birthday dinner for Matt and his twin brother, Brandon, at Applebee’s. Beth reported back that they had a very nice time.

And today is my birthday. Today I hit the big 49. Only one year away from 50! I have been in a bit of a funk lately, sort of semi-depressed. I guess with all the things going on at our house (Michel being sick, Pop being disabled and staying with us), I just feel overwhelmed. I think I need to take up Yoga or get some exercise.

Today is election day in the US. This is what we call an “off year” election because there are no federal offices being voted on this year. In most states there are no major offices being decided today either. The contests that I got to vote on today are a few judgeships, my county legislator, and a bunch of town officials. There was one statewide ammendment to the state constitution to allow the state to swap some land with a town upstate and one local proposition for my town to sell bonds to buy up some unused land so that it could remain undeveloped.

In NY we use the old lever machines and they seem to work fine. I have never had a problem with them in spite of them being really old technology. I went in to my local voting place at about 8:30 and I was the only person there besides the volunteers manning the tables. The whole process took less than five minutes. Being an off year election, I didn’t expect a huge crowd but I did expect more than just me. As I was leaving a guy pulled up and asked me where he was supposed to vote but it turns out this wasn’t his voting place. I had no idea where his voting place was but it wasn’t in my town. Personally, I think waiting until the day of the election to figure out where you are supposed to vote isn’t the best idea.

Tags: Election Day, crowds, voting

I managed to do it! The Get it Down: 31 For 21 Challenge is over and I managed to blog every single day in October. Which brings up the NaBloPoMo challenge. But I think I’ll pass on that one.

I just read about this very strange story involving Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and current Republican candidate for president. Back in 1985, Wayne DuMond was arrested for raping a cheerleader. While awaiting trial, DuMond was assaulted and castrated. Ultimately he was found guilty of the rape and sent to prison for life plus 20 years.

That’s where Huckabee comes in. When Huckabee became governor of Arkansas, he arranged to get DuMond released from prison and sent him a congratulatory letter on his release. One year later, in 2000, DuMond moved to Kansas City where he raped and murdered a neighbor.

One might forgive Huckabee as just a soft-hearted man who thought a criminal had reformed and deserved a second chance. But that is not what happened. The cheerleader that DuMond originally raped back in 1985 was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. Huckabee had become convinced that DuMond was framed by the Clintons and that the castration had, in fact, been arranged by then Governor Clinton. Yes, you read that correctly. Because Huckabee is some kind of Clinton hating nut, he arranged for a dangerous criminal to be released and is responsible for the death of an innocent woman. Now why is this guy taken the least bit seriously as a candidate?

Arkansas Times article on the parole of DuMond

Tags: Republican insanity, conspiracy nuts, Mike Huckabee