2009 -- go away

It must be another major national holiday approaching. All the TV news have got their second stringers on the job. The first stringers are all at home getting ready for next week's return. They are all boning up on their favorite, unfunny TV newscaster cliches. Maybe I am paying too much attention to all this? It has been a consistent time killer for me these past 10 months.

So here we go with another new year and of course it is being accompanied by bad weather. It's the daily double for those TV folks. We are supposed to get some rain and maybe 3 inches of snow or at least they keep telling us every 6 minutes. New Years has always been associated with crappy, cold weather for me. We never do much for this event because the whole world seems to be out and about. Plus there's something about watching the crowd in Times Square. I always think the same thing "I am damn happy NOT to be there"..I don't think I even know anybody who has ever participated in that and I've lived in NY most of my life..It's always the same types.
The young energetic drinkers and the tourists from Ohio wearing statue of liberty foam crowns. Those 2010 glasses must look pretty cool! The universal question is always - where do they go to the bathroom after waiting for 7 hours??

Yesterday they shut down Times Square for a while because there was a suspicious white van parked on Broadway. That meant NO traffic allowed on those streets and the occupants of local buildings had to (dig this) move to one side of their floor and stand until all was clear (which took hours).. BOY, do I miss the city. So they discovered that this van belonged to a food vendor. Luckily it didn't have any exploding knishes.

Thanks, Ted

I know I've mentioned some of my best Time Killing has involved TV watching - mostly sports and movies. I wonder what that does for me? Has it enriched my life? One thing I've noticed is that there are a load of classic movies I've only heard about but never really watched. That is until I found the Turner Classic Movies channel. There are other movie outlets like American Movie Classics but it's not as good as Ted's commercial-free channel which also has some very interesting mini-documentaries and background info in between shows.

I really enjoy movies and get to real theater(s) a few times a month plus I get a few disks a week via Netflix. I'm careful to be selective when going OUT to the movie theater so I bet I enjoy about 80-90% of those shows. Netflix is more like 50%. What I have noticed is that there were certain eras that the TCM channel follows and for some reason I found that the movies of the 1940s seem to be the most interesting - many I've heard of but never watched. I can recall my parents talking about many of the actors. I guess the 40s was fertile ground with that crazy world war going on..The good movies are not necessarily war-related. The landscape and scenery does look like many old pictures my parents had. Those Andrew Sister hair-dos and everyone seems to be dressed up in double-breasted suits, ties and fedoras. I guess jeans weren't invented or reserved for the cowboys in the Westerns (didn't care much for Westerns).. I also noticed that everyone was dressed up at sporting events - when did this change??? I know the last time I went to church it was like revisiting Woodstock - minus the mud.

After the storm

So the storm landed - almost on time I have to say. I gassed up the snow blower and the cars and bought an extra loaf of Wonder bread. This way we could hunker down and kill time eating toast while the world ended (it's not even 2012 yet). The TV bulletin interruptions never stopped and even the national news shows had their top stories as the weather.

It was predicted that we would get a foot or so and there would be high winds, low temps, no visibility. I kept our local shmocal news on figuring that would be more exact. We got about 3-4 inches and luckily the wind was minimal. We felt lucky even though the town seemed to be shut down on that Sunday. I went out to the local gas station/mart to get newspapers (they did run out of bread). There was nobody there except the clerk and hardly a car on the completely cleared road.

I have to say areas south of us (Long Island) did get two feet and it did shut down the place and today the trains are all delayed..(delayed Long Island Railroad trains are a common theme in my nightmares)..My feet get cold just thinking about it.

No sooner did the threat of STORM 2009 subside that we had to brace ourselves for the big (maybe not so big) Christmas day storm to land this Friday. I wonder how this is going to be marketed? Have they named it yet? Can they recycle the Home Depot footage? Will the main weather people have to work on Christmas day?? Can they re-run the interviews of the plow drivers? Will they make Santa's sleigh and Rudolph jokes? AND my biggest concern - will there be enough white bread?

Before the storm

It's hard to think of an event that might take the place of Holiday Hype in the media. One week before Christmas is prime time for all that. Every TV and newspaper ad is wrapped up with some kind of holiday connection (well, most of them I guess). Every cooking show has got holiday recipes. There are endless gift idea segments. Newspaper ads have our local car and appliance sales people with Santa hats on. This year I've seen vehicles with reindeer antlers hooked into the windows. Used to be just a wreath on the grill.

One of my least favorite scenes is when the local channels (they all do it) hype their news by wishing us all a happy holidays with the newscasters clad in a scarf and/or Christmas sweater. They usually pair a male and female together. Perfect hair, perfect teeth - perfect cliches.

OK, so I have time to absorb all this. I guess it's always been around but just not at this level of saturation. So what can top all this? I guess the Super Bowl, but that's not until February. Tiger Woods? I think that's already taking a back seat. The economy? It's not getting worse which is big news. Health Care? I'm sick of that. So what's left to lead the news??

The old standby is coming to town.. A good old snow storm. It's rumbling up the east coast and being treated like it's the second bombing of Pearl Harbor. It's the lead story on all news outlets. The video is all the same. They get those Weather Channel consultants to stand in snow drifts in Virginia holding a ruler in a drift. Locally you get the standard footage of the lines at Home Depot and those predictable interviews. Yes, buy batteries and shovels.. WHY, is this happening just hours before the storm hits..I've had the same snow shovel since 1977 and it works. AND, don't forget to stock up on bread and milk - yes, the old survival standbys. I was in the supermarket and it was starting to get picked clean.

The good news, they say, is it's hitting us on a weekend. I'm not sure that's best for me personally. As a professional time killer I'd be better entertained by seeing schools closed, commuter trains delayed (like they always were when I used them). Folks getting a free day off and sleigh riding while they should be working. That actually does bring back nice memories.

So let's see what happens as we are now hours from the first flakes. I'm going to follow up to this rant after things hit the fan. I will prepare for wall to wall TV coverage of snow amounts, plows scraping local roads and those once-primped newscasters standing on road sides.. uhhh, follow up on local coverage and doing a blog entry??? What could prevent that? Please oh Gods of the wind and trees don't let us lose power!!

Close shave

In an effort to try and accomplish something during my week all alone I thought I'd try something easy. What's easier than NOT shaving. Yeah, I wanted to see what kind of beard I have at this age. Maybe I will look cool or manly. It will hide some of my faults (well, not all of them). I had a beard in 1973/74 while stationed overseas. The Navy let you do things like that so why not give it a shot? I see pictures of that beard and it never looked too good. Too many bare spots.

I would have kept that beard except a few things came up. Our ship was making a port stop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and all sailors were cautioned that if you were going to go on liberty in that port you could not have facial hair. The reason, I swear this is true, was that only their fearless leader or grand poobah Haile Selassie could have the beard. He had one of those ZZ Top beards and kinda looked like Gunga Din. In any case I figured I better shave - not because I wanted to go ashore but I had to. I was in the ship's rock band - The Greenfields - and we were scheduled to play for (guess who). So I did shave and we did play at some kind of international war games meeting. I'm pretty sure Haile was tapping his foot to "Smoke on the Water." There were other forms of entertainment and I swear I DID see others with beards. I never got a clear definition on all that, however, it was just as well that I shaved.

Back to real time. I was taking a look at my daily beard growth progress hoping I'd wake up and feel like Chuck Norris. I realized a few things after day 6 or so. My entire beard is gray - big surprise so is my whole head. I was hoping it would fill in and look macho. Then I was watching a re-run of the Sopranos (something I do now and then as a key time killer)..There was this scene with Uncle Junior in a nursing home, unshaven and he had this crappy gray beard. I think I looked more like him than Chuck Norris (did Chuck Norris have a beard?)..So off with the growth. It was annoying the hell out of me anyway and I think it requires extra maintenance. It's easier just to shave every day and have that clean cut look. I wonder what Haile would have looked like unshaven?..He was overthrown 3 months after that show.

EXTREME Time Killing

I started this journey and Time Killing blog during the winter last February..The Super Bowl had just been played and we entered the vast wasteland of bland sports, crappy weather and cabin fever. It's truly a different feel this time of year. As a kid, winter felt interesting with the school closings, sledding, long school breaks and the holidays.. Those "holidays" now start wayyyyyyy too early. The hype starts somewhere around Halloween. Again, as a kid I don't remember feeling the holiday hype until well into December. This has to be the evolution of marketing. I'm glad I left that field.

So looking out the window and not being able to see the faded lawn which is now covered by snow, I am preparing myself for round 2 of time killing. This week is particularly challenging since I am all alone. My wife is in Florida so I don't get to see her for 8 days. I was thinking that I was going to have a Jack Nicholson in the "Shining" moment but I think I have better control. Plus, Jack didn't have 800 channels of HD, flat panel TV to keep him occupied. I try to limit my TV watching (some would dispute that as I was caught watching the game show network at 3pm). Hey, it was the Match Game PM championship from 1977. That Gene Rayburn was smooth.

So here I go into unchartered time killing territory with best intentions. I always like to feel I have accomplished something - even if it's minor. For example, today I am supposed to hear from the refrigerator repair man who was contacted this weekend to see if he could settle our latest need. (something is always broken). Our trendy, stainless steel refrigerator has been running too cold. I'd say averaging in the high 20s and maybe up to the low 30s. At first I thought OK, not a big deal. The mountains on the Coors bottles turn blue much quicker but as time wore on, the milk, soda and salad dressing all got lumpy from freezing. I opened the vegetable crisper this morning and I can see now how ICEBERG lettuce got its name!!!!

Here's Johnnnnnnny!!!

Blog entry 100

Today is December 1 and this is my 100th entry in the ever-popular Time Killer blog. I was thinking of highlighting some of my favorite time killing accomplishments, however, they are all listed in earlier posts and who the hell wants to hear them all again? Some were more interesting than others. I have my favorites so perhaps I will list them in the near future..Today's time killing was spent with a memory.

I always remember this date of Dec 1 when 39 years ago in 1970 I left my parent's house as a 19 year old to enter the US Navy. It was easily the biggest deal in my life up to that point. I didn't have much of a choice since I had already had an Army physical as the draft was in full swing and I was a few steps from having to live in a tent or worse go to Viet Nam. It was a surreal time and I didn't have a college deferment which left me vulnerable. My mother was on the verge of cracking up and offered to send me to Canada. She sent me to a few doctors to see if I had any kind of disability - fat chance at 19. I was prime to go - so the Navy it was. Clearly for me a better choice than the Army..

I remember that cold December morning when my sister and friend drove me to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn to report in and get ready for my first airplane ride.. 19 and never flew.. My son at 19 must have taken 20 flights. Things were different. We headed off to Newark airport and flew to Chicago. I don't know what was scarier - the idea of boot camp or that damn bumpy ass flight. It turned out that boot camp was worse. Three months at Great Lakes Naval Training Center. They shaved my head, gave me a bunch of navy-blue clothes, sent my regular clothes home and prepared me to survive in the worst climate I'd ever been in. Sub zero and snow was on the menu all the time. Those Lake Michigan breezes at 3 am while shoveling snow were charming. I can remember being sick and coughing up blood. I never told my mother..

The whole military thing worked out OK so generally there was a happy ending after those four years. Today's memory prompted me to contact a friend I shared that boot camp experience with. Coincidentally, he lives only a few miles from me. He and I also got the same orders from boot camp to Pensacola, Florida for communications school so we were together for almost that whole first year..What is more of a coincidence is that he works at the same company that let me go.. He's been there more than 30 years..We've stayed in touch and seen each other a few times and I contacted him today to refresh his memory of this date..It is fun trading stories. We each recall things the other forgot..(push ups in the snow, the world's dumbest company commander, flip flops sticking to the frozen ground, learning to tie knots - for NO reason)....

We left that frozen tundra in Illinois many pounds lighter and ready for our next challenge - teletype school in the panhandle of Florida...It was 98 degrees warmer and there was no such thing as sunscreen...boy, we were tough!!!