Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Starting the Year with a Bang

Sincerity Failure #1 (of many, many more…)

TV Announcer: “Honda will donate to the city of the winning team a fully customized Honda Accord Minivan for use by the Ronald McDonald House to transport children and their families to and from the hospital.”

Me: “Sick children in the losing city will have to walk…crap, I mean isn’t it nice that Honda is donating an extremely beneficial gift to a worthwhile charity.”

Kim: “Wow, couldn’t even last a day with your resolution.”

I have to admit that ridding me of the habit of making snide remarks to the television is going to be brutal. Especially given the fact that Kim and I relax by watching Investigation Discovery and its unending series of shows like “Deadly Women”, “Wives with Knives” and “Dates from Hell.” I don’t know if it is possible to watch those shows with any sense of sincerity. Though my personal favorite will always be “Lt. Joe Kenda: Homicide Hunter”, where former homicide detective Joe Kenda reviews some of his most memorable cases. The cases themselves are rather forgettable, the fact that it honestly looks like Joe Kenda was dragged out of a bar to the television studio, has the grizzled look of someone who has had to investigate over four hundred murders and who, in every recreation scene, is always shown smoking a cigarette makes the entire enterprise unforgettable.

One or two thoughts on New Year’s Day this time around. First, it is kind of funny that I fell asleep before midnight though I woke up in time to watch the clock flip over. I have to admit that I was never a big one for going out on New Year’s Eve. It is amateur night at the bars and I always considered myself to be a seasoned veteran. Plus that moment at midnight when everyone grabs their date and makes out is really, really depressing when you are alone. In KC I usually made my way to whatever bar Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys were playing at that year and celebrated the end of the year by drinking cheap beer with my alt country brethren. Now I actually have someone to kiss at midnight and we are too tired to go out. Just one of those strange ways that life changes.

The bigger problem I have to deal with is the shooting off of fireworks at midnight. I’ve never understood the appeal of fireworks. I think in my entire life I may have held a sparkler once but that is all the experience that I have. Now it appears that in addition to the Fourth of July it is now tradition to spend a good hour after midnight shooting off everything you have and annoying the entire neighborhood. This is made worse by the fact that I live in Florida and the idea of something being illegal down here might exist in theory but definitely not in practice. Thus I had to spend the New Year trying to calm two dogs who wanted to know where the explosions were coming from when all I wanted to do was sleep. Not the best way to start off the year.

Wednesday Night Music Club: For some reason this song bounced into my head a few weeks ago and I must have watched the video a dozen times since then. Thought I would share the early 90’s punk rock joy.


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