A man without

...a place to go. I am officially an exile for the time being. It's that time of year...white glove time. Kind of a fun ordeal, in some strange way. I was going to post a picture of what it looked like when I woke up this morning, but then the post would have been rated at least PG-13 for frightening scenes, disturbing images, and some language (well two out of three). Long story short, it's done, and now I have nothing to do, nowhere to go for the next couple of hours. So blogging is a good nothing to do. Not a prize winning essay, just some loose ends. Expect multiple variances (arbitrariances?) within this thing. Ready, go.

Have you ever had that feeling? The feeling when you turn the TV on and flip through all the channels at least 4 times before exclaiming that there's nothing on? I mean has it ever made you feel like if boredom were a crime you'd be an inmate on death row? But think about how boredom has changed. It takes so much more to entertain people today. When I picture boredom I think of Sunday afternoon TV without cable. Public television broadcasting special insomnia therapy programming, a network showing golf (!), the race on lap 3 out of 900, and some unnamed channel broadcasting a movie so lame that no one has ever watched the whole thing...ever. But go back, even just to the beginning of television - my dad holds it as a matter of personal pride that when he was growing up there were three channels (and they were in black and white, and they hardly came in at all, and you had to walk 20 miles uphill in the snow wearing worn out dime-thin-soled shoes just to watch it...). Now think of how bored we can get even when the channels reach into the hundreds. But don't look for any witty, biting social criticism, because this is going all downhill from here. This kind of boredom happened to me on Saturday, albeit with no TV involved. I did have my computer, though, with a billion games to play, not to mention a wealth of information on any topic that ever existed all available on the internet. But there just wasn't anything on. So I spent the rest of my night flying through the last 30 years of periodicals in the library basement. And.....we have now reached the bottom of this hill.

By the way, speaking of 70's era magazines, I was thoroughly amused at the incredible number of cigarette ads. I know there are laws today about cigarette advertising and stuff like that, but come on now. More pages of smoke ads than actual articles? That might have been stretching it. The only reason I can see for it is that it was the 70's, and everyone knows marijuana had a tight hold on the "dangerous habit forming substance" market, so maybe the tobacco guys had to do that to compete. Goodness, the evils of capitalism....

My other thought for the last two days has been this - when did rain become such a terrible thing? I can't tell you how frustrated I get when a cloud comes into view over the horizon, and without fail I hear someone say, "Oh sad, it's going to rain!" Aside from revealing that these people clearly aren't the usual Wisconsin farm kids, I think this is a sign of a skewed thought process. Could you tell me why rain is so bad? Did I miss something? Has the acid content of rain gone critical and started to actually melt people? As far as I know, rain is usually a good thing, at least in moderation. And aside from the obvious benefits, I've always enjoyed a rainy day once in a while. I find something kind of fun about looking out and seeing the darkened sky and listening to the rain. It's a change of pace at the least. I don't want bright sunshine every day any more than I want a bologna and cheese sandwich for every meal. Or any meal...anyway just look on the bright side. And the cloudy, damp side too once in a while.