To Be Thankful

We are coming on a month of the Obama President Electship.  Its pretty phenomenal, and I will continue to be thankful for that for decades to come…

...this is nice...

On my way home for Thanksgiving, I stopped at the gas station and noticed one of my tires was woefully underflated (this flows better than underinflated).  With the joy of the upcoming holiday season hovering over me, I strode over to the “air machine”.  The following is the ensuing exchange between the service attendant and me.

Me (with a fistful of dollars): Umm…can I get some quarters for the air machine?
Attendant: No, it’s free.
Me (obviously not taking this in): No, I need quarters for the air machine
Attendant (clearly agitated at my blissful ignorance): No it’s free, the air is free. No charge.

Well I sauntered out of the service station, slightly embarrassed, but also amused by the serendipity of “free air”; this was going to be a great Thanksgiving after all!  But, wait a minute, it was air!  This is America, land of the free and home of the brave…our colors don’t run and such.  We have troops stationed in the many corner of this world under orders to spread “liberty”, and protect our personal freedoms. I am not quite sure what to make of this, but I imagine that “air”, whether compressed or not, should be one of these freedoms.
Regardless of this, I would have foolishly paid my 75 cents, yet out of the kindness of their hearts, these wonderful gas stations attendants were giving me their compressed air.  Thus, enabling to make the trip home without killing myself in any of a number calamities stemming from a blown tire.  For this I am thankful.

...free air will do this to you...

I love old people.  Not necessarily geriatric aged folks, but people from a distinctly different generation than mine.  I love their use of antiquated phrases all of which I have adopted, or heard someone adopt.  These phrases are similar to old ornate rotary phones, no distinct purpose, but cool to have around.  Lately I have noticed a great number:

OLD PHRASE: “Turn of phrase”: as in, “I know you might not understand “from the soup to the nuts” but it’s merely a turn of phrase that we used back in the day.”
NEW PHRASE: “Saying”

OLD PHRASE: “In all my days”: as in, “I am 89 years old, and I have not seen a campaign run so poorly as that in all my days.”
NEW PHRASE: “In a minute”

OLD PHRASE: “Dial-up:” as in “I turned on my Dial-Up, because I had to check my email”
NEW PHRASE: “Internet”

OLD PHRASE: “Atlantic Time Zone”: as in, “What time zone are they in out in Arizona?  Let me see, we’ve got pacific, mountain, central and atlantic right?”
NEW PHRASE*: “Eastern Time Zone”

OLD PHRASE: “From the Roota to the Toota”: as in, “Yeah, she was quite thorough with her inspection, she checked everything from the roota to the toota.”
NEW PHRASE: “Madd thorough”

In any effect, Happy Thanksgiving!

*I realize that this is simply a misnomer, because there is an Atlantic Time Zone, old folks are so smart.

YES WE CAN!

…and we did.

..History waits for no man. Real men make history...

Blowing through the finish

I keep wondering about the number of elder generations of African Americans who love Obama for all that he represents; even though many of them don’t pay attention to what he has to say or his specific policies.  They have seen an America that I could not even imagine, and I will never question them.  However, there are times when I have a problem with this, because I respect what he represents, but I want him to win so badly, that I need all of his arguments and policies to be airtight.  I want his sound bytes to be concise and clear, I want his image to be impervious to the baseless and relentless GOP bombs thrown upon him.  I want him to be affable yet firm; I want him to presidential yet humble.  I want it all.  Tonight, however, for the first time, I find the line I saw between that older generation and myself dissipating.  I know what I want, I have a clear view of what he represents, and I still am comfortable that I can get it all.

...6 days...

At 8:00 pm EST, this evening, Barack Obama bought 30 minutes of prime-air time on CBS, NBC (and MSNBC), and FOX.  No commercials, all Barack.  I am not sure if he needed to do this, but no matter what happens on Tuesday, November 4th, I will respect the hell out of this decision.  He could easily be sitting on his laurels and his lead, he could be tending to his ill grandmother, holding his two daughters, or sitting with his beautiful wife.  He instead chose to press on and exhibit this furious push to the finish line.  Right now it’s the 4th quarter, he’s got the lead, and he is keeping the starting team in there, and he is still throwing deep.  Keep going Senator Obama, we will all meet you in the endzone.

Barack Obama as a Jaguar?

The preceding title was brought to you courtesy of the fine folks at Google, more specifically Gmail.  For the past couple years the general public has been slowly fed the sweet syrup of Google Mail.  I will admit, I have suckled at the teat of this 1 gigabyte life-giver for over 4 years.  I remember a time when we were all using Yahoo, MSN Hotmail, Aol mail and any kind of electronic mail.

ASIDE

Holy hell, I am currently watching the Republican National Convention, and Demo-turncoat-crat Joe Lieberman just came out of his face and said “God only made one John McCain”.  Thanks jack-ass, there was only one me and you also, we’re all special.  I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.  I would have been less shocked if he threw his dentures at the delegates…

END ASIDE

Ok..so back in the days of 100MB mail we all deleted like crazy and life was fine (until we deleted the number/address of that special someone – then life was decidedly not fine).  Then Google blew our minds by offering us insane annals of space that we couldn’t possibly use up*  Nothing says decadence and American might like having too much space on our Gmail accounts.  Then they got a little to “big brother” on us.  The helpful “links” that come up on the right side of the screen range from useless to outright offensive as this post details.

When one of the many emails from the Barack Obama campaign arrived in my inbox recently I perused it with my normal half-hearted interest and was about to move on to my next message when something caught my eye.  Over in Gmail sidebar I noticed “Barack Obama as a Jaguar“  I felt vexed, flummoxed and all those fancy words, but I wasn’t about to click.  I have gotten emails about a law school friend and links to becoming an ER tech populate the sidebar.    I wonder if it is at all random or whether someone sits there and places these links just to mess with you.

This guy reads all my email?

Along with the help of “Young and Single Love to Mingle” I once tried to trick google into coming up with the most ridiculous stuff possible.  Granted an inordinate amount of our emails have the word “black” in the title, so you know where this is going**.

I figured there are three types of sidebar links:

• Links that get you in trouble at work
• Links that get you in trouble with your significant other
• Links that outright offend

While reading over a Google chat, in which there was talk of superiors, no less than 3 links referenced firing or bullying your boss.  And of course the random “BOSS Audio”  which doesn’t exist.  These have to be linked by the jerk at Google who hates his job, and want you to get fired as well.

Another email I received from a female friend and the links were all about romantic getaways, and singles sites*** I feel some spiteful female Google employee is attaching these because she found her techy boyfriend cheating on her with a Starbucks employee.

Being a black man, I don’t want to EVER get a link about ANY of the following things:

• watermelons
• basketballs
• crime statistics
• cheap gold jewelry
• ANYTHING about chicken, I don’t care how fresh, healthy or golden fried
• #1 Stunnas (or #2 stunnas)
• Lil’ Wayne
• Car stereos
• Any link that draws a metaphor between one of the greatest living black men of my time and a big cat

He couldn't be president

I wouldn’t know who puts these on the emails, probably, the same person who linked “Asian Nose Surgery” to an email about headhunting and the job market.

Damn Google, damn.

*I am currently waiting for Apple to follow suit and offer the 100 Yottabyte iPod.  Where you can store larger files, like your dignity and pride, along with your music and photos.  Yeah yottabyte..look it up

**If you don’t read a book

**Not your legitimate dating sites like Match and eHarmony, I mean the under the table kind.  Where all the profiles are cut off and in choppy sentences because the other person was using the computer at public library just before closing.  Where there aren’t even areas to put photos.  Just “descriptions”.