insert witty title here

Happy Hallowe'en!


How Evil am I?


How evil are you?


...and if you want a second opinion:

I am 62% evil.




I'm getting there. I haven't done all the damage I could do but I've done quite a bit. I'm just over the border into the Evil Zone.


Are you evil? find out at Hilowitz.com



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Christopher: What day would you like to get together to look at those documents?

Joe: Anytime is good, just pick a day

Christopher: Okay, let's do it on Wednesday morning

Joe: How about Thursday instead? I'm out of town on Wednesday and I'm taking Friday off

Christopher: I see...so apparently anytime isn't good after all. Why didn't you just say so in the first place instead of playing some stupid game with me?

Joe: Sorry about that, I couldn't help it because I'm an idiot

Christopher: Well, at least you're an honest idiot


(the last part of that conversation didn't really happen, but it should have)


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The Jesus Tree

Call it a cry for peace, a test of faith or a random act of nature, a tree growing on Rochester's North Clinton Avenue so far has attracted several dozen believers who say they see the image of Jesus Christ on the tree's trunk.

"I see it clearly," said Yomaira Otero of Rochester, who stood in the pouring rain Tuesday with six members of her family to see the tree. She spoke in Spanish to her relatives and pointed out the facial features, including the beard of bark she saw. "He looks like he's sleeping."

The "Jesus tree," as some are calling it, is a silver maple growing on the front lawn of the Hickey-Freeman Co. factory at 1155 N. Clinton Ave.

Although I admit I can see an "image" of a guy with a beard, I also feel compelled to point out that lots of guys have beards, including this guy, so perhaps it's the Osama Tree...


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This is my second full day at home, having severely torn most of the muscles in my lower back on Monday afternoon.

I just got back from seeing the doctor - who advised me that I'm looking at a minimum of a week of very limited mobility...plus a long recovery period.

Have I mentioned before how much getting old sucks?


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I was going to comment about yet another senior citizen getting off scott-free after dangerous driving, but I wouldn't want to be accused of picking on anyone.

So instead, here is a wonderful website devoted to photography.


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A Photo Journal from Sierra Leone

During Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, rebels developed the horrific tactic of chopping off the hands or legs of civilians as a way of sowing terror in the population.

Mamusu Thoronka, 41, was one of the many thousands of people affected.

Four years after the end of the war, she explains how she is trying to support her family, without any help from the government.

The next time you're griping about how difficult your life is, consider the fact that at that very same moment, Ms. Thoronka is likely wishing that she had your problems.

Be grateful for the cushy life we have here in North America...because the grass ain't greener on the other side.


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I saw you this morning.
You were moving so fast.
Can’t seem to loosen my grip
On the past.
And I miss you so much.
There’s no one in sight.
And we’re still making love
In My Secret Life.


~ Leonard Cohen


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Speaking of Bad Drivers....

ST. PETERSBURG - A 93-year-old motorist struck and killed a pedestrian Wednesday evening, then drove about 3 miles with the body lodged in the windshield until he was stopped at a Sunshine Skyway tollbooth.

The driver told officers he thought the body had fallen from the sky, said St. Petersburg police Officer Mike Jockers.

"He had no idea he had been involved in an accident," Jockers said. "He doesn't totally understand what happened."

The crash occurred about 8:30 p.m. when the 52-year-old pedestrian attempted to cross 34th Street S from east to west near 46th Avenue S, witnesses told police.

The pedestrian made it across two of the southbound lanes before he was hit by a 2002 Chevy Malibu, which was traveling about 45 mph, police said.

The impact severed the pedestrian's lower right leg, which remained in the street. His head and arms went through the windshield, while the rest of his body flipped up onto the roof of the car, Jockers said.

"The driver continued southbound, as the eyewitness said, like nothing happened," Jockers said.

As the car approached the toll plaza, the toll taker thought it was a prank, until he saw the blood.

When the driver stopped, the body fell into the car, Jockers said.
A veteran traffic investigator, Jockers said it was one of the most gruesome scenes he has worked...

...The driver, who lives in Pinellas Park, told police that he was headed home. Pinellas Park, however, is miles in the opposite direction.

"Obviously, he was confused," Jockers said. "Incredibly confused."
The driver was taken to Bayfront Medical Center for evaluation.
He will probably not face criminal charges, as he appeared unaware that he had been involved in an accident, Jockers said

Read that last line again: He will probably not face criminal charges, as he appeared unaware that he had been involved in an accident

What the Hell??
He's not even gonna be charged with careless driving?


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How is it that I can leave work at the end of the day, serene in mind and content in thought; yet by the time I complete my six-minute drive home, my right eye has developed a nervous tic, my knuckles ache from clenching the steering wheel and I've exhausted my rather astonishingly expansive repertoire of profanity?

Judging from the behaviour of most people on the road, I'm beginning to think that keeping your car between the little white & yellow lines painted on the road surface is totally optional.


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gimme a li'l kiss....



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I only have a short list of people who are in desperate need of defenestration, but folks who behave like this at the doughnut shop drive-through are fast becoming part of my top ten:

Doughtnut Shop: Welcome to Tim Horton's can I take your order?

Vehicular Ignoramus: Ummmmm...yeah....um....can I get a coffee?

DS: What size would you like?

VI: Ummm....what sizes do you have?

DS: Small, Medium and Large

VI: Ummmm...can I get a medium coffee with one cream and two sugars?

DS: One medium coffee with one cream and two sugar, anything else?

VI: Ummmm....yeah....ummmm...can I also get six doughnuts?

DS: What kind of doughnuts would you like?

VI: Ummm...what kinds have you got?

DS: Chocolate glazed, plain, maple glazed, banana cream, sugar-glazed with sprinkles, chocolate....it's all listed there on the big board in front of you

VI: Ummmm....yeah...um....can I get two chocolates, a banana cream, two plain and a strawberry cream?

DS: We don't have strawberry cream doughnuts, only what's on the big board

VI: Ummm...okay, ummmm....I'll have the sugar-glazed with sprinkles instead - oh! and on the one with sprinkles, I want it with sprinkles on only half the doughnut, okay?

DS: That's one medium coffeee with one cream and two sugars, two chocolate doughnuts, a banana cream doughnut, two plain doughnuts and one sprinkle with only half the doughnut covered?

VI: Huh? Sorry, I wasn't listening

DS: That's one medium coffeee with one cream and two sugars, two chocolate doughnuts, a banana cream doughnut, two plain doughnuts and one sprinkle with only half the doughnut covered?

VI: Ummm...yeah

DS: That'll be $7.95, please pay at the first window

VI: Do you take VISA?


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The name's Blond...James Blond.

British tabloids are reporting the new James Bond will be British actor Daniel Craig, 37.

The official announcement of the next 007 is not scheduled until later this week, but the Daily Mail leaked the news on Tuesday.

Call me an iconoclast, but I always thought that George Lazenby did a good job. But of course, no one matches Sir Sean for sauve.

For those of you who are Bondphiles, here is a website with more Bond information than anyone could possibly care about.

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It's my ex's birthday tomorrow...she'll be turning 41. Since the divorce, I've made a point of taking the kids out each October so they can buy her a birthday present but this year I haven't.

Outwardly it's been a combination of little time and no interest on the part of the kids but deeper than that, I think I just don't feel the same sense of obligation anymore.

My own birthday present from the kids has always consisted of a handmade card and I feel that if my efforts to help the kids buy something for their parent aren't going to be reciprocated, then why bother?

As Malcolm X once said: "I believe in the brotherhood of man, but I don't believe in wasting brotherhood on anyone who doesn't practice it on me. Brotherhood is a two-way street"

I have to admit that it feels a little selfish but at the same time, I'm tired of being thoughtful only to receive an emotional IOU in return.


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There's an old adage that "it takes all kinds", but when you think about it, it really doesn't.

For example...

A resident called police at about 7:30 a.m. to report a naked man clad only in a rope standing in her back yard on the 2000 block of Brookhurst Avenue.

"She described him as being covered in feces," Medford police Lt. Mike Moran said.

Before he left the yard, Kelly James Bailey, 33, reportedly smashed a lawn chair and ran away with a strip of leopard-print vinyl peeled from the seat, Moran said...

..."When we caught him, he still appeared to be covered in fecal matter," Moran said. "He told us, though, he was partying with girls the night before and somehow ended up rolling around in tomato paste."

As officers patted him down, they found that he had taken the leopard-print vinyl strip and used it and the rope-belt to fashion a primitive loin cloth, Moran said.

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I'll be attending my very first funeral this afternoon.

I've always thought it a bit odd and a little ominous that I've managed to go 42 years without ever having death really touch me. That's not to say that relatives and acquaintences haven't died or that I'm unfeeling about losing them; but, in all of those instances I hadn't seen those individuals for many years and I lived so far away from them, that it's been easy for my mind to just think of them as "away".

Sometimes I worry that when death does come into my life it'll be making up for lost time. A nightmare of my children crushed and torn in the twisted steel on my ex's minivan flashes through my mind. That horrible middle-of-the-night telephone call.

This funeral is for a fellow who used to work for me. He died of colon and liver cancer at 51 years of age. His widow is 44 and he has three kids and a newborn grandchild.

What do you say to a family that's lost it's cornerstone? Do you say "sorry for your loss"? That always struck me as a shallow thing to say...as if what you're really saying is "better you than me". What about "God wanted him by His side"? That's even worse...I think it suggests that they're being too selfish in their grief and just need to suck it up and be happy for God.

Don't even get me started on flowers....the last thing I'd want to see at a funeral for a loved one are wilting symbols of the impermanance of life.

Over the past couple of days I've been thinking about what his family must be going through. The enormity of it...darkening their lives like a prairie storm. What can anyone do to ease that?

Yesterday I went through my office and collected three hundred dollars from my co-workers. Then I purchased $300.00 in grocery store gift certificates for his widow and children.

I don't know if it's the "right" thing to do - I really doubt that there is a "right" thing to do - but I figured that they still need to eat and pay bills and since his was the only family income, anything that helps them to carry on while grieving can't be a bad thing.


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