My feeble excuses

So, I was barely at the haiku thing a week and I've already gone and missed a week of posts. Well, I'm back today and intend to stick with it. Not that any of it is particularly good, but it has served as a fun little exercise to try to come up with something new each day to fit in the very restrictive box of haiku.

Now, on to my afformentioned excuses: I been sick! I'm not sure if it's been a cold or allergies or what but I have been absolutely miserable the past week and it's something of a minor miracle that I've managed to get anything at all acomplished in my day to day life.

My Crappy Poetry

As a writing exercise I've decided to try and write a Haiku a day and post it online (at http://jgvhaiku.blogspot.com). I don't claim it to be good, but it seems like a quick way to exercise my creative muscles each day (for however long I can stick with it). Some might take issue with my calling my little works haiku, I'm just using the most basic formatting rules and not worrying too much about theme, but I can't think of a better term, so haiku it is. Anyway, I invite anyone interested to check out my little endeavor.

Mooninites Cripple Boston! Law Enforcement Stymied!

Read this: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/31/boston.bombscare/index.html

Maybe I'd find this less hilarious if I actually lived in Boston and was somehow inconvenienced by this, but from my vantage point down here in Atlanta (home of Cartoon Network, by the way) I couldn't help but laugh when I heard about this. So, apparently these little light boxes have been up in a number of cities for a couple of weeks now, but today someone saw one and. . . would it be too harsh to say "freaked out"? To be fair, when they're not lit up I suppose they just look like a weird circuit board, and it's reassuring that people would report strange devices popping up around a city to the authorities. What I don't get is how it got to the point where two bridges were shut down and the Pentagon got involved. I'm no explosive expert, but given that there don't seem to be any enclosed spaces on these things, where exactly were the explosives or chemicals or biological agents supposed to have been concealed? I was flipping channels earlier and I saw footage of the bomb squad blowing one of them up! I think the city officials do derserve some credit. The fact that they were able to coordinate the bridge closings and other actions as quickly as they did does speak well to their ability to handle a real crisis. Still seems like they should have been able to figure out that this was not a genuine crisis sooner, however.

I suppose the real question here is this: What is President Bush going to do about this unprovoked act of aggression by the Mooninites? I demand an immediate invasion and occupation of the Moon. We'll teach those poorly rendered hooligans a thing or two!

Peace Through Food

So, I was driving home the other night and I passed this restaurant that I'd never noticed before. The sign said it was Indo-Pak Fusion Cuisine. I take that to mean it's a fusion of Indian and Pakistani food. This strikes me as very odd given the ongoing hostility between the two countries. I can only assume that the foods of the two countries get along better than their respective governments. I'm tempted to go and eat there as a political statement, if for no other reason (I'm afraid I'm not the most adventurous of eaters normally, and besides, the place looked far too hip for me...not sure they'd let me in the door). I have no idea if the menu at this place is any good, but I find that I quite like the symbolism (probably unintentional) of the concept. And so, I arrive at my Pollyanna-ish thought for the day: Maybe if everyone just got together and cooked we could have world peace.

Where's My Mail?!

After going to check the mail box a couple of times this evening I've just discovered that the post office closed today due to Gerald Ford's death. Now, President Ford seemed like a genuinely good guy and from what I can tell he did a decent job during his brief tenure as president, but did they really have to stop the mail? I don't mean to make light of the man's death, certainly it's sad, but I want my mail!! Call me self-involved if you want (I'd probably agree with you), but it's just got me aggravated. Of course, having said all of this I fully realize that I'll see nothing good in tomorrow's mail.

Still, I want my mail!!

The Good Shepherd

So I went and saw "The Good Shepherd" tonight. One word comes to mind - interminable. I really wanted to like the film; it's got a great cast and is set in an interesting world, but the plot is so byzantine and the pacing so plodding that I just couldn't get into it. It doesn't help matters that I didn't care about a single one of the characters. That's not entirely true, I suppose I did find the John Turturro and Robert De Niro characters intriguing, unfortunately their combined screen time is probably somewhere around thirty minutes. The film is getting good review apparently, but try as I might, I just couldn't find it in myself to like it.

Humbug no more!

Up until a few days ago, I really wasn't feeling Christmas this year. It's not that I was feeling bad about it or anything, it just wasn't eliciting the usual excitement. But no more! My Christmas spirit is now fully engaged. It was, of course, music which snapped me out of my holiday malaise. Ironically one of the songs to wake me up to the holidays was the dreidel song. At the beginning of the week I was helping the 3rd grade I tutor with a worksheet about Hanukkah, and when part of it talked about dreidels I asked if he had ever heard the dreidel song. When he said no, I was compelled to sing it for him (I had a little dreidel/I made it out of clay/And when it's dry and ready/dreidel I will play...).

The other song to get my Yule Log burning might also seem a strange choice, but I contend that it is, hands down, the best Christmas song every. Fairytale of New York by the Pogues. If you've heard it, then you know that I speak the truth. It's just so perfectly wicked.

I'm back in the Christmas game, so a Merry Christmas to all and t all a good night!