Back to the Old...

Hey everyone, I have an announcement: I am going to stop keeping up Fear and Trembling in Augusta because I no longer live there. I was also never an especially big fan of Hunter S. Thompson. My wife (!) and I just moved to Charleston, SC, and the other blog just doesn't seem appropriate any longer. Dr. Sighted is starting residency, so hopefully I will have more time to keep up this space. I am also no longer writing for a paper or preparing Sunday School lessons, so I need to write somehow, right? I will also rescind my earlier promise of no politics in this space -- my vision for the future is that any topic is fair game here, from movies, to politics, my favorite chilis, religious themes (like in Fear and Trembling) but with a little less formality. I promise there will still be jokes, but I cannot promise they will still be funny.

I also noticed that I have a giant pile of spam comments, and some posts are more popular than others. This one has 35 comments on it, which is slightly higher than my previous high of like 4. I'm pretty sure I would have to post on some sort of controversy like we should execute all double parkers by hanging. I don't know if the uptick in spammers is representative of a an uptick in traffic, which would be swell, (I did notice an upswing in followers -- Hello new folks) but it's still troubling. It might require me to activate some sort of interceptor to keep odzwyki from posting about about how to buy pharmaceuticals from China in weird broken English. My favorite is the insincere flattery (is there any other kind?) about how smart and great my blog is -- while I love having my ego stroked, when they say "I imagine you have a excellent information in particular while dealings with these kinds of topics" it kind of takes some of the vim out of it when it's not actually whether they can read it, let alone did. But why my blog? How many of you readers are out there?

Let me know with comments. Coherent is preferable, but not technically required.

I like the Irish. Not Notre Dame.

It was in high school when I first started to think about what islands of white people my family came from way back when. Of course, like everyone else in the southeast, Britain and Ireland were the primary culprits. I was prompted to look into it because there were a lot of people in my high school whose parents were born in India but they had never seen the place and still managed to feel and act more Indian than American. Don't get me a wrong, there were a lot of awesome Indian people too, but there were some who would only hang with other Indian folks, which strikes me as, well, I don't want to say racist, but a little bit racist.

This coming week is, of course, the holiday for people who like to pretend they're Irish. I have never been to Ireland and my last name is English, but there are Irish people in my family tree and begorrah, I love it. The Irish are a jolly people, and I like being a part of that. There are primarily three things that Irish people are known for, and they're all fantastic. Indian people might have better food, but they sure don't have better booze.

1. Booze (Biotálle). Distillation came to Ireland from the Mediterranean by way of missionaries, according to wikipedia. How great is that? Missionaries! There's a saying that the Irish discovered whiskey and the Scottish perfected it. You know what I have to say about that? Ireland is independent and Scotland is still run from London. Eat that. Also, everyone loves Guinness. Americans learned to make their liquors when the Irish and Scottish came over and settled the South in the early colonial days. Good for them.
2. Blessings (Beannachtaí). Everyone knows the "May the road always rise to meet you..." blessing. You may not have known is that there are like a thousand just like it, poetic and fun and cheery. For a people so historically miserable (not quite Polish or Jewish miserable, but certainly more so than the Canadians), most of what you see is very positive, like charming brogues, pots of gold and leprechauns, and excellent smelling soap. I suspect #1 has a hand in this attitude. My favorite is: May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.
   
3. Blarney (An Bhlárna). It is a town, castle, rock and gift originating in County Cork. You might think it's just mumbo jumbo, but this community has been able to convince Americans to come to their town and spend good money in order bend over backwards to kiss a rock. If that isn't evidence of the gift of Blarney, I don't know what is. There is also a disproportionate presence of Irish writers in the English language, and I'd like to think that there's something in the blood, and I just have to activate that component of it by drinking Bushmills.

Sure, there are terrorists and domestic violence too, but all that has largely been drowned out by the Muslims blowing people up in more dramatic fashion. And their accents aren't nearly as fun. Can you imagine a Saudi breakfast cereal? Magically delicious, insha'allah. Anyway, everyone have a happy SPD on the 17th, eat some corned beef and cabbage and say sláinte as you think about your favorite blogger. The Wonkette.

Best. Campaign. Ever.

Here's another thing that I hate: people in blogs who don't write for a long time and then come back and say, "Oh, I'm sorry I have been away so long! Here's what I did..." That's not what this blog is about, and if you were expecting that, then I'm not sure you'd enjoy this blog anyway. Go read some camwhore's Amazon wishlist. Just assume I was doing pretty much what you were doing, except four or five times more awesome. Yeah. It was that good.

I try to avoid politics here, because I write about that other places and I know that not all four of you like politics. But the next few months are going to be amazing. We just finished the Olympics, where we were beaten in the golds by the evil Chinese, Democratic Convention was this week, Republican is next week, college football opens this weekend (I will be in Atlanta watching Clemson crush the Crimson Tide, by the way, look for me -- you'll know me when you see me), and McCain announced his running mate today. And it's a girl! (I think my little brother has a crush on her.) This makes this race exciting again, and maybe even more accessible to people who care more about Dancing With the Stars. (I'm guessing, I don't watch that show. Although I do think it would fun if Missouri settles their electoral votes by a dance-off. Maine should do a lobster-off. There need to be more competitions ending in -off in my life.)

Joe Biden is a fun pick too, because he's like your crazy old uncle who has opinions on everything and doesn't give a damn about who is listening. I love that in a politician. And an uncle. But most of the excitement on Democrats came when Obama joined this shindig, and that's yesterday's news now. Like bologna. That's right, I don't eat bologna anymore.

I'm pretty sure I've said this here before, but election season is like my World Cup. It comes around every four years, most of the country is really bored when it happens, and I like to wear a cape made from the flag of my favorite team while watching. I can't really intelligently make a soccer analogy, because I don't understand how the game works, but imagine if an extremely exciting game became boring (tough, I know) and then suddenly became the most exciting game ever played. That's what I'm looking at right now. No matter what happens, history will be made, like if a baby led the Lions to a Super Bowl. Can you imagine? The Lions in the Super Bowl?

Rollercoaster... I hate that song.

I feel I must apologize again for my low output lately. My life has been a series of ups and downs, each down more up than the last, and vice versa. But don't you for a second think I'm going to complain about my life or job on How Observant. I hate blogs like that. If you really gave a damn what was going on in my life you'd call me or something. You didn't, so let's not waste any time. I'm pretty sure I made a promise early on in the life of this blog that I wouldn't talk about garbage like that. I observe in entertaining fashion, hence the title.

I was reminded about one of my chief missions just as I was sitting down for this entry, in fact. One of those stupid AT&T commercials came on -- the Wes Anderson ones where he lives in New Hautelantaugustemson -- and it occurred to me that I need to cover some of those terrible, terrible commercials that are out there again. Wes Anderson, although I am rather fond of his movies (and usually his commercials) did not have a hit with this series. His American Express commercial cracked me right up, though.

The good news for Mr. Anderson is that he's not alone right now. I think a the top of the list, undoubtedly, is Wendy's. There is always a one character doing something absurd while wearing the Wendy's crayon red hair. And, you know, absurdity is sometimes good ("Find the Fish" anyone?) but these people suck at it. Just show us your square hamburgers and be done with it. Kicking trees, playing the didgeridoo in a freezer and turning into a non-blue Veruca Salt just isn't getting the job done. These commercials make me want to go to McDonald's. Ponder that one.

Also, Best Buy. There is a commercial where the customer and the salesman are discussing HDTV, and they are not talking in complete sentences. At one point, the customer says that he likes cowboy explosions, and that's pretty awesome. I can't think of a movie that couldn't be improved with cowboy explosions. Maybe Phantoms.

I do feel the need to give some positive remarks to Geico, though. They parlayed a successful commercial series into a television program. And they have another awesome series right now, with Lauren Wallace (who is made of lightning), the cousin of Mike Wallace. I love those commercials. Take a note, Wendy's, and see what a real commercial looks like.