Every time the Smirking Chimp talks about jump starting the economy, my portfolio tanks even further. Is it possible to OWE money to a corporation in which you owned what once amounted to valuable stock? Yesterday the SC said he was going to do something and my stocks rose. Today he told the country what he was doing and they sank below sea level.

What can we deduce from this? That Wall Street has no confidence in trickle-down economics in this century any more than the last time the Bushies tried it. Oh, the late 80s. What a fun time that was. I got laid off from Citibank, along with about 20,000 (or was it 200,000) fellow employees world-wide. Yes, you remember those far off days, when yet another Bush (brother Neal, the one nobody mentions anymore) was doing the funky rhumba two-step with Silverado Savings and Loan.... Can you say government bail out of the S&L industry? Sure you can. And then you can remember what it was like going to the unemployement office every two weeks as you tried to find a job in the middle of a recession.

But, never fear. This is going to do wonders for the boys in Bush's smoke-filled back rooms. And while we're on the subject of how to fill the pockets of the already rich, how's about those new cars at the Detroit Auto Show? Bigger, heavier, faster and more in need of Saudi gas and oil than anything in recent history.

Hey, fresh air and water are highly over-rated commodities anyway, right?

Time to go home and drink.

Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that there is like, a whole web site devoted to the poem in the Chevy Tahoe commercial. You know the one, James Garner doing a voice over, guy standing on the edge of a remote cliff by his glamorous Chevy. And you on the couch, thinking: Uh, did my mother read that to me when I was a child? Is it Robert Louis Stevenson? Is it Robert Frost? Is it Dr. Suess?

Well, the answer is no. It was none of those men, and you never heard it before you saw the commercial for the first time. It was written by a guy named Patrick O'Leary who works for Chevy's ad agency. And as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter that it was ad flak. I love the recitation.

In fact, so many people love it, that if you go to Chevy's web site and go to the Tahoe page, the poem is formatted as a PDF with nice type and a parchment graphic, suitable for downloading and printing out. Which I just did and hung it over my desk, right next to a particularly poignant Dilbert cartoon.

Yeah, right. Think "Gotta Sing!" Who was that, Gene Kelly?

Anyway, the spouse and I had a lovely new year's eve, thanks for asking. We ate meat, and drank champagne and watched a marathon of Monster Garage. I think I like it more than he does. Is it a good thing to be such a gear head? I so want the PT Cruiser to get a hot paint job. The guy who does all the paint on Monster Garage. That's who I want to paint flip-flop flames on my car. And tons of chrome. Yeah. Big Daddy Roth, you ruled.

We spent new year's day in full cocoon watching our own marathon: All of the Evil Dead, Army of Darkness movies. I say that Evil Dead II was really just a remake of the original Evil Dead, and Marc says that it was a sequel. All of my arguments as to why it's NOT a sequel make sense if you allow that there is a plot in any of these movies. If you don't think there's a plot, then my well-reasoned debate is just crap.

Won't be the first time.

I am definitely over Paul McCartney's fans. I wrote this little rant about why I find Paul less than my favorite musician, and put it on my web site. I never advertised the rant. People keep finding it by putting Paul + McCartney + Hate into a search engine. If they dig at it long enough they come to my site. And then the fun begins. For them, not for me. I have been called a loser, a pathetic loser, fat, ugly, stupid, a teenager, and a slut and a whore. Actually the same guy called me both a slut and a whore.

I think that they are mutually exclusive, at least theoretically. A slut, is, by definition, someone who will have sex with anybody freely and for free. A whore, on the other hand, is someone who has sex for pay. I think that a whore, in her (or his) time off does not have sex with lots of people for the fun of it. I think that on their days off, whores tend to avoid random sex entirely. Hey, I could be wrong, but I'm just saying.

I have been called a pathetic loser for posting my views on my personal website. I have been accused of desiring attention from Paul's fans. Nothing could be further from the truth. I posted my rant for my own entertainment. It wasn't me who put my address on the official McCartney site. It was a fan.

Why? Why would someone who trolls the official site to wank ad nauseum with other fans care to place my rant there? And then to call me a loser when they are the ones who found me by trolling for Paul + Hate. I may be a loser, but I have never in my on-line life tried a search for Bob + Dylan + Hate. Why would I? Why would I care if I found someone who disliked Dylan. No skin off my nose. (There's a huge Michael Jackson joke just sitting there for anyone who wants it.)

Who are these fans and what pleasure do they derrive from accusing me of such personal failures? And why don't they just shut the fuck up already. Threatening me won't shut me up, nor will it change my opinion. But if you WANT my opinion, spending your time on line to debate with other fans far and wide as to which haircut over the years really made Paul look the cutest; well, THAT's what I call a loser.

I'm in the sky tower, watching the buzzards circle. No, really. Capistrano has swallows, Miami has turkey buzzards. Not as romantic an image, perhaps, but they have a certain poetry to them, as they like to circle the Court House. Get it? Buzzards, lawyers... It's humor.

Well, they also hang out around here at the towers. Hopefully nobody sees the irony in their loitering around a hospital.

That's all I'm doing today. Loitering. Banging away at the old keyboard, working on my personal website and waiting until I've put in enough hours to leave on this Friday after a mid-week Christmas. In my head I sound like a Simpson's talking watch. "Are we there yet are we there yet are we there yet?"

Hey. At least I did something when I wrote this: you, on the other hand, are merely reading. Go back to work.

I'm not even a Christian and I'm having a typical Christmas.... I have injured myself in a kitchen accident while making a pie for the Christmas dinner we're going to. I'm depressed from talking to my parents. I'm depressed in general. I'm totally stressed out. There's nothing on TV or radio that ISN'T Christmas, so it makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land. Another one of my fish died. Not the koi. They're doing fine. But the twenty-four cent goldfish went one after the other. And one of the algae eaters died the first day I had him. Probably not enough algae for him to eat in a brand new pond. Not to mention that little bit of lime still leaching out of the concrete. I guess if you are sucking the walls, lime isn't a good thing for you.

Anyway. Bah humbug. I want to go back to bed and sleep through the whole damn thing.