Thom’s House

Archive for September, 2006

Olbermann

27 September 2006

Where did this guy come from? (Click the links, ferserious.)

I must admit, regarding the whole quagmire that is our current political landscape, I’ve just felt resigned about it all lately. It feels like the whole system, the one party with the chimp in the office, and the other party who can’t seem to organize well enough to beat the chimp, it’s all just one big self-sustaining loop that we, the American people, are left out of entirely. Maybe in dire times, it takes someone like Keith Olbermann to be a beacon.

You can’t exactly credit the guy with originality… Olbermann clearly patterns himself after Edward R. Murrow, but then, why not? The man is regarded as one of the best journalists of all time, so perhaps patterning one’s career after him as opposed to that of modern “journalists”–O’Reilly, Limbaugh, even Franken–isn’t a bad idea. Watching his stuff, I wonder if maybe the American people are capable of sitting in one spot long enough to listen, not to soundbytes, but to ten minutes of well-reasoned, empassioned, enlightening crticism. They just haven’t known where to find it.

I think I’m gonna have to start watching MSNBC.

Edit: Just ran across an article mentioning that, apparently, Olbermann received a suspicious envelope yesterday containing a powdery substance.  The substance was harmless, but obviously meant to scare, with an included note reading the package was “payback” for some of his commentaries.  Because, y’know, the threat of lethal substances is fair payback for truth-telling.  :P  But if you can measure the mark of a journalist by the amount of feathers he ruffles, I guess I’m not the only one who thinks Olbermann’s doing a good job!

Blabbity Blah Revisited

26 September 2006

Ok, a long time ago I wrote a journal entry titled “Blabity Frickin’ Bla”.  (How bad did I spell that?)  The content of that entry is not in the least relevant any more, yet for some reason I get an occasional comment about it from friends…  Apparently they’re amused by the phrase itself: “blabbity frickin’ blah”.
So today I get an e-mail from someone I know, but don’t normally get e-mails from.  “Your bla blabbity bla made my day,” something to that effect.  I assume it’s another comment about that old entry…  Wrong.

For the past few months, I’ve been working on the new version of my department’s web site at work.  Last week, I finally rolled it out–with one considerable oversight.  Early on, I entered in some placeholder text in the footer.  “Copyright notice goes here.  Maintained by Thom Stricklin.  Bla blabbity bla.”  I never bothered to fill in the real copyright notice!

Apparently, “blabbity blah” is some sort of catchphrase for me.  :P

!

5 September 2006

“Sometimes it takes an exclamation point for someone to notice the dot was there at all.”

- Genelle Gregorio