Tuesday, 9/29

I should probably learn how to play the game again.

My TV piece last night dealt with what it perhaps the UP's national card game, cribbage. It all started a couple of weeks ago when Deanna, Loraine, and I were out at lunch and Deanna asked if I knew how to play cribbage, because she's been looking for someone to play with. I had to explain that I knew how to once, back a thousand years ago when I was a kid, but I've forgotten just about everything about it since then.

I know; I'm a bad Yooper.

Anyway, the whole experience made me think two things. The first is that I really SHOULD learn how to play it again, if only because it might be one of the few ways that I would fit in as a “real” Yooper and not a “city boy” (as I've been called before by "real" Yoopers).

The second? That I could get a really good TV piece out of the whole thing. And you know what?

I don't think it turned out half bad--

Now, if you don't mind, I have to skip out of here early, as as I have a (gulp) 9 am appointment in Negaunee. As long as I remember how to drive that far, I think I'll get there in time.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 9/28

I guess I might as well own it, right?

Over the years, I have had a lot of people (especially young women, for some reason) compare my looks to that of an actor. Well, I was giving a tour to a group of law professionals over the weekend, and while we were stopped for a second one of them leaned over to me and said those words that have been said many times before--

“Do you know you look like a younger Billy Bob Thornton?”

Here's where it gets weird. I know that when they're comparing me to an Oscar-winning actor and writer they're complimenting me. I realize that young women, especially, find Billy Bob Thornton a very fascinating and attractive individual. However, when they say I look like Billy Bob Thornton, I always assume that they mean Billy Bob Thornton in his most famous, Oscar-winning role.

You know...THIS Billy Bob Thornton--

When they compare me to Billy Bob Thornton, I'm pretty sure they don't mean the way he looked in “Sling Blade”. But for whatever reason—and this probably says more about me than anything—I always assume they mean the very bizarre character he played in that movie, as opposed to the Billy Bob Thornton who married Angelina Jolie or the Billy Bob Thornton who has broken hearts on the big & small screens for 30 years now.

But like I said—that's just me.

Personally, I don't see the resemblance. But I guess that's normal, much in the same way I record someone for a commercial and they say “that doesn't sound like me”. We're just too close to the subject to me impartial. I suppose if I tried to disconnect to everything I know about myself and stared at a picture of Billy Bob Thornton long enough, I might see what everyone else is seeing. Maybe I'd see the dashing but quirky leading man or the tough but intelligent guy trying to hang on to his scruples.

Or maybe I'd just keep seeing the dude from “Sling Blade”. It's one or the other.

In the end, there's nothing I can do about it. We're all born looking like we look, and if we happen to slightly resemble an Oscar winning writer and actor enough that people keep mentioning it?

Well, I suppose there are worse people to be compared to.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 9/24

Attached to the protective grating around a tree right outside of the station is this--

Yes, you are seeing that right. It's a (I'm guessing) Valentine's Day-themed teddy bear, strung up like it's the first week of February and not a random day in late September. But because it's Marquette, I'm not sure WHY the Valentine's Day-themed teddy bear is stuck on the protective tree grating. Because it's Marquette, it could be there because someone lost it and someone else wants to whoever lost it to find it.

Or, because it's Marquette, it could be art. Maybe, just maybe, someone put it there as, I dunno, a statement on their love for a random day in February or as a comment on the disposable aspect of our modern day society.

Because it's Marquette, it could be either one.

I'm not saying that in a bad way. Marquette is just one of those places filled with artists, and often time those artists will try to make a statement with “found objects”...things you find just lying around on the ground. Like, you know, a Valentine's Day-themed teddy bear that just happened to sitting in the grass or lying on the sidewalk.

Hence, my confusion as to why the Valentine's Day-themed teddy bear was stuck to the protective tree grating outside of the station in late September.

If it disappears some day soon, I'll trust that whoever lost it found it and took it home (or, I guess, that DDA workers found it and wanted to remove it from the protective tree grating). But if it remains there for some time, allowing passersby to ponder the statement that someone is trying to make, I'll know it's art.

If for no other reason than I just happen to live in a place where either of those is a possibility.

*****

By the way, tomorrow is a corporate holiday, so there won't be a new one of these. Have yourself a great weekend (whether it be 2 or 3-day). You'll find something new here on Monday!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 9/23

Okay, it’s time for me to rant about geography again.

Every so often I’m astounded by the geographic ignorance of the people in this country. Now, I realize most people don’t care, and that I probably do because I minored in the subject in college, but I came across two scary statistics while reading news sites this past weekend, and they just blew my mind.

The first statistic? Despite the fact that we’re engaged in a war in this particular country 63 percent of Americans can't find Iran on a world map. They had no idea that you go to the Mediterranean Sea, take a slight zig to the left when it ends, and go a couple of countries in.

Of course, that would pre-suppose that they knew where the Mediterranean Sea is.

The other statistic might even be scarier...around 50 percent of ALL Americans can’t locate New York state on a map. That means HALF of all Americans, despite knowing of the state, couldn’t point to where the Empire State Building sits, or where Long Island juts out into the Atlantic.

Don’t you think it says something about Americans when we don’t know where world hot spots are? I mean, how can we as a country care about things like the past tragedy of mass starvation and mass death in Darfur when most of us don’t even know where it is? I guess it’s just a little disappointing that we as a people don’t seem to be aware that we’re not just Americans. We’re humans sharing a planet with many different people and many different countries, and in that sense, don’t you think we SHOULD have some knowledge of our neighbors?

(Darfur, by the way, is in the Sudan. In Africa. PLEASE tell me you know where Africa is.)

Now like I said, maybe I’m just a little sensitive to this mass ignorance because it’s something about which I’ve always had an interest. That interest, by the way, started from the time I was 4 years old and my mom read to me from Rand McNally’s World Atlas. I, apparently, was disappointed that I couldn’t go to school with the other kids, so she decided to let me learn at home. And it’s an education that’s stayed with me to this day.

So thanks, Mom, for opening my eyes to the fact that there’s an entire world out there, filled with different people, different customs, and different problems. It’s an education that I would hope ALL kids could get some day.

And then we would never have to see statistics like the two above, the ones that blew my mind, again.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 9/22

 Why yes, I DO put the "goof" in goofy.

8-)

This week's TV piece was not at all serious, and one of those that just popped into my head one day a few weeks ago.  As usual, I was out running right before school started for the year, and for whatever reason the topic of Yooper-themed school classes entered my brain, as did an image for a Kindergarten book.

And with that, I was off to the races.

As usual, the gags came pretty easily in this one, while the graphics took a little more time.  I really do need to work on being a better graphic artist, but with little or no talent in that area, I guess I'm stuck doing what I do.  And thank goodness for Canva, a web-based graphics program that actually makes sense (and doesn't use AI, unless you wanna pay for it).  I'm pretty much able to stick together stuff that kinda sorta looks like I want it to, and with my limited abilities in that area...

I'm happy with the results.

So just how goofy did I end up this week?  Judge for yourself--

(jim@wmqt.com), goof.

Monday, 9/21

Wow. It’s just about over. It’s really over.

Tomorrow (tomorrow night at 8:05 Eastern time, actually) marks the Autumnal Equinox, or as a normal person would put it, the beginning of Fall. Summer’s over, and while we (once again) really didn’t have much of a summer this year, the door has been officially slammed on it.

Yikes!

Every week on the air we do something we call our “At Work/Online Network Question of the Week”, in which we ask a question on the air and also throw it on our station Facebook page in hopes of getting a little discussion going. An upcoming question, written knowing what is on the way, asks if everyone is ready for another Upper Michigan winter.

I know what my answer will be.

I’ve always thought of Summer as a time to recharge your batteries, a time to (literally) soak up enough sun to wash away the memories of the winter you’ve just lived through and to charge your psyche up enough to face the onslaught of the next, upcoming cold season. I mean, that’s just how I perceive it, but in talking with other people it seems like I’m not alone in that area.

This year, though, was something special. We had a brutally cold and brutally long-lasting winter, one that I know drained my batteries far more than they’ve ever been drained. We didn’t have much a spring at all, and then “summer” this year consisted of a nice Memorial Day weekend, a few nice days here and there, a hot (but hazy) July, and a few more okay days in August before all heck broke loose. Sure, it might not be too bad a day or two this week, but did we really have enough of a “summer” this year to erase memories of what we lived through a few months ago, and what we may have to live through a few months hence?

Don’t answer; it’s mostly a rhetorical question. After all, we each handle weather (and what it does to us) in different ways. But I have a feeling that if you were to ask 100 different U.P. residents that question that a majority—maybe even a large majority—of them would answer the same way I did.

And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

Maybe we’ll get lucky this winter. Maybe there will be a strong El Nino in the Pacific this year, and we’ll have warmer than average temperatures. Maybe, like a few years ago, we won't even have any snow throughout the year. Hopefully, though, we'll have few (if any days) where the temperature falls below zero. Maybe Lake Superior won’t freeze this year, which means that we’ll have a warmer Spring, which might lead to us having a “normal” summer next year.

Maybe.

Living up here, you gotta have hope, especially as far as the weather goes. After all, there’s nothing you can do about it; you just have to live through it, and keep your fingers crossed that it turns out for the best.

So as we head through the last full day of "summer" and stand on the brink of the first day of Fall, perhaps the best thing I can say is “good luck, everyone”. We may need it.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 9/18

Okay...my eyes can stop watering any day now.

When I was young I used to suffer from rather severe hay fever twice a year (spring & fall). But one of the few good things about getting older, I've discovered, is that allergy problems, at least for me, have fallen way off. I no longer have any sort of problems each Spring, and for the past few Autumns I haven't noticed anything happening at all.

And then there's this Fall. For the past week or so, my eyes have been watering like a fire hydrant left on during a hot Summer's day. And also for the past week or so, I've had a non-stop low-grade headache centered right behind my eyeballs. My nose hasn't in any way been stuffy, but several days this week you could actually hear all kinds of roughness in my voice. In total it's not quite as bad as what I suffered through as a younger person, but it's not that far off, either.

I have no idea why it's hit me with a vengeance this year. I don't know if it's the fact I was downstate around farm fields for a few days or if the (and I say this generously) weird weather we've had this year kick-started something in my head that's been laying dormant for a couple of decades now. All I can say is...

IT CAN STOP NOW!

I really hope that it's just an anomaly brought on by travel. I really hope that our increasingly screwed up climate hasn't caused my annual bouts of hay fever to return. But I always travel somewhere—Reese, Chicago, or Europe--during this time of the year and have not have the allergy problems that I do right now. So if the problems HAVE been caused by the weather, let's hope they've just been caused by our weird weather year, and not by our increasingly weird weather patterns.

After all, I suffered enough when I was young. I'd really dislike having to do it again. So if you see me walking down the street in the next few days with tears running down my face, realize that I'm not weeping in joy at seeing you (although I suppose i COULD be weeping in joy, at least inside). It's just my stupid sinuses getting their revenge for some inexplicable reason.

******

One more note before I go...I need to wish a happy anniversary to the two people without whom I wouldn't be here! It's my parents anniversary, so if you see either Dar or Chicky-Poo, make sure you wish 'em a happy day, because they sure do deserve it!

Love to them both,

(jim@wmqt.com)