Thanksgiving 2010

Our first Thanksgiving in the new house.

Yet again, I have to work today, but by choice. I can either work Thanksgiving or Christmas, and for me, I would rather have Christmas off. So, like the previous years, we had our turkey early. And this year, unlike last, Sara is finally eating her mashed potatoes. Kyle still doesn't like them, but I think he'll grow out of it.

A lot to be thankful for this year: the house, our jobs, our health, and my sister being reliable to watch the kids while my wife and I saw "The Wall" show. To be honest, that was something I wasn't sure was going to happen.

"The Wall" comes to Dallas!

Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd) came to Texas this past weekend, playing in Houston on Saturday night, then Dallas on Sunday. I caught the show in Dallas Sunday night, and, other than David Gilmour showing up to play, it could not have been better.

This was a show I've been waiting for 30 years to see. "The Wall" hasn't been performed since 1980, and as much as I wanted to go, there was no way my parents were going to let a 9 year old kid see a rock concert. Having seen the bootleg recordings of the old shows, and listening to the recordings, this new version of "The Wall" seemed very similar. Some of the projections and cartoons had been updated, and the show had a much stronger "anti-war" message.

Roger's voice still seemed very strong, even on some of the tougher numbers, and he had a lot of energy for someone that's 67 years old. He really seemed to enjoy himself during the show.

"I wrote 'The Wall' because I felt alienated from my audience. I don't feel alienated from you anymore. I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart." Roger said at the end of the show. That was a bit of a touching moment, coming from him, who's been notoriously distant from his fans for most of his life.

I took some pictures of the show with my cell phone (which you can see above), so the quality isn't too great. I thought about taking video, but if you watched my recent "Rush" video, you can see how bad it sounds, so I figured why make a video that will just sound like crap anyway. Besides, you can watch the entire concert (on HD even!) on YouTube. Just go to YouTube, type "Roger Waters The Wall 2010" and there you go. Every show is pretty much the same.

You can download an audience recording of the show in Chicago from 9/20/10 here:

http://bootlegtunzworld.blogspot.com/2010/10/roger-waters-wall-tour-chicago-09202010.html

(Pictures: 1. Before the concert. 2. The teacher appears during "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" 3. The "wife" puppet during "Don't Leave Me Now" 4. Pictures of people who died during wars were displayed during the intermission. 5. & 6 The highlight of the show, "Comfortably Numb." 7. The pig comes out during "In the Flesh" 8. The marching hammers from "Waiting For the Worms.")

Taxes and Healthcare (again)

It's that time of year once again where I have to sign up for my 2011 health insurance benefits at work. As expected, everything has gone up. My health insurance has gone up an additional $40 a month, and my deductible went up from $1,000 to $1,900. No doubt this is because of President Obama's health care reform, which I supported. In looking over the benefits, there are quite a few positive changes on there: there are no more lifetime maximums, preventative care is now covered at 100%, and my copay would be the same whether I go to my own hospital or any other hospital in the country. You can also keep your children on your health plan until they are 26 years old, but since my oldest child is only 5, this isn't a big issue for me.

Of course, right now as I'm typing this, Republicans are hard at work trying to kill this new healthcare reform. "It's too expensive!" they scream, while on the other hand they are fighting tooth and nail to keep the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of the country, which will in turn add over 600 billion dollars to the national debt.

The GOP hypocrisy never ceases to amaze me. Just the other day, the newly elected Republican congressman from Maryland, Andy Harris, an outspoken "Obamacare" critic, complained that he couldn't get his government health insurance fast enough. He caused a bit of a scene when told he would have to wait 28 days for his free health insurance to kick in. He then looked into getting some sort of government sponsored "gap" coverage for those 28 days, coverage that's addressed in the healthcare reform bill that he is so opposed to.

I have yet to know what the GOP plan is to fix healthcare. It seems all they really care about is "Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!" Ok....repeal, and then what?? Keep things the way they were? As much as Republicans and the big health care industries hate to hear it, but I think universal healthcare is the only true answer, and most of the country agrees with me. In a recent CNN poll, 69% of Americans favored universal healthcare. (click link below for article)
(http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/poll-americans-overwhelmingly-favor-universal-health-care----until-taxes-are-mentioned.php)

Why don't we have universal healthcare now? Because it would kill the giant, "for profit" healthcare industry. The healthcare industry is so worried about their profits that one company, CIGNA, even targeted Michael Moore because of his movie "Sicko." In a private meeting, they threatened to "push him off a cliff." (click link below for that article)
(http://topnews.net.nz/content/210026-insurance-companies-anti-michael-moore-campaign-revealed)

I think the Republicans, with their big victory in the last election, should really put all their focus on jobs right now. Hasn't that been their mantra for the last two years? JOBS JOBS JOBS! They thought Obama was spending too much time pushing healthcare instead of focusing on jobs. Now the Republicans are spending their time trying to kill healthcare and keep the tax cuts for the wealthy instead of focusing on JOBS JOBS JOBS. If this is the path they are going to continue to take, saying "no" to everything and not getting anything done, their victory will be short lived.

(Picture above: a 2009 CBS poll)

Election Night Blues

"Sure, I'm mad at the Democrats. I'm also mad at my cell phone company. But I don't throw away my cell phone cause I'm mad and then rub dog shit on my teeth." -Bill Maher 10/29/10


I finally voted for the first time here in Texas. First off, I'd like to say that Texas has a much better system for voting than California. No punching holes and worrying about "hanging chads." Their system was entirely electronic and very easy. You press some buttons, and then you have a chance to review all your choices before you make the vote official. Very nice.

Unfortunately, unlike California, everyone that I voted for lost. For Governor, I voted for Bill White, the democrat. He lost with only 42% of the vote compared to Rick Perry's 55%. Rick Perry is now entering his third term as Governor. I don't particularly like Perry. He comes off as a cocky cowboy, a GW Bush clone. But, this is not California, it's Texas, so I knew Perry would win before I even voted. If there is any consolation, at least the city of Austin overwhelmingly voted for Bill White (with over 60% of the vote here.)

Nationwide, things didn't look too good for the Democrats, with the Republicans taking back control of the House. I was also a bit disappointed to see the marijuana initiative fail in California. Had it won, marijuana would have become legal. This, in addition to passing the anti-gay marriage law, has started to make me lose hope about California being the hip, progressive state it once was. However, they did elect Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown as their governor, which is quite a welcome surprise. Meg Whitman would have been a very bad choice.

This election was pretty damaging for the Democrats, but it didn't seem to be the tidal wave that everyone was expecting. Harry Reid won, beating that tea party menace Sharon Angle, who once said that Medicare was "wicked", Social Security was "welfare", and opposed abortion even in the case of rape and incest. It's great to see that people aren't so angry at the Democrats that they're willing to vote for any right-wing extremist who's running against them. Christine "Witchiepoo" O'Donnell also lost, thankfully. I guess her "I'm not a witch" ad didn't work too well for her. The Democrats maintained control of the Senate, and most likely it's in part because of these wacky Tea Party candidates.

If things don't start to improve within the next two years, Obama will likely lose re-election, unless the GOP puts up some nutcase like Sarah Palin to run against him, then he will win easily. But, if the Republicans actually find someone of quality, they have a good chance. Unemployment is still very high nationwide, and of course we will blame our current leader. If you happen to mention that we were losing 700,000 jobs a month during the end of GW Bush's presidency, and are now losing much less under Obama, the Republicans don't want to hear it. They will just tell you to "Stop blaming Bush!" But the reality is that Bush totally decimated this economy to the point where it could easily take 8 years or more to fully recover. Sure, Obama could have delayed his unpopular health care program and focused exclusively on jobs, and that was probably his biggest mistake. I assume that now, after this election, he will do exactly that.

Halloween 2010

According to Sara, Halloween is her 2nd favorite day of the year (after Christmas), so she was pretty excited when she woke up on Halloween morning.

Last year we had some problems with Kyle. He would run inside peoples houses as soon as they opened the door. This time, thankfully, he didn't do that.

Just like last year, we probably got enough candy to last us until next Halloween (see pic above).