The Party of the First Part

Hello World,

So here we are, already at the last weekend in October, believe that or don't. Halloween will be here on Wednesday, and after that, there's no hope for it from that point. Whatever is left of the rest of the year becomes nothing more than a mad scramble through the season of Thanksa-Christma-Kwanza-Nukkah, and Devil take the hind-most. It doesn't seem even remotely possible that we could find ourselves now perched on the very brink of November, especially since a scant week ago, it was 90 degrees in these parts, with wilting humidity, and our garden was ablaze with roses in every color. Why, I can remember a time when a team that was losing by two goals wouldn't pull their goal-tender in the last minute of play ... no, wait a minute, that can't be right. What I meant was, the dinosaurs and I can remember that by the time November would roll around, people would have long since broken out their winter coats and heating blankets. Now the way things are going, you're lucky to get the window air conditioners taken in before you're putting up the Christmas lights, and I don't mind saying, no good can come of it.

Speaking of no good, today was when all of us on the Patient Satisfaction Team were invited to present our skit at the LDI luncheon in the auditorium, and in spite of having numerous rehearsals of it, it turned out about as you would expect with a secretary, nurse, radiologist, telephone operator, pharmacist and physical therapist as the cast. One common theme for me that I've noticed, whether I'm typing a document or compiling a financial report, if I'm going to make a mistake in it, I almost always make it right at the very beginning for some reason. This was no different, because even though as the Narrator, I had the most lines all the way through the entire script, it was the part where I just had to walk out from the wings and introduce myself that I totally flubbed the words. I should have just said, "I'm sorry, but I'm in the Federal Witness Protection Program, and I can't tell you my name." One good thing about amateur theatricals, however, is that everyone in the audience is just so amazed that you can actually get up on the stage and speak, because they have the feeling that they would just die of fright before they could ever do anything like that themselves. This audience of hospital administrators and managers was obviously so starved for entertainment, that they cheered and applauded practically every line, much less each scene change, and we concluded our skit to the kind of tumultuous acclaim that a Broadway producer would kill for. And in typical fashion for this skit, it included two replacement people who were pressed into service with no experience with the parts previously. It was a lucky thing for us that the audience was so undemanding, because mine weren't the only flubbed lines in the production, not by a long shot. After that, they invited us to join them for lunch, which turned out to be a very nice buffet of fried chicken, baked ziti, stuffed fish, polenta, salad and rolls, and after our trial by fire, we all felt like we certainly earned it.

On the subject of earnings, what would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago, became a sad reality when the New York Yankees and their long-time manager Joe Torre could not agree to contract terms for the upcoming season, and instead had a parting of the ways. In 12 years, he had coached the team to the playoffs 12 times, plus won the World Series 4 times, so his record speaks for itself and he certainly doesn't need anyone to defend him. If the Yankees think they are going to find anyone better, I'd be surprised, and as we already found out to our dismay in the patient satisfaction skit, you can't just plug someone into a part and expect them to succeed. ("Hello, my name is ..... what the heck is my name again?") For his part, Joe Torre has said that he does not intend to retire, so I'm thinking that it should be some very interesting times ahead in the hot stove league over the winter, and some very lucky team is going to be extremely happy with their new manager in spring training. And don't forget, that will be here before we all know it, right after Thanksa-Christma-Kwanza-Nukkah, believe me.

Speaking of good sports, Bill was obliging enough to take an online survey for some folks, and at the very beginning is a question designed to gather demographic information, or rather, it would do that, if it didn't say instead --

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Which of these apply to you .....
[] None of the above.
======================

Well, that's the kind of thing we used to say, "Close, but no cigar," which is no doubt an expression that's lost on young people nowadays, and more's the pity, I'm sure. Of course, Bill is a good sport about taking surveys, and he takes them seriously, even when they turn out to have some unexpected humor in them, like this recent gambit from our friends at Zoomerang -

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"I also took a couple of interesting surveys. One of them was an idea for a web page where you put in your health information and it keeps statistics for you. It was a cool idea, but my faith was a little shaken when I hit the "Next ->" button and found myself in the middle of a survey about iced coffee in cans. Well, it turned out it was actually part of the survey TEMPLATE these people inadvertently left attached. I finished filling it out, but it was funny to have all the "DON'T FORGET TO DELETE THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE DEPLOYING YOUR SURVEY" reminders on the tops of the pages, along with soliciting my opinions about how tasty this fictitious coffee product isn't."
=====================

The people who created the survey template provide all sorts of helpful suggestions along the way, so that anyone (who isn't a total moron, that is) can easily customize their own survey to suit their purposes. Thanks to the inept minions at Zoomerang, we can see all of the sample questions, such as "Based on the price of [INSERT PRICE CONCEPT VIEWED], which statement best describes how you feel about the value of [INSERT NAME OF CONCEPT VIEWED]?" All it lacks is Frank Morgan saying, "Pay no attention to that little man behind the curtain!" to make us all feel like we've taken a peek behind the scenes at the Wizard of Oz, in the Emerald City version of online surveys. As a battle-tested veteran of the patient satisfaction skit, I know all about amateur efforts, but one can't help but expect better results from paid professionals, and not something like this similarly still-under-construction survey query from the folks at Greenfield Online, where they certainly should know better -

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Question - cq2aquotahid

/* Hide Before Launch */

(Hide Before Launch)

[] Ages 21-34
[] Ages 35-44
[] Ages 45-54
[] Ages 55-64
======================

Or this other arresting comment at the conclusion of a product review at aipsurveys -

======================
Thank you very much for your participation, however, this survey is now closed.
We hope to have your supports with other surveys in the future.
=======================

Well, we certainly don't want to get all of our laughs at the expense of our friendly neighborhood online survey operators, but it does seem as if there's some room for improvement there, that's for sure. Our supports, indeed. Bill is not one to be daunted, however, and he continues apace -

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"The second survey I took was from Microsoft, actually asking me what they could do to improve -- HAHA!!! Boy, I'd hate to be the guy who has to read THOSE answers! I'm a loyal user of Windows, so I bet I was nicer than a lot of folks. But I did slam them on a couple of things."

[[ At that point, I told him that he could expect his computer to stop working, because after all, a monolithic evil empire like Microsoft wasn't just going to take this criticism lying down, and anyone who doesn't think that they would strike back at individual computer users, just doesn't hang out with the right kind of paranoid conspiracy theorists. I heard back from Bill later that same day. ]]

"You were right about my computer malfunctioning -- it kept getting slower and slower and I finally had to kill it and start over. I think Corel doesn't like Microsoft fonts, like this one, because the longer I typed, the slower it got. But it could have been the survey. Bear in mind, however, that mine at least contained a COUPLE of 5's out of 10 -- I'm sure that's the highest rating they got from ANYONE. I doubt they'd punish me first, since I'm sure I'm the only one who wasn't looking for negative numbers to rate them with."
===========================

Now, far be it from me to cast aspersions on our friends at Microsoft, just because they may be a monolithic evil empire (and as the comic Dom Irrera always says, "I don't mean that in a BAD way!") but I will just point out for the record that we did have all this trouble with the patient satisfaction skit AFTER this survey where Bill took Microsoft to task and in no uncertain terms. Coincidence? I think not! After all, unlike all the rest of you scoffers out there, I understand the paranoid conspiracy theorists' concept of Microsoft as well as I know my own name, and don't forget --

What the heck is my name again?

Fit As A Fiddle

Hello World,

Well, people in the local area could be forgiven for wondering if there hasn't been some ridiculous mix-up in the calendars around here, because although all indicators point to it being October 19, it certainly seems as if the temperatures have been in the 70s and even 80s all week. For a normal late October in New York, we might consider this kind of unseasonable weather an anomaly, except for the fact that there are no standards anymore, heaven knows. In fact, it was just a couple of days ago in The Journal News that they ran a front-page story on a report about historic Playland amusement park in Rye, and the headline actually stated: "In Spite of Fatalities, Park Safety Has Improved." Frankly, if this is the improvement, I'm not sure that getting this story on the front page is going to be the public relations bonanza that the park administrators might have hoped for. And here I'm also thinking, that the county officials behind this report must have a completely different concept of safety than I do, and they're welcome to it.

Not rolling out the Welcome Wagon, on the other hand, one of our older cats had developed a large and unsightly abscess on the side of his face, which not only looked bad, but caused him to make a horrible rasping and wheezing noise, so that it sounded like you were in the same room with Darth Vader from Star Wars. ("Luke, I am your Tootsie!") During this ordeal, and for reasons known only to himself, he decided to move from where he had taken up residence as the kitchen cat, and relocate into the living room, where he pounced on the piano like a drowning man on a life preserver. Since this had been the haunt of our invisible cats, this scattered them in all directions, as they had no idea what to make of this grotesque interloper in their midst, and weren't about to find out. Later I found all the invisibles had re-congregated together on the pump organ instead, which I thought was a peculiar musical coincidence that I could not have predicted.

Meanwhile at work, Bill was busy making name pins for the likes of individuals with names to conjure with, such as Ferdesha Bauson, Casonia Fielding, Chaquita Tolbert and Colthidia Winslow, but I said I could top that, and without even trying. Earlier in the morning, I got a call from one of our nurses who wanted to order an orthopedic brace for someone (and here, she spelled the name for me, and with good reason) with the extraordinary moniker of Kwadwo Ofosubenefo, and I can assure you that's no typo. I'm not exactly sure where our friend Kwadwo hails from, although the deepest recessed quadrants of the Alpha Centauri nebula would sound about right to me.

Also at work, a committee that I belong to had been asked to perform a skit about patient satisfaction at a luncheon later this month, so we had put together a script and assigned parts, and did some read-throughs until we thought it was just right. We scheduled a dress rehearsal for today, and made sure that everyone had the most updated script, and knew when and where the rehearsal was taking place. Of the 7 people who had been assigned parts in the skit, only 3 showed up for the dress rehearsal, and so we filled in with 4 other people who showed up, but didn't know the lines. We had about half of the props, but needed to imagine the missing ones, and there had been no arrangements made for microphones or lights, even though at a previous rehearsal, all of these issues had been discussed. It seemed to me that this whole situation entirely defeated the purpose of having a dress rehearsal in the first place, when we didn't have the right people, props, or audio-visual equipment necessary. Of course, one wants to make allowances for amateur productions put on by well-meaning people, but this quickly scaled new heights of futility. We arrived to find the auditorium a little too warm to be comfortable, and this was not helped by the WIC FIT program, which apparently takes place every day in the auditorium, and was already set up with their exercise mats and dumb bells, pulsating disco music, plus 30 sweaty moms and kids all stretching and jumping around on the floor while we were on the stage rehearsing. This was certainly not a match made in heaven, in fact, the exact opposite place springs immediately to mind, and only the fire and brimstone were missing. I will say that no matter what happens during our skit at the luncheon, distraction won't be one of our problems, because we have already got that part all nailed down.

Recently. Bill sent me a picture of a very pretty young woman, and wondered if I knew who this might be, which I didn't, so he explained --

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This lovely woman has her own, very LARGE website and here's a small section of it:
According to Yulia Tymoshenko, Kyrylenko never demonstrated double standards. She reminded that V’yacheslav Kyrylenko is the head of the largest party which is included in NU-NS bloc. "And that is why it seems logically to me, if political council made such decision, it has the ground", - said the leader of BYuT. She reminded thus, that candidature of V’yacheslav Kyrylenko on position of speaker should be supported by political council of the whole NU-NS bloc.
Yes, that woman is actually Yulia Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister of Ukraine. She has a website that is in Ukrainian but that automatically translates itself into Russian and English if you click on one of the tabs. So you gotta love those translations -- staggeringly opaque! And everything it doesn't quite get it leaves in quotes, including "Nasha Ukraina" which even I don't have trouble with -- "nasha" is "our". Anyway, that's the fun of being Prime Minister, I guess.
Interestingly enough, I tried re-translating some of the Cyrillic text from my new Ukrainian pal's page and the Russky translators just threw up their hands. Ukrainian must be JUST different enough that the automatic things can't get it. For instance, I noticed that the Ukrainian page and English pages had different stories on them for some reason. One of the items had what appeared to be a really old picture of Yulia so I thought I'd try translating part of the item. The headline came out:
For the right to provoditi I bustle dodomu they were beaten odnoklasniki. Spogadi about shk?l'n? Timoshenko's fates
So I gave up. No use beating a dead dodomu odnoklasniki, I always say. (But at least they don't mind the occasional plate of spogadi, I guess.)
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And here we are, tossing more brickbats at those online translation services again, which is a bad habit that I thought we all agreed to give up for Ramadan. Fortunately, I believe that Ramadan ended in the last few days anyway, and just in time for Halloween, what a relief! I'd suggest that everyone hurry out there and grab themselves bunches of seasonal fun-sized goodies, before the Moslems snap them all up. Of course, you want to enjoy them in moderation, so you don't make yourself sick and wind up in the hospital, which as a holiday destination, is extremely unsatisfactory. And don't forget that I work in healthcare and patient satisfaction is my game, so I ought to know. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, or my name isn't -

Kwadwo Yulia Ferdesha Casonia Chaquita Colthidia Winslow-Tolbert-Fielding-Bauson-Tymoshenko-Ofosubenefo

This Is A Test

Hello World,

Happy Day of the Race for all of our Mexican colleagues out there in cyberspace. Today also marks a time for the traditional observation of an obscure historical figure that no one remembers anymore, some Portuguese explorer called Christoninapinta Columbosantamaria, or something like that, I'm pretty sure. Apparently, in 1492 or thereabouts, this fellow and his three ships were sailing around looking for the Northwest Passage, but bumped into something else along the way and claimed to have discovered Cuba instead, which surprised the Cubans no end, because they already knew where they were and didn't feel they needed to be discovered. In any event, while he was there, the young Fidel Castro gave him a box of cigars, and the rest, as they say, is history. That is, except for the part where no one remembers him anymore, and his birthday comes and goes without a peep. Where Bill works, they give the employees a day off for old time's sake, and I also took the day off from the hospital, although it is not a holiday for us. After all, if this Chris person was such a big deal in the history of America, we'd all be speaking Portuguese now, si?

Wow, what a difference a week makes. Since I was off on Monday, I took the opportunity to run some errands, and when I was coming home from Linens-N-Things, I drove past the bank where their sign registered the temperature at 90 degrees, and I don't mind saying, it felt every bit of it. The heat was bad enough, but the humidity was outrageous, and considering it was actually October 8th at the time, it was way out of line. On the news, they said it was the last day for lifeguards at Jones Beach, and it was a lucky thing they were still there, because hordes of people flocked to the shores for relief. Expecting the usual weather for this time of year, the Chicago Marathon took place as planned, only to find the runners dropping dead due to the torrid conditions. In a situation like that, which is just crying out for hammocks and lemonade, it came as a surprise to see the opening ceremonies of the ice rink at Rockefeller Center, and I certainly hope that everyone was wearing their swimsuits at the time, or it would have been the Chicago Marathon all over again. Because of the extreme temperatures, there were thunderstorms that night, and after that, it rained all week, and the temperature went down every day, until by the time it got to Friday, it was all of 50 cold and clammy degrees with blustery winds. It was hard to believe this was all in the same week. We ran around the house closing all the windows, breaking out our flannel pajamas and blankets, not to mention, coats and boots. Everywhere you looked, all you saw were cats on the radiators, and in the living room, even the fleas were wearing wool jackets and earmuffs. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I have the feeling that they were cursing out our old nemesis Comrade Mischka in flea lingo, and I can't say that I blame them.

Speaking of cursing, for baseball fans in places like New York, St. Louis or southern California, where they might reasonably expect to cheer their teams on through the playoffs and all the way into the fall classic, it can now officially be stated that there really is no joy in Mudville, as the second round of the playoffs gets underway with the likes of Boston, Cleveland, Arizona and Colorado. These would not appear to be the match-ups made in media heaven, although Fox Sports has been pushing the Indians-Red Sox series as hard as it could possibly be pushed, and then some. Local fans are inconsolable about the Mets, while the Yankees were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, which has happened enough times lately that the manager's job might be hanging in the balance. Personally, I think that a World Series featuring Cleveland and Arizona would set new records for lack of viewers, so we shouldn't be surprised to see controversial celebrities or wardrobe malfunctions to spice things up.

With regard to our observation about emergency catering from last week, I got this response back from the pastor of my church --

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I suppose if you are having a wedding banquet and you run out of wine and you didn't think to invite Jesus? See you Sunday!
Pr
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Everyone will just have to believe me when I say that for someone who is certainly not known for his humor, and that's putting it mildly, that was a pretty funny remark by the pastor, and here we don't want to rule out the possibility of Divine Intervention. Although it also can't be said that The Almighty has much of a reputation for His humor either, so the actual answer may lie elsewhere. There are some things that just defy all rational thought.

Speaking of rational thought, for anyone who has been feeling way too intelligent, and a little too complacent about it, have I got the web site for you. Please feel free to stop by and visit our friends at http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx and if you're anything like me (heaven forbid!) they'll have you feeling like a moron in next to no time. (I could have sworn it was the Emancipation Proclamation that ended Prohibition, which raised the tariffs on imported goods and permitted women to vote. At least, that's how I remember it, from when the dinosaurs and I were taking Civics back in the Stone Age, although this was before the discovery of fire, so it was pretty dark. Of course, I never did very well on trick questions.) There are 60 questions on a wide variety of topics, and although it's all multiple choice, this test is no cream-puff that any old schmo can pass without trying. They expect you to know about colonial history, the Civil War, the branches of government, important treaties, significant legislation, foreign affairs and economics, as well as famous literature about politics or philosophy. I'm a terrible test-taker, not only because I have no brain, but I also frequently mis-read the questions or answers, so that even the ones I know, I get wrong anyway. I was surprised to do better than I expected, ending up at 71%, which I thought compared favorably with the monthly average of 73% in September. Here is a sample question, and don't bother to ask the dinosaurs for help, because they already let me down on this one:

What is federalism?
A. A political party at the time of the Founding.
B. A set of essays defending the Constitution.
C. A political system where the national government has ultimate power.
D. A political system where state and national governments share power.
E. The belief that America should be unified with a transcontinental railroad.

All aboard! Well, it turns out the correct answer is D, so all of you Federalists out there can give yourselves a hearty pat on the back. On the other hand, you can't rest on your colonial laurels, because before you know it, you're getting hit with queries about Manifest Destiny, the Bay of Pigs, the New Deal, Reconstruction, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, Woodrow Wilson, the Berlin Wall, the civil rights movement, Aristotle and the Federal Reserve. Believe me, when it comes to Social Security, or the law of supply and demand, the Federalists aren't going to help you there, bless their little Constitutional hearts. But if you have a chance to check it out, it's an interesting place to spend some time, and find out what you know, what you don't know, and most importantly, what you did know but can't remember. The best part is that after you take the test, they give you your score and all the right answers, so you don't have to wander around wondering when Abraham Lincoln was elected, or what the Manhattan Project was all about. On the other hand, if you are out there wandering around, and you happen to bump into any obscure Portuguese explorers, why don't you just go right ahead and give them a box of cigars. Tell them Fidel Castro sent you.

Octo-berries

Hello World,

Well, good old Will Shakespeare (perhaps more popularly known as "The Bard of Francis-on-Bacon") wasn't just whistling Dixie when he penned those immortal words, "Now is the October of our discontent!" Mind you, they didn't even have Dixie to whistle about back then, and baseball hadn't been invented, so a reasonable person might be forgiven for wondering what the blazes they could have had to complain about in the first place. Speaking of first place, ah, there's the rub, as the Bard also declaimed, and he was right on the button with that observation. Around here, it can be said that there is only Joy in half of Mudville, as the erratic New York Mets orchestrated what amounted to the biggest collapse in baseball history, to the despair of their distraught fans. Of course, the dinosaurs and I can tell you that they've been playing baseball for a good long time now, so being responsible for the biggest collapse in the history of the game is an achievement in futility of mythic proportions on an epic scale. Although the Mets were in first place in their division for almost all of the season, and in fact, enjoyed a 7-game lead with a mere 17 games left, they still managed to post a 5-12 record in those last games, while the 2nd place team reeled off a 15-1 record during that same span. Even the math-challenged among us could see the handwriting on the chalk board there, and the Mets lost the division to those dratted Phillies (boo!) on the last weekend of the season, and because they had been mathematically eliminated from the wild card, their playoff hopes died a-borning.

Meanwhile, over the river and through the woods, or rather, canyons of steel to the House That Ruth Built, where the expectations are ever so much higher, fans of the vaunted Yankees were bemoaning the fact that their pin-striped heroes were in the playoffs only by virtue of the wild card berth, making this the first time since 1997 that the team finished out of first place and didn't win the division title. [For Mets fans, please insert the world's smallest violin here.] So those souvenir T-shirts commemorating the 2007 Subway Series are destined to be nothing more than dust collectors, and more's the pity, I'm sure.

Elsewhere in the wide world of sports, at our house, we like to make allowances at the beginning of the seasons in all sports, for bad calls, botched play-by-play, or inept camera work, by saying, "Well, it's spring training for them, too." This week saw a bumper crop of these miscues, and often by time-tested TV professionals who have been working in sports for as long as the dinosaurs and I can remember. It all began at a college football game, where a new head coach had taken over, and was trying to imbue the team with his personal leadership style, or as the color commentator put it: "He wants to put his own staple on this team." Somehow I doubt that, and in fact, the mental image that conjures up is alternately alarming and ludicrous.

Then there was one of the last pre-season hockey games between the New York Rangers and rival New York Islanders, which inspired this headline in the local media: "Hockey Game Breaks Out At Rangers-Isles Rumble." This event (one hesitates to call it a game) featured 165 penalty minutes, including 10 fighting majors and six game misconducts, and went into overtime, and let's not forget, sports tans, this was pre-season! The pundits made a point of saying that one thing the Rangers fans do not have to worry about this season is that even in September, this club sticks up for one another. During yet another tussle on the ice, one of the Rangers announcers was fulsome in his praise of a smaller player defending his teammates regardless of his personal safety, and at one point he gushed: "He's not afraid to back down." I can't help but think that's pretty much the opposite of what he had in mind, and it was just a case of those pesky pre-season jitters getting the best of him.

Even after the season starts, you can't count on everyone being in mid-season form. During the summer, they hired a new coach of the New Jersey Devils, who started out right away making a lot of changes and alienating some of the veteran players. You might think that he was merely trying to put his own staple on the team, but the announcers explained the difficulty of trying to move the team in a better direction, while still keeping the players motivated. He summed it up with this arresting comment: "It's a huge fine line to walk for a new coach." I'm sorry, even in sports broadcasting, I just have to reject the concept of a "huge fine line" out of hand, and there is just no rescuing that from the realms of indefensible oxymorons. Now, everyone knows that my love of colloquialism knows no bounds, and I can appreciate a well-turned sports metaphor as much as the next fellow, but I just have to draw the (huge fine) line at that one.

Meanwhile at work, I got a call late in the day from the O.R. Manager at our sister institution in Mount Vernon, who needed to place an emergency order from one of our vendors, because the doctor hadn't let him know about the case soon enough. He was moaning and complaining that he was going to have to stay late and take care of this, solely as the result of the doctor's lack of forethought and consideration for the staff, and he just went on and on about the callous mistreatment, the injustice of it all, as well as the other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that were his lot in life. It happened that this emergency order was from a vendor that, as far as I know, only provides one product to us, which is silicone breast implants. So in my efforts to make him feel better, I said, "Oh, cheer up, Valbert. Look at it this way. Someday you might actually meet this girl while you're out somewhere, and then you'll probably be glad that she got these breast implants." He laughed so hard, I thought he was going to break something.

And lest we think that it's just sports announcers who can't seem to get across what they really mean. I invite you to visit the web page of The Culinary Experience, which offers catering and special events out of Wheeling, Illinois, for the metro area of Chicago, Barrington, Schaumburg, Arlington Heights, Glenview, Northbrook and environs. Bill happened upon them in his travels through cyberspace, and provides this observation:

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Anyway, my favorite part is in the bullet points, which say:

This business...
was established in 2004
is female owned
has emergency service
It's a CATERER! What kind of "emergency service" does a caterer have? Oh well, I thought it was funny.
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Well, I always say, it's a huge fine line that you have to walk in the catering business, as I'm sure our friends in Wheeling have discovered, in the vast experience of their dozens and dozens of months in the industry. And while it's easy enough to scoff at these newcomers (settle down, dinosaurs!) I for one will not challenge their right to put their own staple on things, or in fact, even more than one staple if the spirit moves them. And I may as well warn everyone right now not to bother to threaten me over this, because after all, I'm not afraid to back down.