Early Edition

Hello World, It's actually hard to believe how late in the month it has gotten, heaven knows, when it seems like only yesterday that it was Election Day, and all good citizens had an opportunity to exercise their French fries - although without any Civics classes anymore, probably only the dinosaurs and I even understand what that means at this point. In any case, I headed out to vote with the rest of the mid-term faithful, after several years of using my boycott as an editorial comment on the sorry state of the political landscape that we find ourselves mired in nowadays. The good news was that I was still registered as a legitimate voter recognized by The Empire State, although the poll workers always do seem to have problems finding me in the register book, because apparently the minions they press into service can't alphabetize worth a hill of beans, for some reason. Even better, I managed to use the darned newfangled optical scanners with their ridiculous paper ballots, which the hare-brained nitwits at the Board of Elections consider the height of modern technology, but which seem to me like going backwards in time, to the prehistoric era when cavemen voted with different colored rocks, and I ought to know. And speaking of early, it was at the beginning of last week when I was on the phone with a doctor's office at my new temp job, and I suddenly heard myself blurting out, "Oh good heavens, it's Christmas carols!" Sure enough, among all of the 15 different oldies, jazz, country, adult contemporary, gospel, and talk radio stations in the place, it was the hip-hop channel playing Christmas music at the beginning of November, when Tom Turkey hadn't even pranced through the stuffing and cranberry sauce yet, and the pilgrims were still buckling on their shoes and hats. Now, we've all long since come to realize that things can always be worse, as our beleaguered compatriots in Western New York would heartily agree, as they were pummeled with paralyzing accumulations of snow, usually reserved for the outer planets in the farthest reaches of the solar system. The region was completely immobilized, and there was no possibility of football between the Jets and the Bills that was originally scheduled in Buffalo, when the weather was still normal for this time of year. The Commissioner's office stepped in, and relocated the game to the domed stadium in Detroit, where the biggest problem they would have to worry about would be getting rug burn from the artificial turf, I dare say. Of course, the way things turned out, it would have been just as well if Gang Green had taken on the Bills in 6-feet of snow after all, thanks not. In an interesting coincidence, at exactly the same time, the Rangers and Sabers had their own tilt scheduled in Buffalo, and that also wasn't a happening thing, under the circumstances. Cooler heads prevailed in the NHL, as indeed they should, and the brain trust there flat-out canceled that game, to be made up later in the season, and be done with it. If the dinosaurs and I have learned anything in millions of years of evolution, at least we know you can't fight Mother Nature. Speaking of things with room for improvement, I couldn't help but notice an alarming post on my FaceBook timeline from a colleague, attempting to share an update about an acquaintance suffering from Tourette's Syndrome, which thanks to their computer's handy auto-correct feature, instead came out as "someone with turrets." Gee, I sure hope not! That sounds for all the world like a painful disorder caused by runaway building construction elements, that no amount of telethons could raise enough money to combat. Why, the next thing you know, it will be a bad case of flying buttresses, or even worse, shingles. (GET IT?!) For anyone with way too much time on their hands, and limitless curiosity, and not to mention fearless in the face of opening up countless cans of worms in the name of research, by golly, there's nothing like looking up famous quotes to see who originally said them. It seems that every quote in the world, that you examine through an online search, turns out to be attributed variously to Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain or Pliny the Younger. Just for the sake of comic effect, you should try these on for size, and see what kind of results the wonderful World Wide Web comes up with: ========================================= "Records are meant to be broken." "To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail." "We never stand so tall as when we stoop to help a child." "A church is not a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners." ========================================= Honestly, it's enough to make grown men weep, and I can tell you that wailing and gnashing of teeth wouldn't be out of the question either. It's no wonder that Yogi Berra always maintained that he never said half of what was laid at his doorstep, and I can see why. And while we're on the subject of words losing their meanings, it reminds me of a major promotion they were touting at the Olive Garden chain of restaurants, known as their "Endless Pasta Bowls," featuring their delectable signature pasta selections with refills for hearty appetites, and keep 'em coming. Earlier in the week, I saw one of their new TV commercials, with this arresting notice: ================== Endless Pasta Bowls Ends Sunday ================== Here it would be safe to say, The Irony Police and I are thinking, I guess those pasta bowls were not so "endless" after all. Well, it only goes to show that all good things must come to an end. (Now I see Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain over in the corner fighting about who said that first.) So I'll wrap this up, because I really have to hurry off to the doctor. I'm afraid I'm coming down with crenellations, because my parapets are killing me. Elle