King Tom, Getting Ahead of Myself

Note the Red Sox Crown!!

I was so certain my Mega Millions numbers were due that I commissioned a picture of my noble self for the new diggs I was set to close on this Saturday !

Now I am going to have to find a way to pay for that!!



My future dining room and the stairway to my bedroom......

I like to call it the Stairway to Heaven!!

Anyway the good news is that no one won and that my numbers will now come up for sure on the next Mega Millions drawing on Tuesday....I'll just have to close this deal on the Castle on Wednesday or Thursday... No problem!

On my last post I asked if any blogosphere Hotties wanted to Be My Valentine..they would share in my future fortune!!

While I didn't get the response I was expecting...there were a few interested in sharing my wild optimism even if their willingness to be my Valentine was tied to an actual win...

Alas there was one wonderful creature out there willing to jump on my Luck Train and when I win she will have her Royal Portrait done as well !!

Until the next time, I bid you all a Royal FAREWELL!!

Eternally Optimistic, Happy Valentine's Day

Despite having played the same numbers for the last 4 or 5 drawings of the Mega-Millions Lottery and not getting even 1 of my numbers to come out does not dampen my spirits.

The fact that no one else won only makes each drawing that much more exciting!!

I think it was around 30 Million when I started playing and now the Jackpot is at 179 Million dollars..

I like to say "Million Dollars" like Austin Powers does...it's so much more fun!!

I got a lucky Email" yesterday that I was supposed to forward to 20 friends and I would receive good luck...I am pretty sure sending those stupid chain letters on just spreads bad Karma...I didn't do it!! I am proud that I was able to resist the lure of getting good luck by putting the burden of sending that stupid letter out to 20 people who would then either do it or live with the guilt of not doing it...either way I've saved a potential 400 people by just deleting that dumb thing.

I am Eternally Optimistic that I will win Mega Millions...Friday it's gonna be big!

I have BIG plans, but I can change them if it doesn't work out.

I figure the longer my numbers don't get picked raises their chance of coming out all at once!!

I am not sure if that is a proven statistic but I like to think it is.

Plus I have a good luck charm in Chicago !!

So, while the drawing won't be until the day after Valentine's Day....maybe someone will want to jump on my lucky train and claim me as their Valentine??

Who knows....I'm feeling very lucky!!

My reflections on the 50th Grammy Award Show

Too many damn commercials including the Grammy Guys selling a book

Kanye West....what an ASS ! Getting mad cause they are playing music behind him during his acceptance speech..he was taking too long trying to put a sentence together....He loves his momma which was about the most redeeming quality that he showed and his attitude made him the butt of a couple one liners later..

My Favorite, Vince Gill getting his Grammy handed to him by Ringo Starr and then saying, "I just got an award from a Beatle!" then he looked at Kanye and said "That ever happen to you??"

Everyone in the place got a chuckle out of that one.

Brad Paisley singing, I Wanna Check You For Ticks.....That'll be my new pick up line. "Hey honey, you just cut across the lawn there, you better let me check you for ticks" What a stupid song.

Kanye I love my momma too but I don't think she could have pulled off what Tina Turner did ..hell she ended her performance with a high kick, well medium kick..Good for her.

I like the Foo Fighters and Amy Whinehouse getting their Grammy's and putting out good performances too.

Show stopper, in this case ender..Herbie Hancock getting "Album of the Year" He rightly beat out Kanye...but there was also Amy W. and the Foo's who I am sure had more sales then Herbie....He's a true musician and it is huge that the Grammy guys stepped up and gave him this Award.

Well anyone else have any thoughts..this was all off the top of my head. I'm going to bed, all in all the show kept me awake but I've seen better.

One World - One Remote

It's time for all the manufacturers of T.V's, Cable Boxes, VCR and DVD players to come together and create one REMOTE. Sure they sell universal remotes now but getting them to work with all your devices can prove to be very tricky.

The Universal remotes you buy today come with codes..input the code and it works on one device, another code for a different device...You end up pushing six buttons before you hit play.

The Universals of today are a pain in the ASS!!

What needs to be done is that there shouldn't be that many codes..Just make the units work with a universal signal...All TV's, Cable Boxes, DVD's, etc....accept the same friggin code. When you buy a TV you don't need a new remote!!

What is it with these people, you buy a new TV, a new DVD , you have Cable hooked up and suddenly you are holding 3 remotes in your hand every time you want to get the TV to go ON.

CRAZY !!

Making companies build their devices to accept 1 remote that would work on ALL their devices as well as their competitors would be good for the environment too...less remotes would need to be made, fewer batteries consumed.

Hell Apple may come out with the I-Remote for those who want a chic looking universal...bottom line there should be no need to program the remote for your electronic devices...it works for everything!!

It's a WIN WIN situation.

Now where is that stupid REMOTE!!

I've been given and Award

I thank Choo Choo over at "Stop Looking At Me" for bestowing upon me the Excellent Blog Award. I love my Award plaque !!

But getting rated E for Excellent reminds me of where I went to High School.

Being a military brat, I moved around quite a bit, and before I moved to Massachusetts if you were tested in school you could get graded an A, B, C, D or F.....But in Massachusetts you didn't get F's...you got E's. It always befuddled me, thankfully I didn't earn too many E's to worry about it.

How about Pass/Fail tests where you were just as happy with 75% right as you were with 100% right?? I mean either one still got you a P...

Was this testing scale created to bring A average kids closer to C average kids??

I don't like pass / fail and I hope they don't use that system too much in medical school. I mean if you get a 75% score on your Brain Biopsy test and Betty Boop gets a 100% score, I think I'd want Betty Boop doing my Brain Biopsy. I just don't think Pass/Fail testing would be any good for anything but drug tests .

Of course for pregnancy testing you wouldn't use pass / fail because it wouldn't really be clear.....I mean if you took the test and it came back pass, would you be pregnant or not? I know they use Negative and Positive for that test but I think those results convey feelings. Think about it, if the test is ( Positive=Your Pregnant!) some people see that (Positive) as a (Negative=Oh Shit!!) and vice versa...I think Yes or No is the way to go with that test.

Well, I don't know how I got off on that subject, I am sure there are some pretty crazy testing scales out there that some of you might share here.....

.....or you can just tell me how nice my new Award looks!!

Diets, We are all on one -Try The Tom Cat Diet

The TomCat Diet says Strawberry Pie is OK

It's the truth..we all are on one diet or another. The South Beach Diet or The See - Food Diet..you know - see it, eat it - Maybe you are on a starvation diet, by choice rather than by circumstance I hope, or my favorite...I developed it a couple years ago, the Budweiser Diet.

di·et : the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group

We may be on a Multicultural diet, Soul Food on Sunday, Italian on Monday, Chinese on Tuesday...etc, etc..

Or we may be on a diet fit for Cows.....Vegetarian.

Fried Chicken Cutlets are OK Too!!

Whatever it is that we eat, is our Diet. I no longer am on the "Budweiser Diet", it was fun while it lasted, it did cause me to shed some weight. I still think if I Published the Book men all over would be ripping it off the shelves... Seriously if someone told a guy to go on a diet and he went to the bookstore and saw..."Losing Weight with Fresh Vegetables" or "THE BEER DIET" , which one would he pick???

Cheers!!

So why am I writing about diets...well, there are the 10 -15 pounds I'd like to say goodbye to for one. But when I was on the Treadmill every day and eating the "Right" foods it didn't seem to matter. Nothing changed...It reminds me of a friend of mine who has a cat that is sorta FAT. She exercises her cat making it run all over chasing a little pen light and feeds it the Lo Cal food but the cat doesn't change, it's still fat...

I feel like I'm kinda like a Tom Cat, while I don't really feel FAT, I want to shed a few pounds..So I am trying something new..The talking heads on television said that drinking red wine can be healthier than exercise...This is good news!!

Also, I heard that people often try to change too much in their diets only to revert back to there old eating habits...So the key is to just change one or two things in your diet...then it's easier to honor your commitment to the changes you make..

Awesome!! So here is my new Diet:

The Tom Cat Diet:

Less Exercise, more Red Wine and I am gonna cut cream out of my coffee!!

I'll let you know how it all works out!!

I'm calling it the Tom Cat Diet, unless someone can think of a better name!

Dad's Home, Creepy Hospital Rooms, The Patriots Are Going to the Super Bowl

Well It's been busy around here...Dad got out of the hospital and is now under the strict guidance of Unit Number 1 (That's MOM) and believe me he better start listening!!

I talked to him this morning and told him that I was home nursing my cold, more than likely something I picked up visiting him at the hospital last week, and as I worked over the weekend I thought I'd stay in and recuperate today....

Looking back at the hospital, when dad finally got a room...30 hrs after getting to the emergency room..I have to say the room was kinda creepy. When I first went in it seemed quite spacious. It was a Corner room with 2 large windows looking out on the wooded hillside behind the hospital. I grabbed a chair next to the windows and then I noticed this....



Turkey Vultures...

Somehow it just doesn't seem right to have Turkey Vultures looking into you hospital room...to me it's creepy.

It wasn't like there was just one either...



They were all over the place!!

Well Dad's home, we didn't let those stinking turkeys get em and on Sunday he saw Tom Brady and the Patriot's win their 18th straight win...That's one for the history books, and now they head to the Super Bowl to take on the NY Giants looking for their 19th straight win and 4th Super bowl victory in 7 years...

Boston vs NY does it get any better!!

Steroids, Health Care and Spitting

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane." - - Dr. Martin Luther King


Today I switched on ESPN and saw George Mitchell talking to Congress about his report. The Congressmen and women were echoing each other other in their praise of former Senator Mitchell and his work on this Independent Investigation that he began 5 years ago at the request of Major League Baseball.

Many also said that while "This " (Steroid use by professional baseball players) was not the biggest issue that faced the country, it is important. If you are not a baseball fan you may ask yourself why is this so important???

That's easy people...It gives the Congress the ability to gather, tell someone (Mitchell) what a good job he did, and for a real Bipartisan Party where everyone agrees on something.

It's important because it shows a government working as a group, many on the same page. Come on now, this isn't about the individual players, this is about CHEATING, ILLEGAL DRUG USE and BAD EXAMPLES.

This gives Congressman the ability to stand or sit upon their soapboxes and say "It's about the Kids !!" and "We're here to save lives!!"

It almost made me sick to see these Republicans and Democrats suck up to each other over this issue. It's good I didn't, get sick that is, because I don't have Health Insurance!!

THAT is a big issue for me!!

I didn't need the Mitchell report to tell me athletes use drugs to get a competitive advantage... DUH

I don't need Congress to waste Tax Money...

Look at all the time these congressman took to research their questions for Mitchell!!

Look at all the damn aides around those Congressman!!

Look at all the friggin' lawyers in that room !!

Wouldn't it be better for the Children, the Country if all those blowhards were doing something like taking the profit incentives out of delivering Health Care to Americans.

The Media, The Congress, The Senate all try to say our system is better than the French, The English or Canadian Health Care Services....sorry..

Better How? Better for those with money, maybe.

My dad has his Medicare and Secondary Health Insurance. He's 79 and fell down yesterday and hurt himself. His doctor told us to bring him to the Emergency room at the local hospital.

He's still there, in the Emergency room !!

He's resting comfortably but in the Emergency room ??

They want to put him in a bed in the hospital, but there isn't one available..

That's true for another 5 patients staying in the ER with him.

No where to put them..Not enough staff to cover the beds. Believe me, there is plenty of room but STAFF costs too much and the HMO's won't cover the costs to care for the sick and injured...

Nope..Staff costs too much!!...Bottom Line, Health Care in America is FOR PROFIT..not for the sick.

Let's head back to Congress....BASEBALL Reform or HEALTH CARE Reform...

I think Baseball reform will precede any kind of Health care reform...WHY???

In 2003, Representative Conyers first introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (USNHI). This bill would establish a unique American universal health insurance program with single payer financing. As a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that improves and expands the already existing Medicare program, it would be available to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories.

Every year since, the bill is re introduced...It first had 25 co-sponsors but the list has grown and now stands at 85 other congressmen and women.

It probably helps those Congressmen and Women look good to say they back this bill...the bill that gets introduced and then....what..Burned???

You would think this Bill wouldn't need to be introduced every year but it does, that seems like a needless amount of money spent, just changing all the dates and stuff?

All the TREES that went into that paper!!!

This is what happened to the bill in 2007 ...

1/24/2007:

Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, and Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

(In English please!!!)

1/24/2007:

Referred to House Energy and Commerce

2/2/2007:

Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.

1/24/2007:

Referred to House Ways and Means

1/30/2007:

Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.

1/24/2007:

Referred to House Natural Resources

I wonder when it will get introduced in 2008??

Somewhere around Martin Luther Kings Birthday I suspect...makes good copy!!

Why not do something about it this year guys and Gals??

Personally I'd rather pay more taxes and have health care without all the Co-Pay and Deductibles.

I'd like to see Doctors working to make their patients healthy and be compensated for doing that.

I don't like seeing Doctors working for HMO's with fancy Titles like "Medical Directors" and getting bonuses for being "Good" at saving money for the HMO by denying CARE for the Insured.

Maybe we could solve the Steroid Problem at the same time..If we are all agreed that it is BAD for sports...and for KIDS.

Let's give them all health insurance and test them for steroids!!


Oh, and talk about Professional Baseball players being bad Role Models...What's up with all the damn spitting, never mind chewing tobacco??

Disgusting!!