http://www.ComputerBob.com/journal_archive/2005/05.php .
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If you live in Florida, you're aware that our hurricane season will start in a couple of days. Even if you don't live in
Florida, you know that hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, other types of severe weather, earthquakes and floods can damage or
destroy your home and its contents. To help you create a visual inventory of your home's contents, the
Insurance Information Institute offers
free home inventory software and inventory
instructions that they say will make the job "fun and easy."
Before you ask -- no, I haven't seen the new Star Wars movie. Truth be told, I've never seen any of the Star Wars movies. I've also never seen any of the Star Trek movies. I'm just not interested. In fact, though I've enjoyed many good movies over the years, I've never seen many of the most popular movies of the past few decades.
I'm not proud that I've never seen those movies, but I'm not ashamed of it either. Some of them might be good movies, but I'm always turned off when I think that a movie is over-hyped, over-commercialized, over-politicized, over-romanticized, or over-spriritualized. As a result, I've always been a pop culture contrarian -- the more popular a movie is, the less I want to see it.
So, why do I mention my feelings about movies at all? Because yesterday afternoon,
I spent ten minutes waiting for some help in the electronics department at Wal-Mart, because I was too shy to interrupt a
serious conversation about several past and present Star Wars characters that was taking place between four adult Wal-Mart
employees in that department. When I couldn't wait any longer, I finally stepped up to the man who appeared to be leading the
discussion and asked if he could help me. With a sigh and an annoyed tone of voice, he gave me ten seconds of limited
attention before returning to his discussion. It made me feel sad that millions of us don't know the name of the Vice President
of our country, or even the names of our next-door neighbors, but millions of us can recite every meaningless statistic of our
favorite sports teams, describe every intertwined pseudo-relationship in every producer-rigged television "reality" show, or
explain every trivial detail or pretentious symbolism in the fictional lives of scores of make-believe movie characters.
Shame on us.
I just added a new
Uncle Dom's Memorial Mass section to this site's
Personal Stuff section, to make it easier for relatives and friends to find the poems, eulogies, and
other documents related to Uncle Dom's memorial mass.
Regular readers of this Journal know that I've mentioned my wonderful Uncle Dom several times in the past year and a half.
This past January, a couple of weeks after he threw a big birthday party for me and gave me my very first digital camera, Uncle
Dom was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer that, at the time, had already permeated nearly half of his bones. For
the next 4 months, it was my honor, privilege and joy to serve as one of his caregivers and confidants. Last Friday night, I was
happy to be at his bedside with his wife and three daughters when he entered his eternal reward. Yesterday, Uncle Dom's sister,
Nancy, presented some "words of love" to him; his grandson, Gregory, shared
several precious memories of him; and his eldest daughter and I presented eulogies at a memorial mass in his honor.
Vicki's eulogy described him as the first man that she had ever
loved, whose love, faith and life lessons will continue to guide her for the rest of her life.
My eulogy said that my Uncle Dom was the closest thing to a real father that I ever had.
I cried when I read the printed church program, which listed me as "nephew and honorary son of Dominic."
It is finished.
Our area is just starting to get some banks called "Fifth Third Bank." I was told that they got their name because the
original Fifth Third Bank was at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Third Street in some northern city. The other day, on the radio,
I heard a commercial that said, "Need a mortgage? Think Fifth Third first." Yes, the announcer tripped
over those words and had to repeat them. It's a good thing that the original Fifth Third Bank wasn't on a corner down here, or
its radio commerical might have ended up saying something like, "Need a mortgage? Think of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King
Junior Ponce de Leon Bank first."
The other night, a couple of hours before watching
The Apprentice, I
thought of an idea for a comic. Imagine multibillionaire Donald Trump in Hell, surrounded by eternal flames, and a laughing
Satan is poking him in the butt with a flaming torch, shouting, "Donald, you're fired!" So, if you ever see a
comic like that anywhere, don't forget that it was my idea.
If you want to be amazed, enter the name of one of your friends, relatives, or neighbors at
ZabaSearch. If you want to be shocked, enter
your own name. If you want to be really depressed, read
Your Identity, Open To All.
Here are some important events from way back in 1975:
Can you guess which event I'm celebrating today?