I'LL BUY A VOWEL FOR MY PRINCIPLE, PAT

It's been twenty minutes and I still haven't come up with a good intro/segue for this bit so I say we just skip over the lead-in, thank God for Christina Hendricks, and jump right into the deep end.

Science has long been the last bastion of principle in a world eager to compromise.  Look no further than Pluto.  While some may have felt bad enough for the dwarf planet to over look its shortcomings (I know), scientists held firm and told Pluto it wasn't tall enough to ride this particular orbit and kicked it right out of our solar system.  It is this uncompromising attitude which makes the blatant capitualtion that is ROYGBIV (ROY-G-BIV) all the more of an abomination.  As all of you well know, our light spectrum has long been codified by the above acronym, Red, Orange Yellow, Blue, Indigo, Violet, yet I ask you, why is indigo on the list? 

Why!?

Red. Orange. Yellow. Blue. Violet.  These are all color we can relate to, colors necessary for your Crayola bare minimums collection. Indigo? Indigo is the angry retort your girlfriend gives you get when you ask her why she bought another blue dress.  Indigo is the answer to a trivia question. Indigo is not an essential anything.  The only reason indigo is in the spectrum is that it starts with a vowel. Admit it folks, the greatest service indigo has offered is helping science teachers across America avoid trying to say ROY-G-BV (Roy-gee-bvuh).  We didn't let sympathy get in the way with Pluto and we shouldn't here either.  It's time we put indigo to sleep.

On an unrelated note, I was watching a program on my DVR last night when I saw a commercial for that evening's newscast.  The teaser featured a video of firefighters trying to put out a car blaze and an unfortunate blowback that nearly melted one firefighter's face.  The voice over which accompanied the video, however, plumbed new depths of 'duh' previously undiscovered by journalists.

"Watch tonight at 11 and see how firefighting can be a dangerous job."

FIRE fighting.  She didn't realize that we already knew that FIGHTING fire is dangerous? Hell, fighting a chimp cost a woman her face and she didn't even start it!  To this woman it's breaking news that picking a fight with fire might be hazardous to one's health.

I weep.

FROM A TO B, VIA C-Z

As most of you have noticed by now, I'm not the most direct thinker on Earth. I tend to be easily distracted; oft waylaid on my way to a point by an epiphanic jolt - a revelation of an obscure yet, at least in my mind, relevant connection, which soon leaves me navigating the tangents and tributaries of topics far removed from my original subject, turning myself into a veritable babbling brook. One might, if he were kind and perhaps fond of listening to babbling brooks on his/her sleep-sounds machine, say my brain prefers to take the scenic routes - so might Two for that matter, but no one seems to care what he and his fellow integers might do or think in this mono-numerical world in which we live and hypothesize.

While I might normally, at this point find, myself compelled to champion the cause of the "Greater Than 1's", opining on the motivations that belie our forgiving some prejudices but not others, today I'm going to stay on topic (if it's not already too late) and talk about things I don't understand.

Things it just occurred to me I don't understand:

- The Word 'Druthers' - I don't know if I've written about this before, but I find it odd that I use a word whose meaning is a complete mystery to me without ever wondering what I was saying.  You don't know what it means either do you?  No, don't google it. I've already done that for you and well, I'm even more confused.  'Druthers', you see, is a bastardization and contraction of the phrase "I would rather".  Now most such shortenings catch on because well, they're shorter and thus easier to say, in the instant matter (lawyer in the hizzouse!) such is not the case.

Compare if you will:

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  "I'd rather they put all greater than 1's in jail, but then I'd have to close my 99 cent store."
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  "If I had my druthers we'd put all those crooked numbers in jail, but you know how they multiply when you start putting them together."

- Why would a terrorist have a "social networking" page?  It seems kind of like a long term thing for someone in the field, you know? I could see maybe having an adult friend finder account (though odds are he's looking for a virgin... well virgins), but I don't reconnecting with lost friends is a rationale goal. I'm not one to stereotype, but I don't think a 10 year Madrassa reunion is in the cards for our friend.

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  Tangent: What are the odds someone will make a joke about social networking thing on a  late night talk show without using the expression "I enjoy long walks on the beach"
  
  
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    When did long walks on the beach become a stand in for personal ad?  How many people out there have the opportunity to even take long walks on the beach and, of those, how many bother doing it? Even then it's not simple,  sure you might enjoy it under the right circumstances, but it's not like it something you'd always want to do. First, and don't underestimate this, you have to enjoy walking, then you have to take into account environmental conditions:
    
    
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      sand temperature
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      crowds
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      the dangers of walking barefoot in the sand at night
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      the odds of getting mugged
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      whether you're OK with being seen shoeless on a date (not every piggy is fit to go to the market you know).

 - Why do I feel bad for not having three things on this list?

I'M GOING TO GO WITH 'THIS WORLD' MAXIMUS

Oh please, don't even try and pretend like you're too mad at me to read this post.  We both know you're too happy I came back. That being said, my return has less to do with you (while I do appreciate your saving yourselves for me, we both know you weren't going to get your blog itch scratched anywhere else the way I do it) than it does a an unspeakable crime that happened over the weekend. 

Almost all of you I'm sure have heard about the Times Square almost bomb, well, for some reason, most of you don't know of a more shocking trespass on our national happiness.  I am here to rectify that.  While parked in a mall parking lot yesterday, my car was viciously and cold-heartedly assaulted.  My fender was dented and possibly scratched (it may just have been his paint on top of mine, it's hard to tell), a fog lamp was cracked and my innocence stolen.  I left two empty slots on either side and parked in an lightly filled area and yet here I stand, victimized. There were no witnesses to the crime, no cameras - so conveniently present for more minor issues like the Times Square thing - to document the offense. There's no Homeland Security investigation or police task force. There was nothing but a beat up Buick with silver paint on its fender and casual disregard in its eyes. The police came and told me there was nothing they could do.  The officer told me that despite what I'd seen on CSI Miami no one was sending a paint sample to the lab for comparison (to be honest based on the mismatching uniform worn by the Elizabeth police officer, I'm not so sure there even is a lab). I was alone and the problem mine own.

More than at any time in recent memory my destiny is not of my own choosing. I did not provoke nor did I invite an attack. I did not seek nor did I desire a war. Yet the true measure of a man's strength is how he rises to such moments and masters them. So, AMA-8655, I may not have wanted this, I may wish our paths had never crossed, but I will not shirk from the moment. This is a time for men of action, men of conviction.  I will do what is hard; I will achieve what is necessary.  I will hunt you down like the dog you are and leaving you wishing you'd fallen testicle first into an industrial-strength vise. This is a time for American heroes, a time for American vengeance.  This is the time for me to reap what you've sown and I'm coming for you!

Also, if anyone knows how I might glean name, address and security code just based on a guy's  license plate number, that'd be swell.