Smoking in the USA

I’ve been noticing something lately.  I can’t quite explain it.  Why are people holding their phones in front of them and talking while driving?  I mean I get it, drivers are not supposed to have a phone to their ear while driving but… come on.  Are they fooling anyone with this holding the phone two inches in front of their face?  How is that not just as dangerous?  Sure, sure, it is the speaker phone so it is better but… hello, they’ve gone from holding it at their ear to waving it in front of their eyes.  That seems pretty distracting to me.

Smoke Free Bars:  Come hither.  Madison is smoke free, Illinois is smoke free, and yet… Milwaukee is smokey.  Now when it was just Madison I could see the conservative point of view that, hey that is Madison it is a liberal town.  I didn’t complain too much because I can see there is a fundamental difference between there and here.  But now ALL Illinois bars are smoke free.  I’m not just talking the bars in the ‘burbs, kids.  I’m talking about the ones in my hometown – Middle-of-Nowhere, USA, population: 11 (or 7,000.  Don’t want to insult any hometowners who might stumble in from Facebook.)

What’s worse?!? IOWA is moving in that direction, too.  IOWA!!!  If Iowa goes smoke free first -nearly guaranteed- I’m going to be stupefied.  July, 2008 for them and we are still mired in the lobbying stage somewhere.

I have friends, conservative, or more so than me, in my home town that are digging it.  They have said the same thing all of my friends in Madison are saying.  It’s nice not to have to come home and Febreeze their coats for three days.

Sigh.  I’d go out more if it didn’t include the smoke-stung eyes and the next morning coat stench.  I really would.  Put that in your pipe.

~Forth

The time is now.

God, I miss The West Wing. It was the first thing I queued up on Netflix (the astute few will remember we just joined up).  There isn’t anything I can say about the show that hasn’t been said a thousand times over.  It is from moment one well-acted, well-written, and it talks down to you.  It assumes you’re smart and if you’re not it doesn’t leave you behind.  I don’t know why I didn’t watch this show from the beginning.  I loved The American President and it is essentially a tv show version…  I should stop talking about it.

The real subject: I don’t have one, I started to blog and thought… my mind is pretty blank.  I joined up on Twitter as well but there isn’t much to say about that.  I’d like to use it and think it was as awesome as the kids out in San Francisco.  But they are all the movers and geeks of the tech world and I’m just an English teacher in Wisconsin.  There aren’t a lot of people around Milwaukee rolling on Twitter.

Read this if you want something interesting.

~Forth