Burton Speaks

By an amazing coincidence, it was exactly a year ago today that I ranted about the noise generated by leaf blowers. Yet here I am today, at an unreasonably hour in the morning (at least by unemployed standards), listening to them use an internal combustion engine to turn a fan which then blows air around... and this is what they use to move leaves. (Not, for instance, a rake.)


I love technology. Technology has brought us incredible things: the Internet, special effects in movies that DON'T look terrible, and genetically delicious Life cereal. However, when the line forms for people who think that technology isn't the answer to everything, I'll be at the front. Is it more efficient to use a leaf blower than the rake? Perhaps for the person having to move the leaves. But the net effect of a leaf blower is absolutely negative: consider the noise pollution, the air pollution, the consumption of fossil fuels, the energy used in the construction of the thing, etc. All so someone can save a few minutes waving a magical wand of air movement instead of, for instance, a rake.

One day a committee will be formed for the express purpose of making the world a better place. I hope to be on this committee. I will encourage the use of rakes or, at least, quiet leaf blowers. Why? Because the quiet is good for us all.

Mood Color: Gray

I've been looking for a job for so long now that I'm not sure what I would do if I had one. I've watched the economy collapse around me and have been forgotten or ignored by so many companies I couldn't begin to name them all. Being so useless and unwanted is really taking its toll. I'm rapidly running out of savings and hope.

So it's November 12th, the day after Veteran's Day, and this isn't the first time I've seen a Christmas ad. With 42 days left until Christmas (11.5% of the year), the retailers are out in force, perhaps hoping that we can buy ourselves out of this recession that we're in.

Or maybe not.

I love this time of year for the eggnog, but I really detest the blatant "BUY BUY BUY" commercials. I'm all for gift-giving (and, honestly, gift-getting) but at least leave me with the illusion that the Christmas is about something more than spending my way into happiness.

Of course this won't happen. And every year the retail season will start a little earlier. It used to be Thanksgiving when the ads would come out in full force. Now, it's just after Halloween. At what point will the backlash occur? At what point will the advertising burnout happen? When will it just not matter anymore?

I had the privilege today of watching the Oregon Ducks beat the Stanford Cardinals at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, something I've not done in years.

While I'm not a huge football fan, a game is exciting to go to now and again. The Ducks were beating Stanford by a narrow margin for most of the game, even with all the mistakes they made. Yet Stanford managed to take the lead after the Ducks made a particularly embarassing series of mistakes in the fourth quarter. Watching Oregon score with 6 seconds left in the game to re-take the lead was tremendously exciting, and made standing and sitting the heavy rain worth it.


One of the funny things about a Ducks game is that I'm pretty sure it's just about the biggest show in Oregon. With the capability of seating 54,000 spectators at a football game, I can't think of anything in Oregon that draws a larger crowd (other than The Decemberists.) Of course, that many people at a game means that post-game traffic was a nightmare - though the number of "I'm a Ducks fan" license plates that I saw bordered on humorously ridiculous.

I had a ton of fun. Thanks to my hiking buddy for taking me, and it was great to see everyone else there, too. Hopefully I'll get to go again someday!

While I have historically used this site as a sounding board for my thoughts on politics, I've decided to create an entirely separate blog for those now. Starting yesterday, I'll be blogging about politics over at No Jack Kennedy.

My goal for this site, however, isn't just to be about my politics. I'd eventually love to have other people contributing to it as well, so that a mix of views will be represented. That's in the future, though, as I need to find people to write. (If interested, contact me!)

November has hit here in the Pacific Northwest, and our days of dreariness have started. When combined with the end of daylight savings time, the sun sets before 5:00 PM now and felt like it barely came up. A thick grey cloud hovered overhead today and just poured a constant rain on us that slowly drenched anything it came in contact with. In fact, today is so dreary I couldn't even find an appropriate photo to show the dreariness. Wow.

This always happens, of course. I'm surprised it took until November to kick in; usually it's October. Nonetheless, for some the day will begin and end while they're at work, and for those of us job-hunting in a recession, the day barely registers.

The silver lining, of course, is that a cold rain here means snow in the mountains, which mean snowshoeing, skiing in the winter and decent water levels in the summer. So there's that to look forward to, at least.

I'm down in Eugene right now, visiting my girlfriend. It's Tuesday night, so we went to Max's bar for trivia night (hosted by "E.Geek", who apparently isn't that big on the internet.) While the Oregon Commentator's opinion (page 13) wasn't exactly a glowing recommendation, I was impressed with the place. It was clean, there was free popcorn, and when I ordered a whiskey & coke (as usual) they gave me a glass of coke and a separate shot of whiskey so that I might combine them myself and be assured I'm getting my fair share of booze. Nice.

So I'm going to spoil it by saying that my team took 2nd place overall and 1st place in the second (of two) rounds. I'd like to claim that I led my team to that victory, but someone would likely show up and refute that. Nonetheless, I was instrumental at times. I also came up with our team name. Some affiliated teams were using themes from past presidential elections, so, for instance, there was an "I Like Ike" team. Well, we were the team "No Jack Kennedy". Yes, it's an awesome name.

Anyway, at this trivia night I proved that my knowledge of American history is shaky (did you know that Woodrow Wilson was governor of New Jersey before being president? I didn't!) and that my grasp of sports trivia is nonexistent (no, I can't name the top 5 teams in the BCS.) I am, however, useful at nameing classic rock tunes, M*A*S*H trivia, and other such useless knowledge.

I miss trivia night. I used to go out to O'Somebody's bar (not the real name, but I can't remember) in west Eugene way Back When I Was An Undergrad™. I wish I could find something like it locally; it's a ton of fun.