Goldbricking: Keep the Dream Alive
I've decided to change The Malingerer's blog codename (real name: Rick Wilson) to The Goldbricker. It sounds better both on its own merits and by sort of referencing Goldfinger (the Bond villain, not the band). Anyway, the Goldbricker hasn't been to work since the Friday before Labor Day, September 2. He's pretending that his back hurts, but we spent all day yesterday working on the sliding door to the downstairs half-bath. And he's been customizing some cardboard boxes for his massive VHS tape collection, sitting on the family room floor and leaning over and squatting and all the sorts of things a person with a bad back can't do.

I'm just about the laziest person I know; so, I don't know why his goldbricking so offends me. But the fact remains that it does. I have a plan to acquire some of that ever so satisfying retribution and have already set it in motion.

The Visual Cacophony
Ninety percent fo tghe work of redecoration my bedroom has been accomplished. All I'm waiting on now is for two posters to finish flattening. Have I mentioned that I've stored all my posters and sundriy decorations in tubes? I forget. In any event, I have. For two years, my lovely posters sat between two sheets of cardboard, a great place to put them if you intend to hang them back up quickly, but a crummy method of long-term storage. So, now I've taken all my pretties, rolled them up, and placed them in stout, clearly labeled tubes. So, whenever I get out of here, it will be that much easier to take the visual cacophony with me and unleash it on my next domicile.

I Don't Trust Clark Kent
During the Goldbricker's goldbricking, I have returned home each afternoon to find the family room TV set to Fox News. And even though the Goldbricker is usually upstairs, the TV is still one and the volume is cranked up. Being local-news-writ-large, Fox News is airing wall-to-wall hurricane coverage. This is hardly surprising given the lemminglike nature of American "journalism." What is surprising is that I am noticing less and less difference between what I hear on NPR on my drive home and what I see on Fox when I walk in the front door. Sure, they approach Katrina's aftermath from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but aside from that each talks about the hurricane to the near-exclusion fo all else, repeating the same vapid comments and analyses ad nauseum. And a single tear runs down my cheek.