Good morning Boys and Girls.

Can't wait til Tuesday when Barrack Obama is sworn in.

Know why? It has nothing to do with the fact I supported him and gladly voted for him. It has to do with the fact I'm sick of him already. Sorry Barrack. Not your fault.

The coverage during the run-up to the election was overdone to be sure, but the coverage leading up to the inauguration has been both overdone and trite as can be, and I'm tired of it all. I didn't need to see two days worth of footage of the first-daughters' start at the Friends School; don't give a hoot. I don't care what kind of dog will replace Barney in the White house. I don't even care who is or is not going to host, and/or attend, or cater, any of the dozen or more inauguration parties. Sorry, just don't care.

Okay, so... (This is known as "a weak transition".)

Most newer audio books from the library come in a folder of between six and fifteen CD's, and some come unabridged on a single CD in mp3 format. My old CD player won't play those, so a couple of months ago for my birthday, SweetLady gave me a nice new one capable of playing mp3's. It's been great to use.

Well, the week before last, some a##hole stole it out of my jeep while I was working. My fault, but irritating nonetheless.

I'd left the thing unlocked, but because of the specific little project I was working on just then - and the fact I was only working about thirty feet away, making frequent trips back and forth to the jeep to retrieve supplies - leaving it unlocked had been a conscious decision. Obviously it was a bad one.

Worse, I'm pretty sure I saw the guy who stole it just seconds after he did it. He was walking too quickly but I didn't realize what he'd done until later.

So it was that the other day, while driving to work, I was listening to an older audio book someone gave me years ago that I'd never listen to, that was on cassettes, when the batteries in my trusty old Walkman cassette-player died right in the middle of tense court-room scene. Even though I had spares in the little storage compartment between the front seats of the old beater, I'm responsible enough not to attempt to change them while I'm driving, (and besides, it's really hard to open the little hatch and fiddle with AAA batteries while eating a sandwich, drinking coffee, shaving, lighting a smoke, talking on the phone and weaving in and out of traffic.)

I exhaled in disgust and turned on the Radio. The last time I'd had it on was on my way back from Des Moines a couple of weeks ago and the station to which I'd had it tuned was out of range, so I hit the seek button and caught Rush Limbaugh mid-sentence. "...Yes, I hope he fails. I don't WANT him to succeed. I'm not like the drive-by media. I'm not like these weak Republicans who say they'll support Obama 'for the good of the country.' No. I'm honest. I want him to fail. I want to WIN...." and so on. He was talking about Obama, of course, and that if Obama is successful, his "liberalism" will surely doom the country to 50 years of Democrat(ic) rule. (Yawn.)

I listened to his idiotic rant for another few minutes, 'til I lost track of the lies. His lies are hard keep track of, let alone count, because... Well, here's the question: if something MIGHT be true, assuming the root statement from which it derived is, or was - which is rarely, if ever, the case with this moron - then is a possibly-accurate extrapolation from a lie also a lie itself?

Tough call. Semantics.

I swore loudly, started to change the station, but instead switched off the radio and carefully changed the batteries in my cassette player - while driving. As I did it, I swear, this thought went through my head, making me laugh out loud.

If I had gotten into a car accident while changing those batteries, could I have legitimately blamed Rush Limbaugh? Hmm.

"Your honor, I couldn't help myself. I could not listen to one more second of that bullshit just then. My head would have exploded. Pardon me?... Oh... Well, that's a good question. I didn't switch radio stations because, what if he was on the next one too? The jerk is everywhere. You know that. Don't I have a right to self preservation? You wouldn't want me suing Limbaugh for causing a stroke, would you? Sir?... Don't you think this little fender bender is a far happier result?"

Be good to everyone.