There seems to be a spate of older female celebrities bragging about sexual conquests back in the day. First there was Cher reminiscing about her fling with Tom Cruise. Then there was Carrie Fisher hinting at an affair with Harrison Ford during the filming of Star Wars (he was still married to Mary Marquardt at the time).

Chivalry has been dead in Hollywood for a long while, both Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford have demonstrated that quite publicly. Still, I can’t recall any aging male A-list celebrities talking about the women they bedded in their heyday. That would be unseemly in the eyes of most and yet women seem to think they can get away with it. It is both strange, and sad.

Addendum 1 May 2008:

Yikes! Now Barbara Walters is talking to Oprah about an affair she had with Sen. Edward Brooke in the 1970s. At the time, Sen. Brooke was married to Remigia Brooke née Ferrari-Scacco.

I wonder if in a thousand years or so the time-line of history will be divided neatly somewhere around 1980 into before and after the Internet. Arguments can be made of course that the technology which laid the ground work for the Internet developed much earlier and, obviously, the Internet as we know it did not come along for quite some time after Arpanet.

I was thinking of how into my early teens when a meddling question would arise, I would go to the library to seek out the answer. (I’m quite handy with a microfiche, a skill that will probably almost never be of use to me again.) Nowadays the answer to almost any question which comes to mind is found within a matter of minutes. I think that is the key change in how people think which will prove to make before and after so significant. We don’t have to know much these days, but we know where to find almost everything.

On Hulu I’ve been subjected to a McDonald’s commercial which touts “Dollar Menunaire” advise.

The ad features an animated repair man (who resembles Elvis) holding two wires which are attached to a television showing static. He seems somewhat bewildered as he looks from one wire to the other. There is a tip jar in front of him and when a hand reaches into the frame and puts more money into the jar the man says, “Thank you very much,” and re-connects the two wires. The television regains signal.

At the beginning of the advertisement a voice-over imparts that , “Any job can have a tip jar.” I guess he meant any job that isn’t working at McDonald’s.

A hard rain last night wreaked havoc on the previously mentioned trees. My car looked like a Rose Bowl Parade float when I left work this morning. I left a trail of pink petals in my wake, like some sort of bizarre Hansel marking the path away from the witch’s carb cottage. Much like Hansel’s bread-crumbs, the path will be of little use and I will return later tonight. That may sound like I am comparing my job to a slow death by fattening and then being roasted alive.

A short detour on my way home this morning to the pharmacy turned into a much more convoluted affair thanks to a rowing competition taking place on the river near my apartment building. Rowing is the only sport that comes to mind in which the participants willingly engage in an activity that for centuries people had to be forcibly conscripted into on pain of death. Worse still, the folks milling about in between the phallic boats are clearly morning people even on a gray, damp morning such as this.

Every spring they return weekend after weekend to a prime location in the park and leave it covered in detritus and tire tracks. Not only that but my tax dollars are spent to maintain a road that is shut down on the whim of these upper class, ethnically uniform enthusiasts so they can park their trailers, SUVs and buses more comfortably. I am also paying for the police equipment used to shut down that stretch, if not the hourly wages of the police officers themselves who stand out there to direct the inevitable traffic jam.

A couple of weeks ago, Howard Dean was all but begging the super-delegates to commit to a candidate so that the contest between Obama and Rodham-Clinton can be settled before the Democratic convention in June. The super-delegates want to hold out as long as possible to see what they can get for their vote from the nominee, who will be able to give them precious little if they don’t get elected. Apparently, Democrats don’t watch Survivor.

This week, Rodham-Clinton won Pennsylvania and her campaign has been somewhat revived by an influx of donations following that win. Also to her benefit in North Carolina, the Republican party has an ad ready to air starting next week featuring sound bites from some of Rev. Wright’s more infamous sermons and criticizing two Democratic gubernatorial candidates who recently endorsed Obama. The Republicans say his attendance at Wright’s church shows poor judgment. McCain criticized the ad, calling it offensive, but it isn’t actually in his best interest to see the ad blocked from reaching the airwaves because the longer the Democratic nominee remains undecided, the better it is for the Republicans. Which probably explains why McCain wouldn’t bother to contact the Republicans responsible himself.

Obama and Rodham-Clinton are busy flitting about Indiana and North Carolina looking for votes in the forthcoming primaries, meanwhile McCain is visiting the 9^th Ward in New Orleans and talking to residents about what they need from the next administration. And when it was revealed that the “McCain Family Recipes” posted on his website were lifted verbatim from Rachel Ray, it didn’t even put a dent in his shiny Straight Talk Express bus. Best of all, the McCain family secret ingredients will remain under wraps.

Someone ought to consider buying Howard Dean a dream-catcher.

Today Daniel helped me set up an OpenID. As a result of the process, he swore he would never buy a Mac, even if it were the last computer on earth.

It’s a rather strange time of year in the Northeast. In the afternoon, the temperature reaches 85° F, but overnight it becomes quite chilly again (something I noted when leaving work this morning without a jacket).

The ornamental trees lining the parking lot are blooming with big pink popcorn ball clusters of blossoms. In another week or two the morning dews will become too heavy for the fragile flowers and they’ll start shedding their petals en masse — carpeting the cars and the asphalt indiscriminately. Sometimes when I get home I find the damp petals in my hair. It reminds me of a wedding, but not in a good way.

As I write this just outside my window a small black bird is repeatedly dive-bombing a hawk. The hawk keeps rising and falling, circling and swooping, trying to shake its attacker, but to no avail. I’m rooting for the black bird. In response to this observation, Daniel says I mustn’t like kangaroos, something about mother kangaroos tossing their young to perceived predators. I now have an idea for how to get my very own joey. Still that behavior is preferable to that of the prairie dogs, namely eating the young of other prairie dogs and in doing so necessitating protection of their own.

Whenever I watch a movie that has people kissing, a moment before their lips meet I see a vase.

Though I do not always manage to do so myself, I do believe that one should make every effort to get out of the urban sprawl at least once every three months to get in touch with the seasonal changes that happen in the rest of the world. It is depressing, to say the least, to experience this cycle primarily by way of the items for sale in grocery stores.

I have been lucky this spring in that I got to Virginia last week and this week I made it up to Bucks County. In the time that I have lived in this area, the drive to Doylestown has becoming noticeably less rural, but it still has its moments. I took a liking to the area specifically because it reminded me of Virginia in spots.

This afternoon I went on my second tour of the Moravian Tile Works there in Doylestown. I also bought a second decorative tile. Tonight when I got home I moved things around a bit so I could display them together. The one on the right I bought several years ago, the one on the left I bought today:

Today I dashed into Starbucks to get a honey frappuccino before work. There I saw an elderly couple seated across from each other and engaged in an intense, slightly heated debate. The words were bitter in spite or because of the years spent together.