Peter's Place

As I've been blogging about lately, one of the things that I've been doing to help with my depression is to read. I guess one of the things that this does for me is keep my mind off a lot of the stressors that are in my life right now. Additionally, it helps keep my mind focused, and as I've blogged about, I find a lot of things in books to be applicable to or reflective of my life, or more generally, there are passages that "speak" to me. Two of the authors that I've been reading a lot lately have been Sue Grafton and Patricia Cornwell. Because the selection of books that I have not yet read by these female authors has dwindled, I recently asked a librarian if she could recommend something else to me along the same genre/style of the two woman powerauthors, and she recommend Kathy Reichs. I picked out Death du Jour and within a few pages, I was in love. Reichs, like Cornwell, is employed in the forensics field. In addition to being an author of great caliber...

Who we are is who we were and the more things change, the less they do, unless we start with our hearts. ~Trooper Truth, character in Patricia Cornwell's novel, Isle Of Dogs. -- -- PCF http://petercfrank.blogspot.com

Well, here it comes. The snow has finally started falling. Let's see if it actually last this time. If it does, I'll post pictures. -- -- PCF http://petercfrank.blogspot.com

The other day, when I was getting out of work, I couldn't find my metrocard to get on the subway. Just my luck, right? So I went into the station with my last twenty dollar bill in hand, hoping to buy a ten dollar metrocard with the twenty. As luck would have it, I got all the way down the stairs and the entrance I had picked didn't have a token booth, only the vending machines selling metrocards. I tried to purchase a ten dollar card with my twenty dollar bill, but the machines will only give out a maximum of six dollars in change! I didn't want to buy a twenty dollar card as then I'd have no money left, yet I needed to get back to where I was staying. so I started asking people if they had change of a twenty. This one lady stopped and looked, and apologized that she didn't have change. Then I guess she saw that I was walking with a cane, and asked if I just needed a swipe to get on the subway. It took me a minute to realize what she was asking me, as it totally ...

A New York state senator has announced his plan to introduce legislation that would ban the use of electronic devices such as iPods, BlackBerrys and cell phones while crossing streets in major cities. State Sen. Carl Krueger, a Democrat who represents New York's 27th district in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, claimed that the phenomenon of "iPod oblivion" has led to a number of fatal accidents on urban streets. While he did not cite any statistical studies that have indicated a rise in such incidents, he referred to the January death of a 23-year-old Brooklyn man who, tuned into his iPod headphones, walked into the path of a city bus. Very recently, I briefly blogged about the various levels of judicial review , which is the process that judges in appellate courts apply when determining whether or not a governmental action is or is not constitutional. Judicial review isn't a power of the courts that is spelled out in any law. Rather, it is found in common la...

I'm glad to see that the typically Californian modus operandi of being laid back, easy-going, c'est la vie is taking a back seat in the struggle for those gay couples wishing to marry and thereby obtaining equal rights and treatment under the law. As a form of protest , a very smart, sassy, and ingenious Yolo County Clerk employee ( Freddie Oakley -- she's the person responsible for issuing marriage licenses) is standing up for equal rights under the law and, in concert with various other demonstrations and protestations that will occur this year on Valentine's Day , she will offer a "Certificate of Inequality" for same-sex couples seeking a marriage license , which cannot be obtained under current state law in California (well, not just California ; only Massachusetts allows for same-sex marriage , and even that right is under attack ). Quoth one article , The woman who oversees civil marriage in Yolo County is planning to issue "certificate of...

Y'know, it's bad enough that Microsoft is trying to kill Linux . But now we have them trying to revise history. I really have to wonder about the level of intelligence of the general public who thinks that Microsoft is such hot shit. If Microsoft believes that there is misinformation or inaccurate information in the Wikipedia article, then there are steps that they can take , as outlined by the folks at Wikipedia, to correct such information. But no, they decide to go ahead and try to get around Wikipedia's ban on public relations firms editing Wikipedia pages/information by paying a Wikipedia user to make the edits. How low will Microsoft sink? Let's take a look, shall we? Microsoft executives pondered whether to remove the company's name from a 2002 report done by research firm IDC that touted Windows total cost of ownership over Linux, according to e-mail messages entered into evidence in an Iowa antitrust case. ( Read more ) Microsoft risks a new showdown with...

Say you've had a really hard day. You come home, and find yourself trying to sit down for some good ol' R&R, or P&Q, or whatever it is that you're searching for, and your phone just won't stop ringing. And it's not important people calling you, it's those pesky telemarketers. Well, maybe you'll want to try soething along these lines. Or, if you just need a good laugh, then have a listen. It's a flash thing, I think, with audio, but a visual transcript, and it's fairly safe for work (I think the harshest word they use is "ass"). I thought it was hilarious. YMMV (your mileage might vary). But have a listen anyway. Let me know what ya think. How to prank a telemarketer .

OK, as I mentioned in one of my last posts, I've been reading a lot. Specifically, I've read a lot of the Alphabet Mystery Series by novelist Sue Grafton . One of the greatest things I love about the Kinsey Millhone mysteries is that her character virtually grows out of the page. I was going to say that it leaps off the page but that's a little cliché , don't ya think? Anyway, her books aren't fast paced at all. In fact, one might say that they can, at times, be painfully slow in plot development. But one doesn't read Sue Grafton's novels for plot; one reads them for the sheer joy and passion of reading. The characters in her novels are so well-formed, three-dimensional, that it makes me feel as though I could literally reach into the book and touch them. Not to mention, she has a great insight into the human psyche. Oh, and did I mention that I could totally see my friend, Stacey , as heroine Kinsey Millhone? I just finished reading Patricia Cornwell '...

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), former First Lady (US) and Humanitarian I don't know why, but I just found this to be very moving. And I can't even remember where I heard the quote, but I think it was a PBS show, or something like that. For more information about Eleanor Roosevelt, check out the following web sites: Eleanor Roosevelt Biography by the Frankling D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum The American Experience: Eleanor Roosevelt The Time 100: Eleanor Roosevelt The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project Eleanor Roosevelt : American First Lady & Humanitarian The Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute at Hyde Park The National Women's Hall of Fame: Eleanor Roosevelt Google search engine results

And one wonders why we're still paying $2.50 or more per gallon of gasoline in New York (check out the prices in Westchester localities, like White Plains, Irvington, Rye, Scarsdale, etc.). This shit just pisses me the hell off. I mean, as you may recall , was it not Exxon Mobil who posted record profits for any US company last year, as well? One might think that these oil companies would lower their gasoline prices but, noooooo, they have to keep posting record profits for any US company in history, year after year. One might think that technology companies would be the ones posting record profits, or high profits, given today's tech-driven society. However, it's all about the oil companies, the hungry, greedy, bastardous oil companies, for whom we have gone to war in Iraq. Exxon Mobil Corp. Thursday reported the biggest annual profit on record for a U.S. corporation - earning more than $75,000 every minute of 2006 on the back of record oil prices. The world's bigges...

OK, this one kind of snuck up on me, and it just goes to show that I've been out of politics for too long. In fact, I've probably been out of life for too long, but that just goes to show what depression will do to a person. So I was just reading my local paper online when I noticed an article about a possible conflict of interest in the hiring of the domestic partner of the Mayor of the Town of Ossining . I mean, aside from Bill Schmidt , who recently lost re-election to the Common Council of the City of Peekskill, I didn't think there were any other openly gay elected officials in Westchester County. In fact, I didn't even know that Councilman Schmidt lost his re-election bid. So politically, I'm out of it. Emotionally, well, that's a given. And socially, it seems that after my car accident in 2002, most of my friends have dropped off the face of the earth, or at least it appears that way, as I'm in touch with relatively few of them, as compared to b...