For a few minutes this morning, I heard a voice...

in my head as I walked.  It was the voice of Sergeant Joe Friday.  "It was a cool Culver City morning.  We were working Robbery/Homicide out of Pacific Division.  The boss is Captain Walker.  My partner is Bill Gannon.  My name is Friday."  Something occurred to me that I'd never thought of before.  Was the late Jack Webb, creator of "Dragnet" and other cop shows a fan of Robert Louis Stevenson?  Why else did he name his hero Friday?

I did walk further than before, and faster than before, but there was a reason for the latter.  As I neared the planned turnaround point, Mother Nature began to call.  Softly at first, but a bit more loudly as I had turned and headed for home.  So it was more necessity than desire to go a bit faster that prompted me to head home quickly.  Note to self:  Use restroom BEFORE walking from now on.

As a garbage truck passed me, I thought of  my late father.  Not because there's some connection between refuse and he, but because of one of the many ethnic jokes he told me during our time together.  The one that came to mind had to do with "riding shotgun on the garbage" truck being the most dangerous job in a certain country.  The same country where he said what 1492, 1066 and 1776 had in common were they were adjoining rooms in the Hilton hotel in that nation's capitol city.

I had thoughts about things retail, as I noticed a "Going Out of Business" sale sign I hadn't seen before on a furniture company.  I mused how we humans are so gullible to certain retail pitches.  Women don't know that Victoria's Secret is that she gets them to buy her wares by showing them off on incredibly gorgeous women and in hoping they will look that good, they don't notice the inflated prices those wares bear.  They shop at a store called "Limited" (owned by the same corporation as owns Vickie's Secret) because it implies the clothing is scarce.  Not that men are any better.  We choose "Big 5" sporting goods, because we like the implication of "Big", because we want to be bigger, stronger, faster.

Yesterday two of the residents were having a minor dispute.  Someone told me that they were engaged in a "pissing contest".  I thought about that metaphor and remembered what a real pissing contest is.  It's two guys standing on the shore of a river, relieving themselves and the first one says "damn, water's cold" implying you know what.  His rival naturally responds "yeah, deep too".  Now that's a pissing contest.

Mitt Romney has chosen his running mate.  Since he wasn't able to bring back Ronald Reagan from the dead, and make him eligible to be Vice President, it doesn't really matter.  That, or Colin (I will not run for President or Vice President, because my wife is afraid) Powell were probably the only picks that might have made a serious difference in the race.  Turnout of voters and the economy's performance between now and the end of October will decide who sits in the Oval Office and spends us into trillions of dollars more in debt for the next four years.

6 families in the U.S. among the top 400 income earners actually paid no income tax last year.  It's possible.  I once saw a return where someone earned over $1 million dollars in that year, but because of something known as a Net Operating Loss they'd suffered in a prior year of over $3 million, they actually owed no tax.  Still, I'd like to see how someone can have a positive Adjusted Gross Income that's positive and in the millions of dollars, and still pay zero income tax.  It doesn't make sense to me.  All the places you can take advantage of losses and the like come before the AGI line.  Something to ponder on tomorrow's walk.