Yeah. That’s right. It’s going to be an upbeat Aye Wonder Tuesday. If you don’t like it, I would suggest leaving now! For too long, I have been like a dog with his tail dragging along in the dirt. After awhile, it gets depressing. Who wants to come back every day to a website that makes them depressed? I know I don’t. Sure, a healthy dose of realism is good because it can prepare you. But today we’re serving up cocktails, pom poms and dancing girls. It’s attitude adjustment time because if you really want to see a change in the economy and life in general, you have to be confident. You have to have confidence that things will turn around, that life will stop dealing from the bottom of the deck, that there are blue skies replete with rainbows. Today, we are kicking ass and taking names.

How’s that? Good start? We begin…positively.

☞About 21 months ago, I quit smoking. It’s a vile habit that I picked up when I was a teenager and one that I couldn’t break for the longest time. There wasn’t any specific thing that caused me to quit. I felt fit and fine. It was more about taking control. But as a result of quitting, I lost control of something else, my eating habits. Everything tastes so much better when you’re not smoking. Over nearly two years of a reintroduction to my taste buds, I went from fine and fit to fair and flabby. I gained 35 pounds. (There it is, out in the open.) I am 6 ft 2 inches tall but 35 pounds cannot be hidden. In the last month, I have lost 12 pounds of the original weight gain. I am a walking, talking, Nutri-System eating machine. Thanksgiving is a test that I am ready for!

☞Nunchuck are a martial arts weapon that look like two pieces of wood on each side of a piece of chain. In several states, they are prohibited by law in much the same way that guns are. Recently, Nokia introduced a television ad in Asia showing Bruce Lee playing ping pong with his nunchuck. This is an insane one minute video that is must see TV.

☞Speaking of positive thinking, while I am not a fan of touchy-feely, self-help books and videos, this short film from The Secret has a really great inspirational message. Try watching it once in awhile when you get up in the morning. It gives you perspective and a nice jump start to your day. That’s what I think anyways.

☞I don’t know Gary Ackerman, Democratic Congressman from New York but after this exchange with the losing (not calling them big anymore) three CEOs of the auto makers from Detroit, I wanted to buy him a beer. “There’s a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands. It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?”

Yes, he was grandstanding but that is some funny stuff; jet-pooling, indeed.

By the way, was the head of the United Auto Workers at that meeting before Congress? It would seem they would have something to answer to also.

☞I have two songs for you this week. The first one is from a Madison, Wisconsin band called Pale Young Gentlemen. It’s a lovely piece of indie pop that is beautifully unpretentious. I hear a distinctly British sound to them, almost an early seventies Kinks timbre but I don’t think they have ever been to Britain. The song is Marvelous Design. The second song is by Damon Aaron and it’s called Clouds from his Highland album. I think Highland is one of the year’s best albums. It’s very difficult to pigeonhole. There’s a soul, folk, electronic, reggae vibe that’s so incredibly different than anything I have ever heard. Michael Franti’s Songs from the Front Porch is the closest comparison. Let me know what you think.

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☞It seems that I have been getting a few less visitors to this site though peculiarly, more and more of you have reached to say that you like Aye Wonder. At your convenience, please tell me if you like what you see here and what you don’t like. I use the site as a way to empty my desktop but I do want you to enjoy it too. And improvement is what we’re all after isn’t it?

☞This just in: Somali Pirates are in discussions to acquire Citigroup.

☞According to UK’s the Guardian, the literary world’s most dreaded honor is the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award. This year, as always, 10 writers were nominated with the winner yet to be announced. It’s doubtful that they could top last year’s award winner. Norman Mailer was given the “honor” posthumously for his defining prose that a character’s penis was “as soft as a coil of excrement.” Thought I would share that with you.

Good Lord.

☞Let’s end with a big finish, the Aye Wonder quote of the week. In the interest of staying positive, having confidence in the future and having fun again, I present to you this quote from the famous philosopher, Broadway Joe Namath, former quarterback for the New York Jets.

When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.

Aye Wonder always
And if you’re here, so do you.

How did we do? Positive enough for you?

Possibly Related Posts:

• Time for an AWT Good News Edition
• A New Decade AWT – I Feel Better Already
• AWT is on the Record
• The Decade in Review – The AWT version
• An Old Year’s AWT. The New Decade on its Way.