OK, here’s my blog-version of Andy Rooney. The topic? Things that really bug me lately.

I went to Boomer’s in Fountain Valley last night with Mona and it started out OK. We started off with some sort of racing video game, got in a couple of games of air hockey and then, well, most of the darned games didn’t work. Now, I’ve driven past that joint a thousand times on my way to work, saw the signs for go-karts and miniature golf and thought, “One of these days I have to check that out.” I’m not big on video games so the go-karts are the main draw there, and now that I’m the “homeless golfer,” I have to work on my golf game.

Anyway, I felt myself drifting into George Costanza-mode as I unsuccessfully tried to drop a token in the slots of game after game. Token goes in. No credit. Push on the coin slot to get it back. And when that doesn’t work, pound on it until I rattle it free. Over and over again!

Mona started calling it “Bummers.” Oh well, we had fun anyway and we’ll get back there for the go-karts soon — but this time maybe a little earlier than an hour to closing.

Speaking of bummers, I can’t believe my friend and loyal Pilot reader Ila Johnson dissed me on the comment thread of my analysis piece on President Obama’s visit to Costa Mesa this week. OK, let me rephrase that. I can believe it. She doesn’t pull punches. But it still irked me when she wrote:

“Why Paul, do I detect a Chris Matthews style “thrill” going up your leg?”

Besides the poor grammar, she missed the point. I wasn’t cheerleading for the president. I was just calling it like I see it. Obama wasn’t here for a town hall meeting, it was a rally. Rep. John Campbell made the same point on his blog today. Obama’s trying to do an end-around Congress using his popularity and bully pulpit. UC Irvine professor Mark Petracca backed me on that. But I think what probably raised Ila’s ire was my observation that Obama’s administration will not be a caretaker presidency. That’s not a partisan prediction. And it’s not necessarily praise either. It’s just a fact. There are two kinds of presidencies: The caretaker and the transformational. Another UCI political professor yesterday agreed with me on that. Depending on the times and the situation one or the other is appropriate. For instance, in the ’50s Eisenhower’s largely caretaker administration was perfectly appropriate, which explains the success of his presidency. Abraham Lincoln, of course, was a transformational president, and thank God for that, because it saved the Republic. (Both were Republicans, by the way). I think George W. Bush’s administration was a failure by most standards because he tried to be a transformational president when the caretaker was called for. That left Obama with the country in a crisis, making it necessary for him to be a transformational president. Now, whether he succeeds at it or not will be left to historians, not me. And I’m not making any predictions. I mean, I can’t even get the video games to work at an arcade so…

And, finally, speaking of presidents, I’m going to start laying off the Facebook quizzes. It started out pretty cool. I took a quiz to see what kind of punk rocker I’d be. The answer? Joe Strummer. Cool. Then I took the quiz to see what kind of writer I am. It said, Jack Kerouac. Ouch. I liked “On the Road” OK, but aside from that? Look, he left most of his best work at the bottom of an empty bottle. I mean, doped up as Edgar Allen Poe usually was at least he gave us more than one cool book and “The Raven.” OK, he went all Woody Allen/Jerry Lee Lewis on us with the cousin, but, I digress… (Maybe I ramble more like Kerouac than I’m willing to admit, but at least I’m cool enough to allude to Maud Gonne in a Restaurant Roundup brief…). Then I took the quiz, “What kind of president are you?” And I got Woodrow “freakin'” Wilson. I was mortified. He was a terrible, loathsome creature. He had a debilitating stroke and his wife ran the country while he pretended to be healthy. Yikes! And he was the nemesis of my favorite prez, Teddy Roosevelt. And, oh yeah, he was racist.

So forget about the new Facebook-format controversy, I’m not complaining. I’m giving up the quizzes!

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