The "Next Blog" Blog

It's our anniversary

2010-04-08T03:33:00.002-04:00

So our anniversary is really tomorrow but since we are having 28 people over to celebrate Christ rising from the dead we celebrated last night by going to a hotel and picking up Ashley from the airport this morning! It was fun even though I am still very much in pain and tired (I have a swollen pancreas due to a gall stone going through and can't eat real food yet). We chilled out and watched tv and movies and laughed and remember the last 13 years, married 12, dating a year before. We have grown and it so great that we are able to honest with each other and love being together even when I am a bummer and not feeling well.

So now to the Easter plans. I am so excited although not able to eat much but family, laughter and remember God's greatest gift His son will be awesome. I am so glad my family is whole again and that we have each other!

On a side note, I meet with a surgeon on Monday to see what the next step is, possibly the gall bladder out.

From Random Thoughts of Kindness.

Supermunchee

2010-04-02T08:15:00.003-04:00

Yup! I think I'm back to my good old days...watching korean series again! ha!ha!

Oh My Lady - It stars Chae Rim ( from my fave Dalja's Spring) and Choi Si Won ( a member of the famous korean boy group, Super Junior). I must admit that even if I'm aware of the existence of Super Junior and I've watch my fave Sorry Sorry music video for a zillion times now, I really haven't noticed Choi Si Won until I watched the first episode of Oh My Lady. ha!ha! I guess there are just a lot of guys in the group that I failed to notice him. Anyway, after that, I immediately watched again SJ's music videos just to see Si Won. It's like watching the videos for the first time! ha!ha!

As for the series, the first episode was so interesting and funny that I think I'm gonna get hooked with this one till the end. I'm also actually curious if love with blossom from these two people since Chae Rim plays a 35-year old divorced mother and Si Won plays a twenty-something Korean celebrity.

From Cougar Is In

Relative Esoterica

2010-04-01T00:43:00.002-04:00

From Turpentine and Truth

I was watching Warner Brothers' not insignificantly flawed but immensely atmospheric The Two Mrs. Carrolls.

Sally Carroll (Barbara Stanwyck), having gushed into an upper-floor studio, freezes, instantly sick and horrified at the sight of Geoffrey, her artist spouse (Humphrey Bogart), assiduously and zealously going over a canvas with a turpentine-soaked rag.

Sally: Geoffrey, what are you doing?
Geoffrey: Something I should have done weeks ago – I'm sick of looking at it – it was phony.
Sally: Oh, Sweetheart, you shouldn't have done that – you might not think it's so good, but someone might have bought it.
Geoffrey: Well, I don't care what other people think – it's what I think.
Sally: But you thought it was good once.
Geoffrey: That's why I know I'm slipping.
Sally: You can't always paint masterpieces.
Geoffrey: Well, I can always try.

Barbara ... Babs ... Missy ... Sally – don't get me wrong – my sympathies are with you in the grand scheme of this little Warner Brothers drama. But your crazy, murderous, obnoxious, implacable husband is right, here: If you're an artist – heck, even if you're not an artist, but merely a person of integrity – you can't shove something out, to which you feel no sense of attachment or commitment, on the hope or assumption that no one will recognize its inauthenticity or feel its counterfeitness and that people will clamour to buy it, blinded by its slick, shiny veneer.

Sure, you know they may buy it, purchase it, with money. But ultimately, in another more important sense, they won't buy it – they'll become aware of its absence of credibility. You know that – as an artist, a human being – and you can't be associated with something that is simply "product," statement without substance. Even if you have no pretensions to producing masterpieces, you can't put out intentionally small, modest things – you can't release words – that are just puffs, hollow. You have to omit – or keep the turpentine handy.

Funny that a no-good bum but ego-maniacal character like Geoffrey Carroll could see this much.

Where are we now?

2010-03-25T19:15:00.001-04:00

The Chaplain Candidate Valentine Party

Here's a shot of the Chaplain Candidate Valentine Party. We had to dress like a couple. Ryan really wanted to go as Muhhamed but I told him he could only go with his one wife, not five. SO, we went as Abraham and Sarah--because I feel like I'm having twins!

From Where are we now?

All is temporary

2010-03-25T04:48:00.001-04:00

It’s where they create the ghosts

"You think I'm crazy? And if I say I'm not crazy, that hardly helps does it? That's the genius of it. People tell the world you're crazy. And all your protest to the contrary just confirms what they're saying."
"I'm not following you, I'm sorry."
"Once you are called insane, then anything you do is just a part of your insanity. Reasonable protest, or denial. Fears. Paranoia."
"Survival instincts are defense mechanisms."

"Do you know how pain enters the body, Marshall? Do you?"
"It depends on where you hurt."
"No. It has nothing to do with flesh. The brain controls pain. The brain controls fear, empathy, sleep, hunger, anger, everything. What if you could control it?.. Recreate a man so he doesn't feel pain, or love, or sympathy. A man who can't be interrogated because he has no memories to confess."
"You can never take away all of a mans memories. Never."

"Let me ask you, any past traumas in your life?"
"Yes. Why? Why would that matter?"
"Because it's your reason you lost your path. Your reason for your insanity. So when they commit you here, your friends and colleagues will say of course he cracked. Who wouldn't have?"
"They can say that about anyone. Anyone at all."
"The point is, they're going to say it about you."

"I can get you off this island."
"Haven't you heard anything I said? You'll never leave here."
"I have a friend, I was with him yesterday but we got separated, have you seen him?"
"Marshall, you have no friends."

Read more at All Is Temporary

Morning foal

2010-03-22T01:03:00.002-04:00

From The Crazy Rancher’s Wife.

The Torgersens

2010-03-21T00:20:00.002-04:00

From The Months in the Life of a Blog Slacker.

Pauliemac’s World

2010-03-14T18:43:00.003-04:00

Passages of Time

My son's birthday was yesterday. He turned 12 years old. I have not seen him the past 11 years. The decision I made then was the right one for then, but it is not the right one for now. Yet I have to live with the consequences of the decision made then as the hurdles I have given to be a part of his life now are just too great for me to overcome. I hope his birthday was a joyous one and if he spent even one second wondering where his father is, I want him to know I am here and did think of him, as I do each and every day of our lives. Some may think it is impossible to miss a child you have not seen for 11 years, who was only slightly over a year old the last time you saw them, but it is possible. And very painful. One more burden to carry, one more desire left unfulfilled.

Via

Walking backwards in Taiwan

2010-03-12T23:53:00.002-05:00

Random of the Day: Friday after school I was taking my stuff upstairs when I looked down on the road and there was this guy walking backwards with his shoes in his hand, slapping his legs as he walked. I wonder what his reasoning behind doing it was...there are just somethings that people do here I don't understand!

From Life With a Twist of Beth.

Other people's junk

2010-03-06T09:58:00.002-05:00

Writer/comic John Knefel considers some other potential FOXNews poll questions here.

Fair warning

2009-12-06T20:45:00.002-05:00

Cake Wrecks

2009-08-05T21:45:00.002-04:00

When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.

Sample more Cake Wrecks here.

Yo

2009-08-01T12:28:00.001-04:00

(Via)

Truly brilliant casting

2009-06-22T05:28:00.001-04:00

From Funatico comes some truly brilliant casting for a (hypothetical) live-action Simpsons movie. My two favorites are Willem Dafoe as Mr. Burns and Stephen Colbert as Weyland Smithers. Definitely check out Ewan McGregor as Bart, Dustin Hoffman as Milhous, and Steve Buscemi as Moe Syzlak.

Dialing for Jesus

2009-06-07T18:02:00.003-04:00

Via

How we say hello

2009-06-05T00:41:00.002-04:00

Famapa lives in London, England, and Sandra in Gothenburg, Sweden. Each week one chooses a theme for their pictures -- with surprising outcomes.

Click image to enlarge.

Stop by and say hello to How We Say Hello.

Life Lesson No. 3

2009-05-30T21:34:00.002-04:00

Via the whimsically fractured Jon Lajoie.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

2009-04-24T05:36:00.003-04:00

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance -- Now With Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!

By Seth Grahame Smith and Jane Austen

Book Description

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

[Yes, it is a real book. It even has more than 50 customer reviews on Amazon.]

Fail faster. Succeed sooner.

2009-04-19T22:32:00.002-04:00

From Fail faster. Succeed sooner. [Hungary]

Scene at Trader Joe's

2009-04-12T23:45:00.001-04:00

From Excuse the Mess, That Was Just My Head

Me, in pipe line (12 items or less line), with 1 (one) can of soup in my hand.
2 people in front of me. Each with about 5 or 6 items in their baskets.

Me: (thinking own thoughts)

Woman in line behind me: (tapping shoulder) Excuse me? I'm talking to you. Can i get ahead of you? I'm in a hurry. (I look at her cart, she's got about 18 items).

Me: I've got one can of soup. This is the express lane.

Woman behind me: I'm in a hurry.

Me: ::blank stare::

Man behind her: Are you kidding?

Man in front of me: Wait, that's all you have? Go ahead of me.

Woman behind me: So I can't go before you? ::Grabs cart and gets out of line. Hitting me in the hip as she huffs off.::

Me, to man in front of me: Thank you, you're very kind.

Man in front: oh, hey no problem.

(Smiles are exchanged.)
I check out.
Cranky woman has also finished checking out and is walking out at the same time I am.
I'm ignoring her.

Her: (hissed through teeth) Bitch.

Public Domain Theater

2009-04-05T04:08:00.001-04:00

Today’s feature, The Relaxed Wife (1957), is a surrealistic public service presentation via Roerig and Pfizer. Just think of Mr. Bean, freaked by his Dali-esque living conditions, discovering that he can achieve ataraxia by taking a substance that looks suspiciously like crystal meth but is really a tranquilizer. Oh, and wifey gets hooked first.

Of all the states throughout this nation,
the happiest by far
is the state of relaxation.

They’ll be fewer breakdowns and insomniacs
when more of us
have learned to be relaxed.

Remember: If you have tension problems, discuss them with your doctor.

At the conclusion of tonight's feature presentation, please exit the theater using the rear exit doors, depositing all trash in the receptacles located next to each exit door and in the main lobby. Thank you!

Cross-posted at Scriptoids.

Revenge of the GRE

2009-04-04T05:43:00.002-04:00

[NOTE: The Graduate Record Exam is the hellish rite of passage for college students who, facing the prospect of actually leaving their dorm rooms, decide they’d like to spend another 4, 5, or 6 years in campus housing.]

I used to think I was a pretty smart guy. Then I took the GRE.

Ever since that heinous experience eight years ago, I've always gone out of my way to counsel any friend of mine who is getting ready to take the test:

"Keep in mind, it's a test to get you into grad school. It's not like the ACT or the SAT," I'd say.

"It's designed to take top-tier students and spread them out on a measurable spectrum," I'd say.

“Don't worry, it's supposed to be a ruthless, masochistic assault on your sense of self-worth as an intelligent human being that will kick you to the academic curb thinking your only sensible career option is to be first assistant to the guy scraping congealed grease off the floor at Denny's," I'd say.

I never got an exact count, but I felt like I got about 20% of the questions right on that stupid test….

Two weeks ago I took the GRE again.

Read the rest of the story at Wounded Mosquito.

Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century

2009-04-03T03:51:00.002-04:00

For an extraordinary collection of era-specific mustaches and invaluable resource links to mustachiana, there’s no better blog than Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century.

From the opening page…

Dear Gentle Reader,

Many of the following pages have graphic and clear images of the masculine mustache in all its forms, both sublime and grotesque. My intent is not to shock or titillate, but merely to inform on the subject. The Nineteenth Century gave us many things, but above all it was a hotbed of facial hair experimentation and this is but a poor sampling of those many lost forms.

This is SPARTA!

2009-03-26T01:50:00.002-04:00

Bragster is Jackass meets Facebook. Yeah, just think about that. People who have taken on the This Is Sparta dare have uploaded their acts of courage. Go visit.

Munch-kin

2009-03-25T02:12:00.002-04:00

From Ms Julie’s Art School.

If I didn't...

2009-03-22T03:32:00.002-04:00

From the delightful Miss Head

If I didn't…

_work as your lab partner in Chemistry
_go on a family vacation with you
_get stuck in a carpool with you
_share a hotel room with you and four others on Spring Break
_drive with you and your sister to Florida
_live on your dorm floor
_drink all your beer on successive weekends
_make you jello for your birthday
_go through a haunted house with you
_bitch about work with you over beer
_try to horn in on your torts study group
_make out with you during a drunken brawl and then pretend it never happened
_spend an entire Saturday with you in another state then never see you again
_go to your wedding because I'm friends with your mom
_act as your bridesmaid
_borrow your car to go buy beer
_paint your living room
_ask you to help me move
_work in student government with you
_have you as my human sexuality TA
_go to your house for Thanksgiving
_ride on the bus with you for junior high
_steal your Legos
_shower in your outdoor shower in an effort to reduce the hangover
_go to breakfast with you after a great party
_share an apartment with you
_know your "french" name from high school
_hang out with you at a Halloween party
_go to the Knight's Inn with you and another 20 people after prom
_drink your wine and eat your snacks
_watch "Lost" with you
_play golf with you
_go to camp with you

If I didn't do any of those things? I'm ignoring your friend request on Facebook.

Go visit Miss Head here. She’ll be waiting.

On her 50th birthday, Barbie looks into a mirror under some really bad fluorescent lighting

2009-03-16T00:51:00.003-04:00

Image title: Barbie has grown old
By: imaniceguy
See the website for additional copyrighted images.

[h/t Every Photo Tells a Story]

The mysterious young girl in the big plaid jacket

2009-03-16T00:33:00.003-04:00

From Osare [Japan].

The Way It's Done

2009-02-17T23:35:00.002-05:00

From Kenmeer Livermaile at Nine Billion Names and Counting. Go visit!

Cats: Succulent and delicious

2009-02-15T01:50:00.001-05:00

I had just pulled several all nighters, and was finally flying home. On my flight, a kindly old lady sat next to me. We chatted pleasantly before the plane took off, and afterwards I hinted that I wished to get some sleep.

The nice old lady must have not gotten my message.

“Do you like cats?” She asked me, pulling out a photo album.

“Why yes, I love cats,” I replied politely.

Delighted, she began to point out her favorite pictures of her cats.

“Wow,” I exclaimed. “My mother would love that cat,” I pointed.

“Really, you think so?” She replied, eyes wide with happiness.

“Yes, she’s always mentioned how hard it is to find a coat of that color,” I replied, innocently. “The cats I usually deal with don’t have such a nice sheen to their fur, since it supposedly subtracts from the taste,” I continued gamely.

Her mouth widened in shock.

“Oh, dear God,” she muttered.

I nodded, and assumed that her dismay was at the injustice of cats not being able to provide both a delicate taste as well as a lush coat.

“Most of the time, people just throw away the body of such a beautiful cat after they take its coat.” I tapped the photo, shook my head sadly and sighed. “So wasteful,” I stated.

“I, on the other hand, believe that a beautiful animal must be succulent as well no matter what the ‘experts’ say. It’s all about the preparation. You can’t prepare a dish from a beautiful animal the same way you prepare a dish from a common food cat. It requires proper seasoning and extra caution,” I told her.

“Truth be told though, sometimes I’ve found that a little hot sauce brings out the taste perfectly,” I confided in her and winked.

The kind woman’s face steadily changed from apprehension to dismay to pure horror. She stiffened.

“I believe I’ll read my book now if it’s all right with you,” she murmured weakly and turned away.

I let a look of dismay cross my face. I had hoped to exchange recipes with her.

I woke up at the end of my flight feeling refreshed and content. I got off the plane with a smile and was happy to be home.

By the sagacious Artificial Wisdom at Infinited. Go stop by for a visit!

Sunday funnies

2009-02-08T01:56:00.002-05:00

Tired of contemplating what taking up residence in a giant cardboard box positioned over a steam grate will be like? Then head on over to Joey DeVilla‘s The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century and smile again. This week’s treats include:

A Teddy Bear for Your Hipster Lifestyle

The Sad Man’s Kama Sutra

1960’s Style Covers for Movie Novelizations, featuring artwork created by Spacesick

This is how Spacesick envisions Willy Wonka as a Japanese novelization, Wonka-san! Just Punisher of Coddled Children.

Cross-posted at Scriptoids.

The coolest guy in the world

2009-02-02T20:48:00.002-05:00

Sure, it's easy to look at this still from Executive Decision (one of my guiltiest and most pleasurable "guilty pleasure" movies) and just see a knuckleheaded extra, or a film flub... but when I look at it?

I see the Most Together Dude in Film History.

Think of it: the plane has been hijacked by crazed terrorists with machine guns and bioweapons. They're executing folks right and left.

But this guy? He's still enjoying the in-flight entertainment.

You, sir, are The Man.

Definitely go visit Michael Markowitz over at Should've Asked Me.

Alien Billboard

2009-01-23T12:55:00.003-05:00

Click here for more clever and creative billboard advertising.

The Blank Page

2009-01-07T21:38:00.001-05:00

I love paper. Not just any paper, mind you. There's a certain allure to blank parchment, waiting to be filled. Whenever I go to Barnes & Noble or Borders, I can't help but go straight to the section filled with journals and address books. The journals beckon to me, inviting me to fill their starchy-white pages with words. I browse the leather-bound parchments with visions of what would fill the books. Short stories in a thin volume bound in green leather adorned with Celtic knot work. Spiritual poetry in a thick, bright red tome embossed with a heart aflame. Daily entries into the plain and flat leather-back, it's surface rugged with the tanning process.

I can see them all in my mind's eye, filled and proud, while sitting on my bookshelf. They would gather the proper amount of dust, of course; enough dust would add to the maturity of the book's character, mellowing its look, its feel and its smell.

The reams of blank paper seem to scream for somebody to fill them, and the ironic thing is that I know I never can. Yes, I am a writer….

Continue reading “The Blank Page" at Lord Jones Is Dead.

Shocks to the system

2008-12-25T19:08:00.001-05:00

From Bre Pettis comes this intriguing series of illustrations designed to provide clear and concise DIY instructions for getting juiced up. The original illustrations appeared in Electroschutz in 132 Bildern, which presumably was meant to instruct, not terrify, a non-electro-savvy populace on how to survive its daily encounters with newfangled technology. But Mein Gott, it clearly details 132 different ways to kill yourself, kill your spouse, kill your children (or less incriminating, let your children kill themselves), scorch your tenement, and burn your morning toast.

Hat tip to Accordion Guy.
Cross-posted at Scriptoids.

The Quinn Account

2008-11-08T04:32:00.001-05:00

This is Quinn. Though young, he’s quite the traveller. He’s traveled all around America. He‘s been to Paris, strolled through Turkish bazaars, and roamed through Bratislava and Tbilisi. He’s also cut a dashing figure in his Euro-sleek formal dinner wear. You can follow Quinn’s illustrated adventures here at The Quinn Account.

El día de los muertos

2008-11-01T00:34:00.002-04:00

By artist John Rozum.

Eight things about Canada

2008-10-28T17:39:00.002-04:00

So 1 year in Canada! What have I learned so far?

o Lay's Ketchup Chips are unbelievably scrumptious

o Kentucky Friend Chicken in Canada is poisonous and a form of radioactive waste

o Poutine is evil and must be stopped

o "Soda" is NOT the term to use if you want a coke/pepsi

o Hockey is life, love and happiness

o Tim Hortons...nuff said.

o Contrary to what Michael Moore believes, Canadians do lock their doors.

o "Z" is pronounced zed, not zee

Read the entire post over at I Question My Commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Don't do Sarah Palin on Halloween

2008-10-25T23:34:00.006-04:00

From Joey DeVilla’s The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

may i mention

2008-10-17T19:49:00.002-04:00

may i mention,
that i am always lost.

i forget how big this city is sometimes.
i walk everywhere, but seem to be close to nothing.
[which is an extreme over-exaggeration, i know]

Also, may i mention,
that i love teleporting
it seems as if you are teleporting at least.
you go underground and come up and you are in a fantastic new place.
like, China[town] or [little] Italy or school zone, or wonderful park.
i have to especially mention Greenwich Village. absolutely wonderful vibes and lovely [envied] eclectic people.

also, may i mention,
i love pinkberry.
the healthy alternative to ice cream.
covered in fabulous fruit.

ohh thank you ones more creative than i.

From the endearing Emily over at Tidbits of Emily.

First trip to traffic court

2008-10-11T02:25:00.004-04:00

Photo via.

In the Beginning

2008-10-04T18:50:00.002-04:00

From Ornery Bastard: Don’t Buy Cheap Tools, That’s How Ya Get Yer Knucles Busted.

There is only darkness, absolute and all encompassing.
No reference point, no thought,no awareness, only the blackness of infinite space.
Then a tiny spark of consciousness flares in the massive void,impossibly tiny and far away.
The spark grows rapidly into a small point of light,there is warmth in the blackness.

Then it begins.
The process.

NO!

I want to go back to the darkness, I do not want the process to start, I am happy here.
Alas, the process will not be ignored,one by one they start coming online in the back of my consciousness.
First it is the ache in the upper back,my body trying to stretch while I slept to alleviate the ache is what caused me to come awake at such a slow rate that all of my all day, every day aches and pains started registering with my mind individually like someone walking through a giant building complex, turning on the lights in each room as they pass.

First it is the upper back and neck, stiff and sore from laying on the concrete floor under a truck, straining and stretching into unnatural positions trying to get bolts started in the bell housing of a transmission yesterday.

This morning the legacy of landing headfirst with my arms stretched out in front of me, flying through the air at forty five miles an hour and slamming headfirst into the pavement after high siding my motorcycle in a curve twenty some years ago comes rushing to the fore.
My mind revolts and I roll onto my side determined to seek out the bliss of unconsciousness.

Then the next one lights up like a neon sign in the recesses of my cave.

The BIG one.

My lower back.
The big red flashing light that is forever and ever destined to be lit up in my pain center.

After blowing out the bottom disc in my spine twenty eight years ago trying to move a four inch gas line with one inch thick walls that was twenty feet long and living in excrutiating pain for five years and fifteen doctors, thrice weekly chiropractic visits and every test modern medicine could possibly devise, They finally knocked me out and rolled me on my belly and opened me up.
The doctor spread my back open, scraped out the entire disk at L7, part of the disc at L6 and then proceeded to saw a two inch chunk of bone out of my pelvic bone, break it into little pieces and then stack those pieces around the vertebrae so they could slowly grow back together like a broken arm mending and then sewed me up after five hours .
It never grew back together like it should because I was young and very active and couldn't stand laying around for two years waiting for it to fuse together.
I have lived in constant misery since that day.

This is only one of the bright lights now starting to register on the pain board in my mind.
As I lay there, barely aware of where I am, the process continues, next is the left wrist, also broken while landing on my head in that one wreck, one of well over fifty car and motorcycle wrecks I put myself through in my younger years when the Death Wish was upon me.
I had no fear.
Then I broke it again, two years later in the same exact spot.

Next to come rushing to my dulled senses is my left ankle, twisted so badly so many times from skateboarding as a teenager, that doctor told me that I had permanently re arranged the bones in that foot.
It aches and it pops when I walk.That one is my personal barometer, I can always feel nasty weather coming when that starts throbbing.

Suddenly another old wound sputters for my attention, the big toe on my right foot.
I hate to even tell this one on myself.
My last year of a very troubled existence in my learning avoidance program.
I am in the locker room at the gym, all alone, stoned out of my gourd as usual.
I am just finished getting dressed and heading for the door.
The door is open and has the divider in front of it so people can't see in as they walk by.
I get about fifteen feet from it and a small orange ball comes rolling straight at me from under the divider.
Instinct says to kick the ball so I take two long steps and swing my leg back and lay a kick to send that small, orange ball into orbit.
Imagine my surprise when not only does that ball NOT go anywhere, it just stops as the bones in my big toe and the one next to it explode inside my shoe!
It was an indoor shot put.

Oh MY GOD was that painful.
That took weeks to heal, my big toe healed crooked and twisted and the best part was that the school I was going to had three main buildings, all going up the side of a hill.
I can vividly remember going up and down one set of stairs that had one hundred and twenty five steps in it, several times each day, on crutches!

Next comes the right knee, I have had Bursitis in it for years now, the slow throb matches my beating hearts pace perfectly.

Oh, the right shoulder lights off like a rocket. I separated that one when I was six and then again when I landed on my head and broke the other wrist.
Yes, there for a while I had a cast on one and the other in a sling, my father replied to the doctors response that he was afraid I might get constipated by taking pain medicines that that would probably actually be a good thing seeings how I currently couldn't wipe my ass with either hand!

The next old reminder is my right hip, I think that one is degenerating because I carry all of my weight on it, favoring it because of my back pain.
The joys of aging.
By now I am almost completely awake but my thoughts are fuzzy because I am slightly hung over.

I roll over again and my neck cracks.
I finally am awake enough to realize I have to get vertical and get to the bathroom. More popping and snapping, it sounds like I am stepping on dry sticks as I shuffle the two freaking steps into the bathroom.

Stepping back in and laying back down the cacophony of my ailments settle into their usual daily routine and they shuffle off, one by one, into my subconsciounce again as my mind starts taking up its task at hand, where are my cigarettes?

When I was a child my dear departed and much loved Grandmother used to occasionally make this statement to me,one at the time I could not grasp the meaning of, "Son, if I knew how much it hurts to get old, Ida never done it."

I certainly know what she was talking about now.

Welcome to my world.

Go visit the Ornery Bastard.

Disposable Man

2008-10-01T23:57:00.002-04:00

Photo via OSARE.

Imagitoons

2008-09-17T20:59:00.002-04:00

Each man makes his own shipwreck

To see more whimsical artwork, go visit Imagitoons.

It’s both a curse. And a curse.

2008-09-12T00:07:00.000-04:00

Being a good listener is like the being the guy selling umbrellas on the corner when it starts to rain. The lady selling flowers when you're late for an anniversary dinner. The vendor selling fire extinguishers when your underwear bursts into flames.

Most days, I’ve got mad listening skills. Maybe to a fault.

Last night, as “Dateline” played a 911 call from a frantic husband about his murdered wife, I immediately thought: I don’t believe him.

At a wedding reception a couple weeks ago, my friend, the groom, put his arm around his new wife and stated “I’m the luckiest guy on the planet”. I wasn’t buying it.

By religiously attending acting classes and workshops six days a week, I’ve watched hundreds of actors perform thousands of scenes. And I watch for real moments, when actors can convince me they’re really feeling what their characters are going through. The result has turned my ear into a true meter of crap. I cannot be lied to.

Come to think of it, if I wasn’t using my acting skills to get out of hellish events like jury duty, I’d be a prosecutor’s dream. Sorry, justice.

From Inside the Actor’s Studio Apartment.

Buddha of the Weed Patch

2008-09-03T17:27:00.002-04:00

I set the Buddha down among the weeds
(A generic Buddha from Lowe's Builders' Supply),
Thinking he might prove an anodyne
To the pain of tearing away, of separation.

O, durable hard plastic Buddha
Sitting among the creepers and the crabgrass,
Your awareness centered and focussed
On your durable hard plastic awareness,

Plastic Buddha, you cannot not help me.
I'm haunted by ghosts of a quarter-century,
Pursued by lost love's numb demons;
The Buddha watches with sightless eyes.

Oh, Rose, you have left me anchorless
With hot tears in my face.
I must go, I must leave, away from here;
I will turn my back on this place.

From Catboxx.

One letter off

2008-09-03T03:17:00.002-04:00

Two selections from Something Awful’s wicked Photoshop Phriday game, One Letter Off. Collection One is here. Collection Two is here.

Parody TV Listings

2008-08-30T01:53:00.001-04:00

Vance Ennui (8 p.m., Cartoon Network) As Vance recounts his origins for his therapist, a flashback shows the Underwhelmed Ubermensch being selected by an advanced alien race to defend the universe. The never-told-before tale takes an unexpected turn, however, when Vance reveals that his powers change day-by-day based on the deliberations of a council of super-beings made up of Moses, Buddha, Sherlock Holmes, dread Cthulhu, Michael Corleone, Shiva, Ronald Reagan, PicassoHulk, Miles Davis, and Mrs. Butterworth.

Tyler Perry's The Yodas (7 p.m., Sci Fi) It's get-rich-scheme time again when wacky neighbor Obi-Wan Norton enters Yoda in the swamp planet's annual "Make Me Laugh" contest. The Jedi Master manages to remain straight-faced despite the antics of the galaxy's funniest beings, and it looks like first prize is his--until he learns he must face actor Gabriel Byrne (as himself) in the final. Sample dialogue: "The Force is my ally, but against a melancholy Irishman, powerless it is."

Tyler Perry's The Yodas (7:30 p.m., Sci Fi) The Jedi Master is astonished to find out his voice sounds like that of the lead singer from Canned Heat. Parental advisory (stale pop culture references).

Rod Serling's Cliché Theater (8 p.m., A&E) In tonight's chilling episode, a mortgage broker with a split-level turkey on his hands meets a mysterious figure willing to purchase the place for its 2006 price, if the broker will substitute for him at work for one day. Horror ensues when the broker shows up for the job and realizes the sucker was ... the Grim Reaper!

Gnome Chomsky (8:30 p.m., PBS) The diminutive anarcho-syndicalist suspects a conspiracy when his alternative energy breakthrough--a car powered by custard--vanishes the same day he starts receiving pies from a mysterious admirer.

From 45s and Under. Go visit!

Revival and Rockets

2008-08-29T00:31:00.000-04:00

"Though the Lord is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar." Psalm 138:6 NIV

I'm not exactly sure what to say...but I know that it has been a great week. I have felt God's presence and have drawn closer to him these past few days. They call it revival and I suppose that's been a fitting term for what has happened here on campus. God is cleansing and renewing hearts. He is accepting the sacrifice of self. He is pouring out his love, mercy and grace on those who seek Him. He is getting closer to those who are getting closer to Him.

My confession is that I have not guarded my lips, nor shown God's love to others, nor kept myself unpolluted from the world. However, I've given God all of me. And really, that's all He wants. I'm committed to purity. I'm committed to Christ. I'm committed to self-insufficiency - a total dependence on God. I was struck tonight by this verse in Psalm 138. That even though God is high, majestic and Lord of the universe, he pays attention to the humble...but, the proud he knows from a distance. It was an interesting discovery and one that I know well: pride will distance us from our heavenly Father. My heart's whisper is: I just want to know God more.

The first week of classes has begun and the fuel to the rocket engines has been engaged. As the semester begins, combustion kicks in and the smoke begins to billow. Soon...we will have lift off. I have gone running and plan to go in the morning as well. I've also lifted weights to keep up with my brothers at home. *chuckles* The syllabi have been passed out. The reading of books has begun. Here we go.

And I'm going home for the weekend.

From All These Thoughts in My Head.

Three Mens

2008-08-28T00:21:00.001-04:00

Photo from Hidashin Proving Grounds.

A Moment With a Boy

2008-08-19T02:15:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning Ducky took the boys to Home Depot. We needed some lava rock for a dry well Ducky had dug in the backyard for our ongoing drainage issues. SweetE will periodically begin telling a story. They go something like this. (Not one of his real stories, but a close approximation)

"Last year when I was a baby I had a bike and it was blue and I rode it all the time and it went really fastly so that I had to drag my feet to stop and then I got in trouble for going in the street because cars go out there and that's not safe and and and I could get a boo boo and then I would need a boo boo strip and I would want the camo ones cause they are really cool, really cool but they get wet when I wash my hands and then I don't like them I really like the inbisible ones cause they don't get wet, do I have a inbisible one on now, cause I have a boo boo right here see see and that's weird, weird, weird are we going to ride the tractors, last year sweetP was watching Drake and Josh and they don't make good decisions and that's not nice and I found a penny and put it in my pocket, did you put it in my wallet, can I have a tookie the chocolate kind...

Notice the lack of periods in those sentences. He will go on and on like this speaking like hummingbird wings flap. Just a stream of not quite 4 year old consciousness. So as he is giving one of his rapid fire stories a man walks up to Ducky and says..

(like he is hyperventilating) "I feel like I need to breathe for him."

And you do and it makes you all tense because he doesn't stop and breathe or let you process any of what he is saying or breathe. I think it is hilarious that someone else noticed and had to comment.

From The Misadventures of Adulthood.

Kyle's Summer Trip

2008-08-15T03:50:00.002-04:00

I am always fascinated with people’s vacation and travel accounts on their blogs, especially the photos they post.
In this Japanese-language blog, Kyle chronicles his US tour with some of his friends. There are some charming photos of NYC, Boston (Kyle even includes a photo of his mass transit card), and Salem (or “Witch Town!” as Kyle calls it). But I especially like whimsical travel photos like this one -- a restaurant bill and its payment.

The Spinster and the Funeral Parlor

2008-08-14T04:37:00.001-04:00

Excerpted from I Blame the Patriarchy.

Mere words cannot describe the surreality precipitated by an errand like this; a week ago the old man and I had been shooting the shit about this and that, and now Tidy and I were wheeling up to the parlor in his car, which he would never drive again, to take possession of his incinerated corpse. Whoa. Heavy, right?

Well, be she spinster aunt or no, I dare anybody to keep a straight face who darkens the stoop of the Sparkman/Hillcrest Funeral Home, Mausoleum, and Memorial Park. You wouldn’t believe this joint. It was like the set designers from Twin Peaks and Napoleon Dynamite had fused with Elvis Presley’s interior decorator and been reborn as Liberace’s angst-ridden evil twin, who then suffered a psychotic break, and bought up the world’s supply of harvest gold flocked wallpaper, brass upholstery tacks, and fake oak paneling….

Go read the whole thing now -- before life passes you by.

Halcyon Days

2007-06-22T22:02:00.000-04:00

What Lies Beneath

I once had an anthropology teacher who told me that entire cultures can be insane. Today I am convinced he is correct though at the time I had a difficult time believing him. When I look around me and look at this country I see that the majority of people are completely insane. Western culture has always been insane. Just ask yourself what is the history of Europe and the U.S.? The answer is war. It is a long, long history of violence and greed.

This country does not need another Truman; it needs a complete rebuild from the bottom up and not just the government but the entire concept of our culture. America is nothing but an extension of the horrific violence of Europe and western civilization. And where does it end? Probably never because it is our culture that makes us what we are and culture is a powerful force that is well nigh impossible to rise above. All the insanities that we are we pass on to our children who grow up to be just like us continuing the same world views and values that make up western culture.

Our system of government is completely corrupted and broken and so you have to ask the obvious question what will fix it? The answer is obvious, when things degenerate to the point where life becomes unbearable with starvation, rampant crime, and abject poverty people will rise up to reform our government but not our culture, never our culture because it pervades our very thoughts, views and beliefs in such a profound manner that we are hardly ever even aware of it. But it is there all the same, an undercurrent of thought that is cast in iron and imprisons our reason relegating our future to what it is today, no future at all.

Visit Halcyon Days.

The Concept of Irony

2007-06-19T01:19:00.000-04:00

Despite My Best Efforts I Am Unable to Fit in Amongst the Neanderthals of the Fifth Quadrant.

The fact is that a combination of weak upper body strength, debilitating allergies, fibromyalgia and a certain impatience at any task which doesn't have a chance of granting me a kind of immortality, makes mowing the lawn a very difficult task for me.

In and of itself this is no problem. I know my weaknesses. I also know the many, many things that make me awesome.

But having neighbors and random hoodlums comment on my unusual mowing patterns is becoming unbearable.

It started several weeks ago, six a.m. on garbage day. I was taking out my garbage,before even having my first coffee when this beast says, You Sure Lack Your Parent's Steady Hand at Mowing a Lawn.

Today, during my sub-par attempt,a man with a poodle says, You Sure Don't Make That Look Easy.

To which I ran over his poodle with my lawnmower.

(The poodle, to make matters worse for me, was totally unharmed.)

So now, my quadrant has forced me into a corner. I'm looking into hiring or buying a goat to trim my yard.

But my sister says that is silly, I should get a llama.

I am tempted to resolve the matter by calling my old landlord. He never did anything while I was paying rent. Now that all of the contractual pressures are off, perhaps his latent genius for solving problems with spring forth.

Be sure to visit The Concept of Irony.

IKEA Brangelina

2007-05-11T20:58:00.000-04:00

Photo via Les Vulgaire: C'est plutôt ça la vie! [Canada]

This is the end, Elmo my friend

2007-04-29T09:47:00.000-04:00

If there are any children in the room quickly bring the wee fuckers over and show them the picture, see what happens when Sesame Street tries to promote healthy food? it kills you. For years Cookie Monster was content with his moment on the lips and a lifetime on his hips, he was happy. Now they take away the cookie and say "here Cookie Monster have a nice healthy piece of broccoli" cruel and unusual treatment for a long time employee, now the Cookie Monster has an identity crisis and is on anti- depressants, the poor bastard.

Elmo was always the yes man, that's how he became the star. If life was fair the 7 foot retarded 50 year old yellow bird should be the star, he was there from the beginning. I guess Hollywood wasn't ready to break the bird mong barrier, I like my mongs like Forest Gump, you know a heart of gold that won't lick yer face and that you can still take the piss out of, I call them 'mong lite'.

I've always wanted to find a dead body, preferably an attractive woman but so far that hasn't happened.
While out yesterday with my grandson Gavin we saw the lifeless body of Elmo on some waste ground, we think his heart gave out, must of been all that healthy eating. I heard the guy that invented the power bar, a real fitness freak dropped dead of a heart attack while standing in a bank queue.

Let this be a warning to anyone that jogs or eats things like salad and drinks water, do you know what fish do in water? well at least the children are safe from 'Tickle me Elmo' which sounds like a Pedo chat up line.

Visit Old Bitter Balls

NOTE: Not workplace safe.

Running for Drugs

2006-03-31T12:50:00.000-05:00

Four Hours of Sleep, Booze, and a Dream

That's what I was running on this weekend.

I was going to run some errands after work tonight but I am so fucking tired I can hardly believe it. Both Friday and Saturday nights I stayed up and out past 4 and then got up around 8:30 and then I went out on Sunday night and now I just want to crawl up in a little ball under my desk and sleep. That was a long and awful sentence.

I was at this insane party one of my coworkers threw on Saturday that had the theme of balls. There was a mini ball pit, all the food was in the form of balls, and the hostess wore a ball-gown. You can imagine all the awful, awful ball jokes that were made. "I need to stop stuffing these balls in my mouth." I didn't really talk to anyone but other fellow coworkers because I am not friendly. Although I did hear about and stare at this one guy who had long hair and a bald spot who called himself "Crazy White Motherfucker" and he had business cards with this printed on them. I know at this point you think I am making things up but I promise you, I am not. Later in the night the Crazy White Motherfucker passed out in the mini ball pit. It was beautiful.

In news of the bizarre, I ended up spending the night on my coworker John's couch in Williamsburg Saturday night. I'm not going to say it was normal, but I'm also not going to say it was the weirdest event of my weekend.

This morning I had a much more awesome celebrity sighting than Famke. Walking across Varick on King, coming directly at me at 8:45 on this blustery morning, were Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson. It was really hard not to stare at them because he's really tall and she's really beautiful, but most importantly she was holding her small child with a blanket rapped around both of them. That looked really odd. If it had been anyone else walking around downtown with their child and self wrapped in a giant blanket I would have totally gawked and stared. But because they were famous I tried not to look. Does that make sense?

Shit. I really need to go to sleep.

Visit "Running for Drugs"

Diario del Capitano

2006-03-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

Ci sono anche altre cose da non dimenticare…

From Diario del Capitano [Italy]

Khidot

2006-03-12T00:44:00.000-05:00

Visit Khidot to see the whole series of intriguing barcode designs.

Essays, Notes, School Work

2006-03-12T00:41:00.000-05:00

This blog contains a bunch of school crap that I wrote. It has cluttered my Network Attached Storage space, so I might as well share it with other scholars and put it to good use. Don't use it for profit, but you can use it, hand it in to the teacher whatever. I'm not saying they're grade A papers, use/read with your own discretion.

Catcher and the Rye CH 24, 25, 26
Chapter 24

In this chapter Holden meets up with his old teacher Mr. Antolini. I find it weird how he refers to him consistently as “Mr. Antolini” as opposed to Mr. Spencer as “old Spencer” or “Spencer”. When Holden was near Carl Luce, he was very homophobic. When Holden wakes up to find Mr. Antolini stroking his head, he freaks out. Although, whether or not Mr. Antolini made a sexual advance on Holden is a moot point.

Chapter 25

In this chapter Holden's nervous breakdown has peaked. Holden is completely surrounded by phoniness and ugliness at the Grand Central Station. His interactions with Phoebe and Mr. Antolini have made him feel lonely and alienated. Mr. Antolini was correct earlier, Holden has lost a connection with the environment. As a result, Holden makes his own reasonable decision he can think of, he runs away.

Chapter 26

Holden refuses to talk more about his story and wishes he hadn't told so many people about his story, for now he is unable to express his feelings. The story ends when he goes home. He is then sent to a recovery home to recover from his breakdown. He's now in psychotherapy, and he will be attending a new school in the fall.

From Essays, Notes, School Work

The Wilson Family Vacation

2006-03-11T19:13:00.000-05:00

With the Devil in Grand Cayman

Be sure to check out the great photos over at The Wilson Family Vacation

Musings and Rantings of a Blue State Non Bio Mom

2006-03-07T18:31:00.000-05:00

Take A Walk on the Dark Side

This just in from Media Matters (a great website about truth in media):

Fox at the Oscars: Homosexuality among the "darker themes this year"

While introducing a segment on the 78th Annual Academy Awards on the March 5 edition of Fox News' Fox News Live, anchor Gregg Jarrett noted that the films nominated in the Best Picture category dealt with themes such as "homosexuality; homicide bombings; political assassinations," and that Hollywood was "going with a lot of darker themes this year." As Jarrett spoke, onscreen text read: "Hollywood walks on the darker side." (On principle, I won't link to Fox---but you can find it for yourself if you feel like it!)

ANYHOW....

It comforts me no end to know that cuddling with my lover and admitting that we are a couple is right up there with lobbing IEDs, shooting vice presidents (oops: did I mean being SHOT by vice presidents? Well, either way...), and the like. Phew. I was beginning to feel like my love life was being normalized or something.

Happy post Oscars!

And Non Bio Mom has this to say about New Jersey (hey, no hard feelings)

I have a love hate relationship with New Jersey. On the one hand, as a New Yorker and now as a Philadelphian, New Jersey has always seemed to be the armpit in the middle. Not to mention the fact that it has no media markets, no truly important urban centers (always significant for this not-really-driving-urbanite) and too many strip malls per capita for my comfort and a reputation for big mall hair, to boot. On the other hand there is a lot to recommend the state: it's where my wife hails from (we even used Tom Wait's "Jersey Girl" as our recessional at the commitment ceremony), liberal alcohol purchasing laws (PA has a ridiculous state system; I don't mind the state taxes but I do resent that you cannot purchase things from vineyards with whom the state does not do business), better public schools, and bluer politics.

Visit Blue State Non Bio Mom

The Boy Who Never Forgot

2006-03-07T02:46:00.000-05:00

The situation with Katie the Cook grows more interesting by the day. For the past couple of weeks, Katie has been sitting at the bar after her shift for a drink, and we talk. I've found out that she's still living with her baby's father because of the child. She's not happy with the father, she says they fight all the time (but that could imply there's still feelings between them). And just this weekend he got arrested, right after she and I discussed how girls love bad boys, even though they hate them, too. But she's obviously not satisfied with her situation. She even referred to the father as "the babysitter".

I can see this going in two directions. The first, if she were to break up or permanently leave the father, she'd look for someone to fill the vacuum -- replace him with someone who could fill the role of a boyfriend and a father; someone obviously more mature and secure than me. I couldn't possibly hope to fill those roles... at least, not right now.

The second direction would be if she broke up with the father and struck out on her own. After being locked in such a constrictive relationship, she'd probably just want to be alone and enjoy being single. Going from one serious relationship to another would be too overwhelming. She'd need time to breath, rediscover herself, spend time with her baby, whatever. I don't see myself in either of those pictures.

Katie's flattered by my attention. I'm proof to her that men still find her attractive, and want to be with her. On any other level I'm inconsequential. I merely serve the purpose of reminding her that she could still find another man if she wanted to, someone who'd love her and treat her right and take care of her baby as though she were his own daughter. Is anybody is worth that, Katie certainly is. I'd give anything to pull a Lancelot and come sweeping in to rescue her, but I doubt she wants to be rescued right now. She probably wants to find her own way.

And that, my friends, is it.

Visit The Boy Who Never Forgot

Happy Accidents

2006-02-26T02:43:00.000-05:00

chengster is back...

Visit Happy Accidents

The Declaration of Evolution

2006-02-26T02:36:00.000-05:00

By Timothy Leary, PhD

When in the course of organic evolution it becomes obvious that a mutational process is inevitably dissolving the physical and neurological bonds which connect the members of one generation to the past and inevitably directing them to assume among the species of Earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent concern for the harmony of species requires that the causes of the mutation should be declared.

We hold these truths to be self evident:

__That all species are created different but equal;
__That they are endowed, each one, with certain inalienable rights;
__That among them are Freedom to Live, Freedom to Grow, and Freedom to pursue Happiness in their own style;
__That to protect these God-given rights, social structures naturally emerge, basing their authority on the principles of love of God and respect for all forms of life;
__That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and harmony, it is the organic duty of the young members of that species to mutate, to drop out, to initiate a new social structure, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its power in such form as seems likely to produce the safety, happiness, and harmony of all sentient beings.

Genetic wisdom, indeed, suggests that social structures long established should not be discarded frivolous reasons and transient causes. The ecstasy of mutation is equally balanced by the pain. Accordingly all experience shows that members of a species are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, rather than to discard the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, all pursuing invariably the same destructive goals, threaten the very fabric of organic life and the serene harmony of the planet, it is the right, it is the organic duty to drop out of such morbid covenants and to evolve new loving social structures.

Such has been the patient sufferance of the freedom-loving peoples of this earth, and such is now the necessity which constrains us to form new systems of government.

The history of the white, menopausal, mendacious men now ruling the planet earth is a history of repeated violation of the harmonious laws of nature, all having the direct object of establishing a tyranny of the materialistic aging over the gentle, the peace-loving, the young, the colored. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to the judgement of generations to come.

* These old, white rulers have maintained a continuous war against other species of life, enslaving and destroying at whim fowl, fish, animals and spreading a lethal carpet of concrete and metal over the soft body of earth.
* They have maintained as well a continual state of war among themselves and against the colored races, the freedom-loving, the gentle, the young. Genocide is their habit.
* They have instituted artificial scarcities, denying peaceful folk the natural inheritance of earth's abundance and God's endowment.
* They have glorified material values and degraded the spiritual.
* They have claimed private, personal ownership of God'd land, driving by force of arms the gentle from passage on the earth.
* In their greed they have erected artificial immigration and customs barriers, preventing the free movement of people.
* In their lust for control they have set up systems of compulsory education to coerce the minds of the children and to destroy the wisdom and innocence of the playful young.
* In their lust for power they have controlled all means of communication to prevent the free flow of ideas and to block loving exchanges among the gentle.
* In their fear they have instituted great armies of secret police to spy upon the privacy of the pacific.
* In their anger they have coerced the peaceful young against their will to join their armies and to wage murderous wars against the young and gentle of other countries.
* In their greed they have made the manufacture and selling of weapons the basis of their economies.
* For profit they have polluted the air, the rivers, the seas.
* In their impotence they have glorified murder, violence, and unnatural sex in their mass media.
* In their aging greed they have set up an economic system which favors age over youth.
* They have in every way attempted to impose a robot uniformity and to crush variety, individuality, and independence of thought.
* In their greed, they have instituted political systems which perpetuate rule by the aging and force youth to choose between plastic conformity or despairing alienation.
* They have invaded privacy by illegal search, unwarranted arrest, and contemptuous harassment.
* They have enlisted an army of informers.
* In their greed they sponsor the consumption of deadly tars and sugars and employ cruel and unusual punishment of the possession of life-giving alkaloids and acids.
* They never admit a mistake. They unceasingly trumpet the virtue of greed and war. In their advertising and in their manipulation of information they make a fetish out of blatant falsity and pious self-enhancement. Their obvious errors only stimulate them to greater error and noisier self-approval.
* They are bores.
* They hate beauty.
* They hate sex.
* They hate life.

We have warned them from time to time to their inequities and blindness. We have addressed every available appeal to their withered sense of righteousness. We have tried to make them laugh. We have prophesied in detail the terror they are perpetuating. But they have been deaf to the weeping of the poor, the anguish of the colored, the rocking mockery of the young, the warnings of their poets. Worshipping only force and money, they listen only to force and money. But we shall no longer talk in these grim tongues.

We must therefore acquiesce to genetic necessity, detach ourselves from their uncaring madness and hold them henceforth as we hold the rest of God's creatures - in harmony, life brothers, in their excess, menaces to life.

We, therefore, God-loving, peace-loving, life-loving, fun-loving men and women, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the Universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the Authority of all sentient beings who seek gently to evolve on this planet, solemnly publish and declare that we are free and independent, and that we are absolved from all Allegiance to the United States Government and all governments controlled by the menopausal, and that grouping ourselves into tribes of like-minded fellows, we claim full power to live and move on the land, obtain sustenance with our own hands and minds in the style which seems sacred and holy to us, and to do all Acts and Things which independent Freemen and Freewomen may of right do without infringing on the same rights of other species and groups to do their own thing.

And for the support of this Declaration of Evolution with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, and serenely confident of the approval of generations to come, in whose name we speak, do we now mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.

From EROWID

La vie d'un dysfonctionnaire

2006-02-15T16:02:00.000-05:00

il faut juguler de copote

From La vie d'un dysfonctionnaire [Belgium]

Full of Changes

2006-01-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

Wink Hard

I shall start my usual useless preaching when i m bored!
When guys goes to Army
they oni worry where the gf will be,wat they r doing so on and so forth
so this is the time when gers are grinning ear to ear saying
"heheheh!!finally u scare le ley!"
And guys will start whining and whining in their bunk
unable to go to slp
sum may even shed tears!!
(which my guy did secretly)
*grin*
But hey!!
this is also the best time to test their relationship!!
*boo*
to gers who cant tk it!!
3 cheers for gers who faithfully walk through this period with their MAN!!
*hip hip hooray!*
Again when gers cant tk it
they will go
maybe all sorts of reason will start cuming out
sum may even say
"pls lo..its not because u go Army le than i break with u de..is...aiya i ve my reasons"
Well forever have reason de
gers will start telling friends that long be4 he go Army their prob start le lo..
is jus suay suay when he go Army than she wans a break
but this is weird
why before ya guy go army u dun break nw than break?
nw pther ppl will say
"aiya not your prob la..its other ppl mindset"
WAIT!!
this is my blog ok!!
Back to topic!
Hey...
if u cant tk it than u cant go through any hardship with this young lad!!
Once heard Fabian said this
"if a ger can go through with u the BMT period(vary frm 7wks to 3mths)than its quiet satble..but anithing might happen"
(his senior tell him)
i totally agree on this sentence
BMT period is the toughest period ya guy will go through when they r enlisted!
But again...
this mean that time spend with their gers is shorter
oni 1 1/2 day a week..
I can tk it
but others might not
I gave my guy full assurance i m not going do anithing outside
and my guy is damn lucky that he is not posted to Tekong
this mean no 3 wks confinement
nice one!
3 chrs for jalan bahar!!
We do quarrel when he is in camp
due to lonliness i ve n i m damn sad
i m so used to his presence almost everyday before he enlist
i cant tk it
i cried almost every nite
almost every Sunday when he book in
it make him beri FAN
he dunno wat to do to soothe me dwn
esp when he got to be on gurad duty or on standby
mark the end of my life at that time!
i hated to hear that from him n always pray hard he wun kanna!!
But this kind of thing cant siam!!
Finally after he cleared his MC for rapid discharge of muscles
he was 'asked' to be on night duty on a SAT!!
I did not sleep the whole nite so to be wide awake and i took the 5th train in the morning
dwn to Jurong!!
i almost die!!
just to meet him earlier!!
this is wat luv can do to one person!!
i do whine to him n act like a BIG baby!!
telling him i m unhappy..
but i made sure its all just complaints n it wun cum true nor will affect the relationship
maybe this is hw we went through this tough period..
well
7 wks pass swiftly
and he was posted
i wan happy!!
Although he nd to attend course at CDA(jurong)he dun mind fetching me every
alternate days.even he is tired..
maybe this is where guy shld put in sum effort!!
finding time n making time for ur ger when u r in NS is a must
even u r tired
at least your ger saw the effort made....
This is just hw a army boy life is..
they serve the country their gers shall wait
I depise those gers who left to seek solace in other guys n to seek company in other guys
U wait
if not u go
but not lies n betryal
u ve mood swings
but your guy do not choose to be in NS
Hw much ur guy wans to be the one to comfort u
to lend u the shoulder to lean on
And yet u just wan to hide from this fact that u r wrong
fingers are at u
saying hw not understanding u r
hw flirt u r
hw inmature u r
yet u still think u r the victim
i pity U!!
for your ignorance
for ur childishness
may god bless the 2 of u till death!!
*wink hard*
it just part and parcel of life
each n every1 has a diff obstacle to cross
a diff path to walk
it depend hw u walk it and lead it
i nvr believe that i will die in my own decision in life
if i were to made a wrong one
i make sure i find my way out n survie
even i have to go through a period of ICU!!
I dun FARKING hell mind!!

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Tokyo Observations

2005-12-16T22:20:00.000-05:00

Gee, thanks boss

A bizarre moment salvaged.

A former Vice-President of the United States came by the office yesterday for a meeting with my boss.

Yes, that former Vice-President, the one from Indiana.

He came on a diplomatic mission of some delicacy. Why it was entrusted to him, I do not know. Why the Embassy solicited my employer's opinion, I have no idea. I do not even know whether the Embassy or the Ministry set this up.

Anyway, as the former Vice-President was leaving, Mr. Okamoto introduced me. Earlier he had noted that I had a serious deficiency in that I was a Democrat.

"This is Mr. Cucek, our main research analyst."

The former Vice-President extended his hand. I shook it. He asked me where I was from.

"San Francisco," I replied.

"Marin County?" inquired the former Vice-President.

"No, San Francisco, San Francisco. Inside the City."

At this point, my boss made an inexplicable comment.

"There is really only thing wrong with Michael. He has no taste for women."

Now my boss made this comment in reference to my spectacular and neverending marital difficulties. But of course the former Vice President knew nothing about my troubles.

Instead, the former VP and the Embassy wraith accompanying him stood in stunned silence, not sure how to respond.

Into the breech I rushed with the only weapon I had--and prayed that it would work.

"Sir, " I quietly ventured in a low, husky voice, "When a man says he is from San Francisco and you say he has no taste in women-- it gives entirely the wrong impression."

The former Vice-President laughed. Not a guffaw, but some decent chuckles.

"Nicely put," he added as the door to the elevator closed.

"Goodbye."

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The Cornish Rambler

2005-12-10T03:11:00.000-05:00

A Locked Room Mous-try*

Was about to venture out into town yesterday morning, when I was forestalled by Smudge depositing a mouse in the hallway. Possibly for the entertainment value of watching me spend the next half hour wedged under various bits of furniture trying to catch the little blighter. Eventually, having upended a sofa, taken all the books off a bottom shelf, pulled out all the tat under the sideboard and completely failed to grab it, I closed the door firmly against the cats and went out as originally planned.

Upon my return, discovered Smudge sitting staring fixedly at the fridge. Either she's found another one and released it in the house, possibly in an attempt to start a captive breeding programme, or mouse A has somehow squeezed under the shut door (a door with a fixed brush draught excluder thingy and a fitted carpet running underneath) in a moment of mad mouse deathwishery.

Smudge then spends the next four or five hours on guard by the fridge. Better than telly, I suppose. We eventually take everything off the top of the fridge, remove the spillable bits inside, and tip it sideways, only to see mouse tail disappearing up inside the workings like something out of a rodent version of Alien. So we pull the thing out further, tip it again, and the mouse makes a break for it. I corner him amongst the recycling and make a grab. Upon which the little sod bites me in the palm. Drop mouse. Swear at mouse. Mouse disappears behind oven (comedy visions of him then getting paws stuck in the appalling grease layer back there sadly unrealised). We pull oven out, he disppears under washing machine. Pull washing machine out, only to see him disappear into a hole under the sink unit where a pipe comes out. We've lost him, for the meantime. I guess he'll have to stay, until the day we come down to find Smudge has been victorious. Till then, I think I'll call him Klaus.**

* Doesn't really work that, does it?
** Klaus the house-mouse? No?

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Universo pamp

2005-12-06T05:29:00.000-05:00

From Universo pamp [Spain]

12AM

2005-12-05T00:08:00.000-05:00

Trouble in Paradise

No ... not me.

Not anyone near me as well. Not recently anyway.

But someone.

There is always someone who has trouble in paradise. Some of them have it more often than they should; some (the unfortunate ones) have a permanent residence in Hell.

So what constitutes as trouble in paradise?

Arguments?

Fights?

Extra-marital affairs?

Falling out of love?

These are merely different manifestation of a same problem. Which basically is an adjustment period invoked as part of a long-term relationship. Its like a car going in for their maintenance every 5000 KM of ride.

It’s a time of reflection on our own actions and direction within our relationship.

It is a simple thing really, but it is as scary as Freddy Krueger visiting you in your dreams. Which is incidentally why when some of us are put into that situation they opt to run.

Yes, run.

Instead of dealing with the disparity found in those reflection, they argue that it’s the other party that is not doing their part. Or finding "unforgivable" faults on things that has been there since the beginning of the whole relationship.

Some run to other man or woman, seeking solace from a stranger rather than face the truth of the matter. The list goes on. But the motive is the same. Escaping from the truth with excuses.

When I was 2 years into my relationship with my love of life. We had trouble in paradise.

She was acting up on things that never bothered her before.

Complaining about things that did not even exits.

The constant bickering was straining our relationship.

I had a moment of weakness.

I wanted to bolt.

Fortunately there was enough good sense in me that made me stay and look at it properly. I had to know what was causing this. I had to know why I was dying inside.

So I sat and I started to plan for a romantic dinner to break the ice.

It was nothing fancy.

A cafe I found in a hidden away place by the city.

Quite and serene.

A gay couple maintained the place. One of the nicest people that I have met ever. Which later on we frequent very often. They have the best ever blueberry cheesecakes.

The day was set.

I picked her up and every thing went as planned.

And then it happened.

She just went into that bad mood thing and started to complain about the food and what not. I could not really remember the exact words but I do remember the exact feeling that I had then.

Pissed.

I excused myself in the middle of one of her rants and went to the toilet.

I cried. Then I had a silent shout. You know the kind where your brain is shouting like a berserker but your eyes are as cold as ice?

For 10 minutes I was inside a fit of rage that could level a city.

And then I calmed down.

I made a choice.

I will ask her one question and then I will make my next decision based on that.

So I went back to our table.

She was silent.

I sat down and with the calmest voice that I could muster, I asked her this.

"Do you want me to leave your life?"

She looks back at me with a stun stare.

"If you do, I will walk out right now and you will never see me again."

She is still silent.

"I can't handle this silent anger of yours any longer. I have no idea why you are behaving like this. I don't understand what I did to deserve this. I have done everything I know to get you to tell me but you don't say a thing."

Her head is bowed down. Still silent.

God I want an answer. If she stays quiet any longer, I will leave.

"Dear. I am here. Now in front of you. Talk to me. I am not psychic. I can't read your mind."

More silence.

I stood up, dropped the car key on the table and prepared to walk all the way home.

"Stop. Sit. Don't go." she said softly. Her eyes looking at me scared and confuse.

I stood there. Not sitting. Waiting.

"Please sit down. I am sorry."

I sat. This time it was me that was going to be quiet. I want to know what she is thinking.

"I don't know what’s wrong. I am not sure about anything anymore. I am afraid. Afraid of what might happen to us if we continue on. Whether or not you will leave me like the others do. I so afraid."

So I did the first thing that came to my mind.

I stood up and went to her.

I hug her tight.

"Silly girl. Why would I walk away from the best thing that have ever happen to my life."

"If I am ever to leave you, it would be because I was dead. Even then, I will come back and haunt you for the rest of your life"

"And I am sorry that I did not give you enough reason to think so. That will change. I promise"

It was a lovely night.

The moon was out.

And we made passionate love.

There will always be days where trouble spills into paradise.

So what are YOU going to do about it?

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Glib & Superficial

2005-12-01T22:06:00.000-05:00

Silent Radio: They have it, you know.

With so many things to worry about here at the Center of the Empire, halfway through the first decade of the 21st Century, knowing which of them to take arms against is most difficult.

You have probably, like us, wondered what steps are appropriate to ward off mind-control via electromagnetic radiation. Should I use that steel colander? Or will Reynolds Wrap (extra-thick) work just as well?

An MIT research team has concluded:

It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.

Their research shows that common aluminum foil helmet configurations actually amplify the potentially mind-controlling radiation (as the Government undoubtedly intends).

The report is HERE. Don't complain that you haven't been warned.

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Jenniferocious

2005-11-30T01:50:00.000-05:00

Heartstrings

are there heartstrings connected
to the wings you got slapped on your back? - belly

the first time i fell was for a boy with a guitar. he'd answer a simple question like 'what did you do today?' in the most perfect of honest ways with 'not much...wrote a new verse.' there was always the light friction of his fingertips fiddling with guitar strings, the background wallpaper for our phone conversations. we'd exchange stories...our firsts of adolescence, memorable scoldings, favorite this and that, worlds and perspectives that existed before each to the other...underscored with punchlines in a game of narrative wit. neither of us admitting that the silent pauses are smiling ones. he knew how to make me laugh and blush from across town over the phone, but couldn't look his blue eyes into mine when i darted a gaze his way. the way boys who don't wear cologne have a certain innocence, his neck was a simple fragrance of body heat and clean white t-shirt. his music was his home, the only place i couldn't reach him...though i could guestimate the chances he was dreaming about me, he checked into his own realm when he was singing. but he was humble about his passions, was always praising mine (though he knew i was crazy), and listened every time i said i'd found beauty in yet another humble place, like strawberry jam. one summer night we stood on my driveway, when, in between laughing and crickets and each other's breathing, he asked if he could kiss me. then, i only saw him a handful of times.

after breaking my first heart, my friend dubbed me 'search and destroy.' i felt that was a bit extreme of her. a boy from south carolina had perfect skin and long eyelashes that swept outwards from dark eyes. he'd tell stories of he and his friends back in his slice of white bread, america, weekends by the water on wakeboards. i'd never made friends with a southerner before, nor made anyone laugh that much before. our first night walking down the street together, i almost got hit by a car because in furrowing my brows and trying to decipher what he was saying through his accent, i forgot to look both ways. (he was asking if i'd seen 'meet joe black' but it sounded like 'eatcho blake'). on fairly uneventful evenings we'd pick up a six pack and listen to music, then he'd let me have a go on his glistening turntables and i'd give up. one night he brought me flowers, and the next night i let him down gently.

i believed being honest with my heart was fair, until months later when a complete stranger turned to me in the elevator and said, 'oh, you're the one who broke x's heart...' and i realised that hearts are not fair and square. they're beyond our control, unexplainable. they step on the toes of others, bump them from behind or laugh with chance as they land like liquid bird sh*t in your hair. they take leaps of faith while the mind is unaware, sometimes falling into pits of illusions and what-ifs. or like heavy boots in the rain, unconsciously weigh down while impressing on weaker, invisible ones stuck in the mud.

don't you wish we could choose our hearts? but wait, then there would be no drama to be had on fantastic shows like the o.c...

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QueXichen's

2005-11-27T02:07:00.000-05:00

Reno & Rude

From QueXichen's

Super Secret Scroll

2005-11-26T02:12:00.000-05:00

Thanks a lot! Le Grrr...

Ok, so I am at work.. le sigh... But out of nowhere a supervisor comes up to me and asks what's up with the ex. She didn't show up for her midnight start time for her turkey day shift. I just kept repeating "I don't know" until he exhausted his questions. To try and speed things up I asked if he had her cell, but he didn't want to take it. Then I suggested he check the call in log.. he said he would look. WTF? I get checked before the logs? Grrr...

So now this leaves me in an emotional bind. Well, not really, but I was going for dramatic effect. Should I be worried that something may have happened to her? (I mean, not matter what crap she does to me I'm going to always care about her. To some degree...) Should I assume that she just called in? (Which by the way is a really crappy thing to do with shortened holiday coverage. That's the only reason I'm here... well that and my pledge.) Should I just not care? (I think I covered that that is not completely an option.)

I dunno. I just know that whatever happened I will probably never know. And I'll have to be ok with that. Just assume that she is fine. Unless she is in a weird accident or something and there is a collection for her or a card and I'm like "what happened?" Then that would be obvious to everyone what happened in another area. About as obvious as when her name changes on all her stuff around work. Whatever. So I guess that's the topper on my crap cake for the night. Well, it's not too crappy, but I'm being mr. negative... so whatever. I need to stop saying whatever. Grrr...

Ok, I'm eating pie, blogging and getting paid for it. Life is not so bad after all...

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You're shitting me, right?

2005-11-24T03:51:00.000-05:00

Horriblescope

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Batata Quente

2005-11-22T16:51:00.000-05:00

From Batata Quente (Spanish)

Brevity is…wit

2005-11-18T14:55:00.000-05:00

Lame quiz linkage, with flair

A website dedicated to "the most popular stapler in history" has developed a quiz to test your knowledge of that cinematic ode to the cubicle jockey, Office Space. Test yourself here. While few and far between, there are a small number of questions that require some sort of knowledge about the closing credits or even the DVD extras. For the record, I got 64% correct, which makes me a basic fan. Or maybe a decent guesser.

I own the mug, by the way. In the spirit of modern craftsmanship, it's already showing signs of chippage.

Visit "Brevity…is wit"

The Whole Note

2005-11-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

Texas Schoolbook Depository

Next week will be the 42nd anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination.

In June of 2003, I spent a week at a convention in the Dallas, Texas area. I flew in on a Saturday, to get the best air fare possible. That left my Sunday free, since the convention didn't start until Monday morning. I decided to visit Dealy Plaza, the location of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This was a moving experience for me. Here are my thoughts after my visit, which I wrote in my hotel room later that night:

Today I visited the Texas Schoolbook Warehouse at Dealy Plaza, in Dallas, Texas. This year, on November 22, it will be 40 years since John F. Kennedy (JFK) was assassinated there.

My Own Recollections

It was a moving experience to be there. I am old enough that I remember that day, back in 1963. I was a Kindergarten Student, at Jefferson Elementary School in Salt Lake City. The assassination took place on a Friday, at 12:30 PM in Dallas. By 1:00 that day it was announced to the world that JFK was dead….

Dealy Plaza

Upon my arrival in the area, I first walked up to the JFK Memorial. It is a large square structure, intended to have a tomb-like appearance. It has four walls, but no ceiling. The walls are comprised of several cement pillars, but they are constructed in such a way as only eight of the pillars actually touch the ground. The other pillars appear as they are floating, unsupported in the air.

Inside the tomb, is a large, nearly square, black, monolith. It too has the appearance of not quite touching the ground. On the sides of the monolith is the gold lettered name of "John Fitzgerald Kennedy".

I next walked over toward the Texas Schoolbook Depository. The sixth floor of the building is where Lee Harvey Oswald fired those fatal shots. I walked around Dealy Plaza, and took photos of the Plaza, and the Building.

Continue reading

Conspiracy Theories Abound

Outside the building were hucksters. They were conspiracy theory mongers. They were spouting diatribes against the findings of the Warren Commission, and the other 4 governmental investigations into the assassination.

They were trying to sell books, video and audio tapes and CD's, and magazines -- each purporting to tell the "real" story. As you would walk around the Plaza, while trying to contemplate the magnitude of the crime that took place there, and the impact that the assassination had upon our nation, and upon the world, the hucksters would assail your thoughts and contemplations. Just when you wanted to have a quiet moment to think and reflect, they would shove grisly autopsy photos in your face, and try to sell you their wares, and profit by attempting to convince you of the validity of the some conspiracy theory. After one such incident, I learned to avoid the conspiracy profiteers by waiting until they were occupied with other listeners (either willing or unwilling) and slipping past them before I could be flashed with another autopsy photo of the President's head.

The Sixth Floor Museum

I had my dark glasses on, and had parked several blocks away. I wanted to go into the museum, but needed to have my clear glasses first. So I walked back to the car that I had parked on a side street (free parking meters on Sundays!) and drove the car back over to the Texas Schoolbook Depository.

Having retrieved my clear glasses, and freshened up a bit. I entered the museum at about 4:30 PM. (The museum closes at 6:00. Later I found that I should have allotted more time. I could easily have taken 3 hours there, instead of the hour-and-a-half that I spent there.)

The first 5 floors are still being used as government offices. The Sixth and Seventh floors are part of the museum (also an annex has been built at ground level, with its own elevator up to the 6th floor, which bypasses the offices that are still located in that building.)

The museum starts off first by setting the stage of the times in which this event took place….

The museum starts off first by setting the stage of the times in which this event took place. Such things as what the popular books, movies, TV Shows, and music were at the time. Many of these things brought back memories for me.

Next were the highlights of JFK's life, before taking office as President. There were pictures of him as a youth, in his Navy Uniform, and of his Wedding Day.

The Presidential Campaign of 1960 was also covered. It showed both JFK, and Jackie hard at work on the campaign trail. There were excerpts of his speech from the Democratic National Convention of 1960.

There were many photos and excerpts from his inauguration and the famous quote -- "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country."

The 1000 days of the Kennedy Presidency were reviewed with its failures as well as its successes. The legacies of the Kennedy Administration: The space program, the Peach Corps, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, The Civil Rights Act, and our military involvement in Southeast Asia (Vietnam).

I remember as I carefully weighed the programs and policies of this administration, I think as a whole, I would not have supported it. In, fact on that fateful day in Dallas, there were many here in this city who were not enamored of the president's policies. In the museum, there were copies of full-page ads taken out in the Dallas Morning News from those who opposed many of the president's programs.

Then the museum showed the moment-by moment events of that day, Nov. 22nd, 1963. The president had been to Ft. Worth earlier that day, and had flown over to Dallas before joining the motorcade. He rode in a black convertible limousine, with the top down. At several points along the parade route, the president had the vehicle stop, where he would get out to greet and shake hands with people. There were approximately 230,000 people lining the parade route that day. The president was en- route to a bi-partisan luncheon that day.

There were 2200 highly-coveted invitations sent out to the luncheon. The tables were set, and the crowd awaited, but the luncheon never took place. Just a few minutes longer, and the president would have been dining with his guests. The place setting for the president was left untouched. (That place setting, with the china and silverware are now a part of the museum exhibits.) JFK was near the end of the parade route when three shots rang out from the Texas Schoolbook Depository and rained down upon Dealy Plaza. The shots found their mark. The president was dead, and the Governor of Texas, John Connaly was also wounded.

The nation, and the world were brought to their knees. The young president, so vivacious and full of life was now dead. His wife, now a young widow, and their two young children were deprived of their husband and father. A nation was deprived of its president, and the world was deprived of the Leader of the Free World.

As I stood next to the window from which those shots rang out, I could see the sniper position that Oswald had staked out for himself. He had arranged some boxes of books to screen himself off from the view of others. He had also placed some boxes in front of him to use as a lean for his rifle. From his position, the president's motorcade would have been traveling away from him in a straight line. I could see now, how he could have accomplished his deadly feat. I also felt more inclined to believe that the conclusions of the Warren Commission were essentially correct. The findings of the commission may have been off on a few minor details, but they did the best they could with the information they had at the time. I came away from this experience believing that Lee Harvey Oswald was indeed the killer, and that the fatal shots came from his location. As far as we can tell, Oswald acted alone. We have no definitive evidence to the contrary.

I do not accept the premises of the conspiracy theorists. I will let this matter trouble me no longer. For me, this matter is resolved and put to rest.

The "What If's"

What does remain unresolved, and can never be resolved (at least in this life) are the "What If's". What if this assassination had never taken place -- What then would the world have been like? The assassination of John F. Kennedy is one of those small hinges, upon which the course of history pivots from the due course of "What would have been" to what, instead, history actually became.

Would JFK have been re-elected in 1964? -- Almost certainly.

What would have happened in Vietnam? President Johnson was the one who really escalated US involvement in Vietnam. Perhaps President Kennedy would have brought about a different outcome, who knows?

Would the civil rights movement have turned out differently? Its hard to say. Johnson was able to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed largely as a memory to the Legacy of President Kennedy (and with the help of the opposition political party). Had Kennedy remained president, who knows when or if the Civil Rights Act would have been passed.

Would others have been assassinated as well, had not JFK been assassinated? -- The assassination of JFK plunged the nation and the world into a new round of violence and confrontation. There were those who saw how effective assassination was as a tool to achieve their political and social purposes. The example of the Kennedy Assassination could have greatly contributed to that mindset of violence. One can not help but wonder if Marin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy would have still met their same fates, had not JFK first preceded them in martyrdom.

Also with the assassination of JFK, it seems like the national innocence was lost. Many young people became lost souls when their young and energetic Idol/Leader, JFK was killed. I believe that much of the unrest of the 60's, the rebelliousness of the hippie and drug cultures, the anti-war, anti-American sentiments, even the so-called sexual revolution all have their roots in that fateful day in November of 1963.

When considering the "what-if's" it would be easy blame all of the cultural and society degradations we have seen on this assassination. Some of them probably would have happened in their own due time anyway. However, I see the assassination of JFK as a catalyst, that accelerated all of these trends into an explosive mix, that turned out to be the decade -- and the legacy -- of the 60's.

A Personal Interaction

As I toured through the Sixth Floor museum, I was left mostly alone with my thoughts.

However, at one point, as I was viewing one of the displays, a Hispanic young man came up next to me. I could tell that he too, was moved by the experience of being in that place. His remarks to me were about Cuba, and how JFK had tried to take out Fidel Castro -- and that because if this "they" had JFK killed.

He leaned over and read one of the articles that were in opposition to Kennedy's policies, including the polices relating to Cuba. One of these statements indicated their disdain for the president leaving 7,000,000 Cubans trapped as prisoners on that island. Many thousands of Cubans had been killed and imprisoned, with may more being rounded up daily.

The young Hispanic man exclaimed, "7,000,000 people! Wow!", and he walked off, shaking his head as he mourned for the dead and lost Cubans. I am sure also, that as he walked way, he was totally convinced that Fidel Castro was behind the assassination of JFK.

**********************

It was a moving experience for me to visit the memorial, Dealy Plaza, and the Texas Schoolbook Depository. I began to realize that others would come away from this experience with differing impressions than mine. It is interesting how the tide of history turned on this single event.

Visit "The Whole Note

Segunda vaga

2005-11-16T21:38:00.000-05:00

From De Paso (Spanish)

Banging QWERTY

2005-11-14T18:31:00.000-05:00

WalMart purgatory

A couple of days ago at yet another newly erected Supercenter, a freshly hired "cart boy" (for lack of a more ingratiating term) could be heard screaming to the top of his lungs at, one could only assume, himself, "Working for WalMart!! Do a good job!! Go!!" And then running across the parking lot, his cart rope and hook collected over his shoulder like some weekend mountaineer, rushing around energetically mating shopping carts, front of one through the rear of the next...front, rear, front, rear. Now I know you imagine him being some helpless little mentally challenged kid with ever-so-slight Downs' features, smiling aimlessly in the distance, trying his best to please the benevolent personnel manager who hired him, partly out of pity but mostly to fulfill some community enrichment quota set by a bean counter in Bentonvlle. No, this guy looked almost normal, but didn't seem to have all his faculties working in unison. Not completely aware of his actions, he seemed to be enjoying life. We'll just call him eccentric. Well, with only 4 or 5 carts in tow, "cart boy" checked for parking lot traffic down his aisle by looking left (with exaggerated head throws resembling that of the comedian, Jim Carrey) "Clear!," he shouted. Looking right, "Clear!" he exclaimed with each head throw. Left, right, left, right, left, right..."Go," he exclaims. Off he raced with impaired coordination, neverththeless, reaching his goal, that being the four foot tall, 20 foot wide door adjacent the exit of the main building and depositing his collection of unused carts where they would rest indefinitely, awaiting the grasp of the next would be customer.

What does one call that little area between the outer door and inner door at WalMart stores? You know, the space with the video games, the kids’ carousel, and those unattended carts stacked in place by our aforementioned rocket scientist, cart boy. Sometimes, a mom might attempt to send her child to this department store void so she can confirm, unmolested, the prices of scanned sale items via the provided "mini me" register display to assure proper discount allocation or so she can search endlessly through her purse to find her check book, credit card, coupons, or to thoroughly scan a shopping list to make sure she didn’t forget anything. She can be heard saying, "Here’s fifty cents. Now go on out there and get out of my way!" as she points in the general direction of the exit. Out there? Where’s out there? The kid has a preconceived notion of where "out there" is, because he just finished unloading a barrage of entreaties upon his mother for some spare change, to be used for just a moment of childhood pleasure in that breezy game-haven.

But if two adults wish to meet at Walmart in this capitalistic black hole, they would be hard pressed to describe it in five words or less. "I’ll meet you out front." That description implies in front of the building if the wife wants picked up after checking out, insinuating the husband should pull the car around. Or if the husband never went inside in the first pace, but instead dropped her off in the ped-xing lane in front of the building some 2.., no 3 hours earlier and she calls his cell phone and wakes him from his slumber in the driver’s seat parked in section G, to announce, "I’m waiting out front in the cold!"

One could say, "I’ll meet you at the front" which certainly means the space within the confines of the shopping arena, just short of the main merchandise aisles not yet though to the little impulse-buyer islands full of batteries, portable book lights, and ice scrapers which entice shoppers waiting in long checkout lines. But at the front lies near the registers, maybe even the deli, but just shy of that glass enclosure that separates real life from the dreamland, Wallyworld.

"Entrance tunnel" could be a likely candidate for that area between the automatic doors at Walmart. One experiences the exhilaration of an athlete entering through a stadium tunnel on game day. He's practiced hard, trained for physical fitness, he's been coached for proper execution of each play, and is mentally prepared to engage his opponent with nothing short of victory in mind. All his training, all his preparation culminates into a short run from locker room to playing field. Everything in the tunnel, the walls, the floors, the security guards, the press, wayward spectators, all merely sillhouettes against that glow of staduim lights at the end of the passage. Similarly, Walmart customers practice by making shopping lists, their checking accounts are fiscally fit, the family has been coached on aisle numbers as they pertain to desired purchase items, departmental location of needed supplies have been mapped out, and basic behavioral expectations have been embedded in adolescant pshyches through a hoard of veiled threats proposed in the car on the way to the store. No wonder parents are so disdained when forced to wait in the idle area betwixed "ENTER" and "NOT AN EXIT". The battle lies within, not in this exogenous purgatory.

Someday, a lack of proper name or designation, notwithstanding, you may find yourself standing in the space between sidewalk sales and "Hello, welcome to Walmart," surrounded by community announcement bulletin boards, racks of "clearance sale" flyers, with the ding-ding of arcade game sounds chiming in your ears. You might be wondering, "Am I leaving, or did I just get here?" Here's a couple of clues that might help orient your thoughts: If your a man and not in possession of your wallet or a shopping cart, don't worry. Your wife will soon arrive with a cart full of little blue bags filled with clothing, produce, and household paraphernalia, and will direct you to follow her while you push the cart, listening to her ramble on about how expensive feminine hygiene products have become. If your a woman, car keys in hand, you've probably forgotten your purse in the car.

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Blogg's End

2005-11-14T00:51:00.000-05:00

mondays with what's his name

had therapy yesterday. i can never remember my therapist's name. spose it means something? after the session which ended at ten am, I came home, fed the beast, fed myself and slept till 559am the next morning. spose it means something?

the cranium is comprised of:

Cranial bones:
1. frontal bone
2. parietal bone (2)
3. temporal bone (2)
4. occipital bone
sphenoid bone
ethmoid bone

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Killer Fact

2005-11-13T00:01:00.000-05:00

From the wonderful Chase Me Ladies I'm in the Cavalry comes this Killer Fact: a barrel of Hewlett-Packard printer ink costs $470,638.

Sounds about right, doesn't it?

Obtuse Humorist

2005-11-12T22:45:00.000-05:00

Foreign Policy Solutions

My foreign policy solutions:

1. Buy Cuba. Really, how much could it cost. Let’s just get this annoyance off of the table. How many Cuba’s could Bill Gates purchase?

2. Forget the Middle East. Just ignore it. Remove the emotion of the Second Coming, and oh-my-god-Oil. They can’t drink oil. It has to be sold, and the commodity market is global. Let the region fester and foment. How far could the bad guys realistically get? Nuclear Weapons Delivery System? Yea, sure. Far better to control the non-standard issues on western soil. And by the way, the Second Coming isn’t coming, so don’t wait up.

3. Let the South Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese handle the North Koreans. They should mutually care far more than us. If they don’t see a problem, why should we?

Those solutions would save lots of headaches, and lots of dough. With the savings, we can figure out how to keep American wealth while China and India acquires theirs.

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Pis Herif

2005-11-11T22:38:00.000-05:00

Akn-Cinsiyeti

From Pis Herif (Turkey)

Dog-eared and underlined

2005-11-11T22:25:00.000-05:00

Quote for today

"You can deprive the body, but the soul needs chocolate."
on the wrapper of a Dagoba organic chocolate bar

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Amerikan Mick-o

2005-10-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

Click here for full-size image.

Found on "The Sordid Details"

Drivel and bunk

2005-10-30T21:41:00.000-05:00

Do I make sense?!

I know one isn't supposed to expect the worst but it has served me well thus far. I think it is okay to expect the worst as long one sometimes entertains the possibility for less than the worst and maybe even hopes for the best, even if one doesn't think it will happen. Does that make sense?

Anyway, thanks to my worst-expecting ways I am only a smidge angry and tad crushed but mostly relieved by and I think even happy about a recent turn of events which I will not describe here. However, I think it is important to share my emotions and I know that I will want to remember them in the future, especially if they should change and sadness or anger should be greater than I currently think they are.

Why I can't actually assess how angry I am:
Usually I only have anger for myself which is easy because I know how much I can blame myself and I know exactly (well sometimes I get this part wrong) what my motives and intent are. I don't know how to deal with situations in which I should be angry at other people. Usually I stew for a bit and then I'm over it within a few hours. You'd think it would be good to forgive so easily but sometimes other people deserve your anger because they need to see that what they did was wrong and has affected you. I think that already any anger I had over the current situation has been reasoned away.

Why I can't actually assess how sad I am:
Usually I will not allow myself to be sad about the thing that has made me sad and instead I express it as sadness over something else. Well, really I collect a lot of different sadnesses and then feel and express them all at once, and then it is hard to tell the level of sadness attributed to each cause. Does that make sense?

The only emotion I express truly is momentary excitement and amusement but I fake that sometimes so even if I know when it is real, you may not. I'm not a very good faker though, people can generally see right through me.

I realized it is wrong to preface an entry by saying it is uninteresting because doing so makes people want to read said entry all the more, which is the opposite of what I want to happen. I'm actually just warning you, not trying to get more attention or anything.

I was thinking recently about how I am a bad Christian because I embrace pessimism. I really do love it. I like to imagine a future in which I am like that character in Sideways (the book not the movie) or Harvey Pekar (both have been portrayed by Paul Giamatti!). This is a decidedly un-Christian viewpoint. If I could find that branch of Christianity that allows one to not hope, I am sure I would ascribe to it, although I imagine its other beliefs would be quite scary. Also, I know logically that pessimism is bad for you. How can something so bad be so appealing?

I actually woke up, turned off my alarm, fell back asleep, and forgot the whole thing happened. I know this because I used my cell phone as an alarm and it is not where it was when I fell asleep.

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Four out of five

2005-10-15T15:59:00.000-04:00

To be blissfully unaware...

I sometimes have to admire people who are naïve, or just plain innocent of some of the crass elements of our society.

Some friends with the last name of "Hunt" decided not to name their son "Michael" when he was born. My wife asked why. "Because some people make fun of the name Mike Hunt." Again she asked why. I had to explain that depending on where you put the dipthong, in this case, the "K" sound in his name, it could be pretty vulgar. Again, the blank stare. I then very blushingly explained that the word in question was a lewd term for a part of a woman's anatomy. "Oh," she replied. I couldn't tell who was more embarrassed: Her for not knowing something pretty commonplace like that, or me for telling her that I did.

Another case in point: I was looking at my mom's "wall of shame" (wall covered with pictures) while visiting her last week, and noticed a recent pic of one of my younger brothers wearing a t-shirt with "Got MILF?" emblazoned across the front in big, white letters. I wonder how he explained that one when my mom asked him what it meant. I think I'll keep my big mouth shut on this one, and pretend to be blissfully unaware.

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Marci hearts Olli

2005-10-09T21:57:00.000-04:00

Visit "The Terrible Kitchen" [German]

The world ain't perfect;

2005-10-08T23:19:00.000-04:00

Just Empty..

Going out makes me so pain.. Whenever i see couples, i will
think abt us..
How great it is when he hug me in the past?
Whenever i pass by those places, i see memories of us..
So empty within.

He is in lockup. Waiting to be bailed. I called his mother. She
told me not to go for the court hearing.. She will inform me if
there is anything..

I am being blamed. Yes i am.
I am sure he will miss me.. I am sure he'll call me if he can..
I have no mood for anything. I just wan to be alone..
Alone.

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Mme Zamora sees all, tells all...maybe

2005-10-03T22:39:00.000-04:00

Winning The Lottery: softly, softly

Reporter: "What would you do if you found a million dollars?"
Yogi Berra: "I'd find the fellow who lost it, and, if he was poor, I'd return it."

I've been doing some research on psychics and their luck at winning the lottery. It would appear that such luck is conspicuous by its absence. Why has a psychic never won the lottery? Sceptics will tell you it's because there is no such thing as a psychic.

Well, have they ever got it wrong. And to all you budding psychics out there who are just burning with desire to shut the sceptics up once and for all by winning the lottery and then bragging about it, take the advice of Auntie Zam:

If you're making a living as a psychic, when you win that jackpot (by the questionable use of your gift or not, but let's leave ethics out of this for now), for heaven's sake, retire from the business and get as far away from your telephone as your newly-minted money can take you!

Leave those losers behind! You know, the poor sods who are relying solely on that winning ticket to turn their lives around. The ones who think that winning the lottery is the only answer to their problems: it will make them stop gambling, cure their drug addiction, stiffen the right appendages, improve their golf score (actually, money will undoubtedly improve their score by ruining everyone else's). The ones who think that money is real, real, really the answer!

Alas, money by its very nature always attracts problems, it can't help itself. Money is a voracious parasitic life-form, it will consume you, and it will excrete problems. Little rabbit-pellets of problems, all over the living-room rug of your life.

There are some lotteries you really don't want to win, as Shirley Jackson once pointed out. Winning is not all it's cracked up to be. Be wary of suddenly becoming the centre of attention...

Then there's the other Shirley and her plight in "What a Way to Go" (1964). Chasing money can lead to a premature end... and as we all know, you can't take it with you.

And, my dear budding psychic, if you know what's good for you, never start your career by handing out lotto combinations, not even to your family. Because when you finally win, as you will, being psychic and all, I guarantee you that those dear loved ones will be furious; they'll right away think that you kept the winning numbers for yourself. Does that sound cynical? Oops, stepped on a rabbit-turd....

It's all very well to have principles, but when it comes to money you have to be flexible. ~ Eugene Ormandy

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Frally's Tidbits, Thingamajigs, & Watchamacallits

2005-10-02T00:03:00.000-04:00

Things that have amused me recently

(1) This man:

NZ's C4 channel is currently showing his series "John Safran VS God" so catch it if you can. We hired out his first series, "John Safran's Music Jamboree" last week and it was freakin' hilarious. (If you haven't caught on yet, the man in the photos name is John Safran.)

(2) This website. I usually try and stay out of religious arguments, I believe in the freedom to believe what you want. Being born a half-Jew, half-christian I definitely, DEFINITELY know that criticising people's beliefs can get ugly. And yet, I feel the need to dip my toe into this hotpool with the following comments. I must be feeling a bit anarchic.

OK, here goes: I have to say that there are some seriously fucked up Christians out there. Not all of them, but a significant amount. For example, take this excerpt from one of the religious hatemails this man received:

"I hope your genitals fall off and are eaten by three-legged mice with squirrel tails."

Sure, because Jesus would have wanted it that way.

But this is the viewpoint that some Christians have that bugs me the most (as per another letter on this website):

"Besides, the REAL reason that evolution works for many people has to do with morality - if you don't believe in God, you aren't accountable & you can go on your merry way & do your own thing regardless of what that is.....that kind of gets messed up when you put God in the picture ya know with the Thou Shalt nots & all - people just can't reconcile their immoral lifestyles with the holiness God requires - bottom line - that's why it's essential to get rid of God/Jesus at any cost."

Some of these people seem to use their religion as something to hold over people, "I'm better than you! You have no morals, I DO! Ner-Ner-Nee-Ner-Ner!" Isn't loving in Jesus' name about loving and helping your fellow man? Even if they DON'T accept Christ as their saviour? I dunno, I don't go to church but that's the message I get from the whole bible thing.

Last time I checked, I had plenty of morals. I haven't hurt, maimed or killed anyone (to my knowledge). I haven't been prostituting my children. I sponsor a child in Bangladesh and I try and give to charities whenever I have spare cash. All without Jesus telling me to do so!

But I have downloaded music on peer-to-peer software, that's the one thing that might fuck me up at the gates of heaven. But you know what? If heaven's going to be full of nutjob evangelical Christians, PLEASE GOD DON'T LET ME IN.

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Font Test

2005-10-01T19:16:00.000-04:00

This is a font test of small caps. THIS IS A FONT TEST OF SMALL CAPS. This is a font test of small caps.

Update: Okay -- I haven't figured out how to do small caps, but some nice people have left some interesting comments. So consider this an open thread. What's going on in your part of blogtopia?

And don't be bashful -- if you'd like your blog and/or your friends' blogs to be featured on THE "NEXT BLOG" BLOG, please leave your blog address.

Grace (a/k/a the blogger who can't figure out HTML coding)

Movies, music, and everything else

2005-09-18T02:22:00.000-04:00

For serious movie fans, do not miss Humby's insightful reports on the recent Toronto Film Festival in Movies, music, and everything else.

Jeremy's Weblog

2005-09-18T02:00:00.000-04:00

Don't Steal Jokes

I have a short story. I'll reveal the moral first. The moral is, "Don't steal jokes."

This past Wednesday was the first day of my level 2 improv comedy class, at Upright Citizens Brigade. One of the exercises we did was short 3-line scene starts. One person says a line, you say something in response, they say something, end of scene. The point is to get good at starting scenes. So it was my turn, and the other person started, and opened up his imaginary trenchcoat and said, "Pssst. I've got some good stuff today. What do you want?"

There's a stand-up bit I've seen, done by Mike Birbiglia, who's a really funny stand-up comic I've seen live a couple of times and mentioned on here once or twice, where he talks about how there was a drug dealer on his street, and he passed him, and wished he sold Snapple, because he was thirsty... I'm not doing it any justice here, but it's funny.

So, that's what popped into my head in the improv class, and I stole his joke and said "You have any Snapple?" and it got a chuckle and whatever, it's a 3-line scene in a class, who cares, and I forgot about it.

Whatever you think the rest of the story is going to be, lower your expectations by about 80% and you can probably figure this out.

So... I just got back from seeing a stand-up comedy show at the same place I take the improv class, Upright Citizens Brigade -- it was a Hurricane Katrina benefit, $10 and you get to see a bunch of stand-up comedians.

The host did a little routine, and then announced they had a special guest who wasn't listed on the website... Mike Birbiglia. Which was cool, because, like I said, he's funny and I've seen him before and I think he's really good.

And he did about 6 or 8 minutes of material, I think. And, yeah, he did the drug dealer-Snapple thing.

Now, I don't even know if anyone else from my improv class was there, but it's certainly plausible they were. Certainly I don't expect *anyone* in the improv class could possibly remember this tiny 3-line scene I did where I used his joke. It's inconceivable anyone would ever think this hard about it. But *I* know. And so I feel marginally bad about it. Like, not really actually bad, because it's a class and it's one line, and it's improv and it's the first thing that came to mind. But I feel like this was an amusing coincidence. Worth sharing.

The headliner of the show was a guy named Demetri Martin, who was very very funny in a Steven Wright kind of way. Dry one-line observations. Good stuff. Also funny was Christian Finnegan, who I think does a bunch of those VH1 "I Love The Ten Minutes That Just Passed" shows.

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Hmm. I think the Harvard Law School graduate in Jeremy is doing battle with the would-be comic in Jeremy. -- Grace

The 26 Most Annoying People of Planet Earth

2005-09-12T01:25:00.000-04:00

Fat Eye for the Skinny Guy has undertaken a snarkily brilliant series -- The 26 Most Annoying People of Planet Earth. The "nominees" are profiled in contributions from guest posters.

My favorite one so far, contributed by Blog Ho, is Most Annoying Person No. 15 -- Madonna. Here's an excerpt from her profile.

And now you're a British Jewess? Has the world gone crazy? What kind of Jew is named Madonna? Is it me? If there's justice in the world, her rabbi is a Spaniard named Jesus.

Grace says go -- go now. Read the whole series and laugh and forget about our misbegotten world for awhile.

Ramblin' Irishman

2005-08-14T03:08:00.000-04:00

Awaiting his fate

8.50am, Tuesday 1st May.

John Alvison sat on a hard wodden chair in a cold, dark 8x8 room contemplating his fate. In ten minutes' time, the door would open and he would be summoned down the long, equally dark, hallway. Once there, it would all be over in minutes. His past deeds would finally have caught up with him. His fate was entirely deserved.

He sat with both feet firmly on the floor, his elbows on his knees supporting upright arms with his head planted in his hands, staring blankly at the cracked plaster on the opposite wall, his mind full of what was about to happen and also of memories of the events that brought him here, to this room.

For a year-and-a-half he had waited for this. The date had been fixed sometime just after Christmas. He had no way out. His friends had deserted him - the ones who had brought him along this path to destruction, who taught him to disrespect authority. Now it was John, all alone, awaiting his fate.

He wanted to go back in time and tell that stupid young man he had once been to wise up: to have sense, to choose the right path. It was too late for that. Plenty of people had told him to have sense and he had laughed at them. Oh sure, it seemed like a good idea at the time. His soul was filled with regret.

8.53am. In seven minutes the door would open and the formalities would begin. They would ask him if he felt well (like it would matter if he didn't?). He would be walked down the hall and then....

The night before he had talked to his parents and confessed all that had brought him here. He had never been scared before, but oh boy was he scared now. For an hour he had talked and cried.

Nomatter what you've done, you are still our son and we love you.

He knew that deep down, they were ashamed of him. His sister, the high-flier, stood in stark contrast to this waster.

8.57am. A uniformed figure glanced through the window with a look of contempt. "I could take you on," John thought, "I could take you all on". Then he remembered that it was that sort of behaviour that had contributed to his current situation. If only they would let him start again - he knew he would be different - he would be a good, hard-working person - a model citizen.

9.00am. Footsteps marched in time up the hallway, clicking sharply on the wooden floor. The door opened - "Alvison?"

John stood straight without thinking - at least he had finally learnt some respect.

"How do you feel this morning?"

"Fine sir."

Of course, he really wanted to beg, recalling the sleepless night of worry and fear, of bowels turning to liquid, of breakfast being repulsive and of managing a few mouthfuls of stinking coffee. He wanted to tell them he would be different if he had a second chance.

"Follow me" the Voice of Authority commanded. John followed, walking straight and proud behind him, a few uniformed figures looking at him scornfully. He would not show fear

They reached the end of the dark hallway and passed through a door, the light from tall windows almost blinding John. The Voice of Authority stood behind a desk. The formalities were about to begin.

"Just get it over with" he wanted to scream.

"Alvison, you have been briefed on the procedures?"

"Yes Sir" He kept telling himself to be brave- it would be over in ten minutes. He would be free from their torture. Tears began to well in his eyes.

"Please sit... comment t'appelles-tu?"

His GCSE French Oral had begun.

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Militant Slave

2005-08-06T22:31:00.000-04:00

slightly shifted

i woke up yesterday and everything had changed, not some great 180 degree turn but a slight shift. people at work showed up 21 minutes late. my boss called to say he was coming in late and i swear i heard video games in the background. he did not come into work until 1:43 PM. they are doing construction in my building so everything is still in the building but in a different location. as i have recently been married, new things are all over my living area. i share a bed with someone... every night. even my work area feels as though someone shifted everything slightly to the left. it seems as everyone has new feelings for or against other people as well. none of my relationships seem the same as they were last week. they've all shifted slightly for the better or for the worse. nothing is constant. these events would not even be worthy of publishing except for the fact that the same things happened today. who shows up 21 minutes late to work? 5 or 10 i can understand, i can even deal with 1 or 2 hours, but 21 minutes?! seems as though life itself is screwing with me.

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