Thursday, September 29, 2005
It's Quote Day, It's Quote Day, Come and see what I wrote Day!
"We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us." - Osama Bin Laden, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
This post protected by the First Amendment
"I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. No constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." - Judge Learned Hand, (1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals
Where did THIS come from?
Indulge me for a moment while I go off on a rant of Chicken Littlesque proportions. Our democracy is failing. Back in the day, when the threat of communism was being exposed as not much of a threat at all, when communist regimes were falling by the handful due to that form of government's seeming inherent inability to sustain itself, conventional wisdom told us that communist, socialist governments were a silly idea that could obviously never work. Today the same is being proved of capitalist democracies. Our country is tearing itself apart, day after day the rhetoric becomes uglier and more offensive, and nobody I know seems the least bit concerned.
Over on the far left The Michael Moore’s, Cindy Sheehan’s, and John Kerry’s of the world are all screaming at the top of their lungs about how horribly the current administration is handling everything from the war in Iraq, to the nomination of judges and supreme court justices; from tax cuts, to the weather. The folks on the right aren’t much better or brighter, promising a smaller, more efficient government and military, while real world events necessitate spending billions of unbudgeted dollars.
Meanwhile everyone keeps attacking everyone else, using ridiculously flawed arguments to try to win public approval in the media. When Cindy Sheehan disgraces the memory of her heroic fallen son, the lefties cry “She has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!” When John Kerry calls an ongoing military operation “the wrong war at the wrong time,” demoralizing troops by calling into question the legality and morality of their actions, the message repeats, “He has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!”
Well I say take your freedom of speech and shove it up your ass. I don’t care what Cindy Sheehan or John Kerry think. I don’t really care much anymore what the Bill-o-Reilly’s of the world think either. Freedom of speech is a good idea in concept, but to use it as an excuse to sling hatred and animosity around, well, I just think that maybe some of those free speakers should shut the f*** up.
Look, as far as I can tell, we’re all in this together. Everyone would be much better served by the politicians and the folks in the media trying to figure out some way we can all get along and play nice together. Unfortunately, playing nice doesn’t generate high ratings for the nightly news, or eye-catching headlines in tomorrow’s paper. Could you imagine? “Bush, Kerry Agree To Share Toys.” Details at 11.
I hate to take the side of the president, since everyone knows what a horrible God-fearing person he is, but is there even a remote possibility that Bush did not dream up Hurricane Katrina as a way to kill black people? Is it possible that the war in Iraq was meant to stop the atrocities of a crazed dictator who was killing off his own people by the tens of thousands? Is it also possible that tax cuts across every economic spectrum were meant to spur a lagging economy and make this country a better place for lower, middle and upper income folks alike? Maybe?
It’s a wonder that no president has ever gotten up in front of his presidential pulpit and said “Screw you guys; I’m going home.” Everyone these days seems to want to hate on the president and his cabinet of merry pranksters. But truth be told, it looks to me like the guy is trying his best amidst a time of terrible events. Why can’t we all just take a step back and say, “Hey, just because you prioritize differently than I do, maybe that doesn’t make you a bad person. Do you want to play with my Legos®?
And that’s my political rant for this year. I promise for the rest of the year to focus on more pressing issues like oatmeal, and National Talk Like A Pirate Day. Actually, I’m almost finished with my National Talk Like A Pirate Day entry. So you have that to look forward to… which is nice.
Over on the far left The Michael Moore’s, Cindy Sheehan’s, and John Kerry’s of the world are all screaming at the top of their lungs about how horribly the current administration is handling everything from the war in Iraq, to the nomination of judges and supreme court justices; from tax cuts, to the weather. The folks on the right aren’t much better or brighter, promising a smaller, more efficient government and military, while real world events necessitate spending billions of unbudgeted dollars.
Meanwhile everyone keeps attacking everyone else, using ridiculously flawed arguments to try to win public approval in the media. When Cindy Sheehan disgraces the memory of her heroic fallen son, the lefties cry “She has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!” When John Kerry calls an ongoing military operation “the wrong war at the wrong time,” demoralizing troops by calling into question the legality and morality of their actions, the message repeats, “He has the right! Freedom of speech is guaranteed!”
Well I say take your freedom of speech and shove it up your ass. I don’t care what Cindy Sheehan or John Kerry think. I don’t really care much anymore what the Bill-o-Reilly’s of the world think either. Freedom of speech is a good idea in concept, but to use it as an excuse to sling hatred and animosity around, well, I just think that maybe some of those free speakers should shut the f*** up.
Look, as far as I can tell, we’re all in this together. Everyone would be much better served by the politicians and the folks in the media trying to figure out some way we can all get along and play nice together. Unfortunately, playing nice doesn’t generate high ratings for the nightly news, or eye-catching headlines in tomorrow’s paper. Could you imagine? “Bush, Kerry Agree To Share Toys.” Details at 11.
I hate to take the side of the president, since everyone knows what a horrible God-fearing person he is, but is there even a remote possibility that Bush did not dream up Hurricane Katrina as a way to kill black people? Is it possible that the war in Iraq was meant to stop the atrocities of a crazed dictator who was killing off his own people by the tens of thousands? Is it also possible that tax cuts across every economic spectrum were meant to spur a lagging economy and make this country a better place for lower, middle and upper income folks alike? Maybe?
It’s a wonder that no president has ever gotten up in front of his presidential pulpit and said “Screw you guys; I’m going home.” Everyone these days seems to want to hate on the president and his cabinet of merry pranksters. But truth be told, it looks to me like the guy is trying his best amidst a time of terrible events. Why can’t we all just take a step back and say, “Hey, just because you prioritize differently than I do, maybe that doesn’t make you a bad person. Do you want to play with my Legos®?
And that’s my political rant for this year. I promise for the rest of the year to focus on more pressing issues like oatmeal, and National Talk Like A Pirate Day. Actually, I’m almost finished with my National Talk Like A Pirate Day entry. So you have that to look forward to… which is nice.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Formatting Experiment
For the next couple of days I am going to have all of my previous posts displayed on the starting page of my blog. Not sure if this will slow down the page loading, or be a convenient way to look over the history of my blog, or whatever, so if you have any thoughts feel free to share them here. Seriously, any thoughts at all... Who do you like in the Dolphins-Jets game this weekend?
Where there's smoke, there's a good chance that my son is fixing oatmeal
I hate my alarm clock. Loud, shrill noises first thing in the morning in general annoy me, and I tend to try my best to ignore them. That's why my actions this morning were not all that surprising to me.
My alarm started going off early this morning, and as usual, I was doing my best to pretend I couldn't hear it. Every so often I would pound at it with my fist, and it would quiet down for awhile. It's a game we play every morning that I have to be at work. It normally results in my oversleeping and having to rush around like a madman to make it into work on time, or occasionally, a few minutes late.
The odd thing about this particular morning was after playing a few rounds of snooze-button-wack-a-mole, the shrill bleeping of the clock was joined by a somewhat softer, gentler bleeping, coming from downstairs. This new bleeping wasn't nearly as annoying as the alarm clock though, so I quickly decided I could probably just ignore it, as it wouldn't be that much of an impediment to my sleep. That's when my wife chimed in.
"Is that the fire alarm?"
"Yeah." I said, before rolling over to continue attempting to get back to sleep. I like to think of myself as a man of action, not just words.
"Do you think you should check to see why it's going off?" She continued, obviously not taking the hint that sometimes a comfy pillow trumps knowing definitively whether or not your house is burning down.
"Oh, ok." I said, and got out of bed.
About this time I began to realize that maybe the fire alarm going off was a cause for concern. Let's just say I'm not the brightest cookie in the jar first thing in the morning.
I hurry downstairs and hear my son start calling out for me or his mother. Smoke is billowing across the living room, but I notice no open flames there, a good sign to be sure. I continue on to the kitchen and behold, there on the stove top a cozy little blaze is burning away.
For awhile I watch it burn while my brain processes the possibility that this does not belong. It's a rather complicated thought process for this early in the morning, after all, it's a fire in the kitchen. Isn't the kitchen supposed to have fire? I mean, it is where we cook our food.
Eventually reason wins out and I pour a glass of water. Well, actually before I pour the water I try blowing on the fire for awhile. Yeah, I'm smart. Mensa member and whatnot. So, surprise, feeding a fire extra amounts of one of its key ingredients doesn't work, so that's when I pour a glass of water and dump it on the stove. Fire out, crisis resolved by the lightning quick response of a former member of a Naval firefighting team. Or something like that.
Apparently, what had happened was this. My son woke up early and decided to make himself a bowl of instant oatmeal. He turned the burner on under our teapot to heat up some water. Unfortunately, an oven mit was still on the handle of the tea pot, and at some point the mit slipped down onto the gas burner and ignited. How any kids survive past the age of 5 is all I can wonder...
After it was all over I dedicated the Talking Heads song "Burning down the house" to my son, tapping him on the shoulder every time they got to the part in the song where they sing "Burning down the house." We laughed and laughed, or at least I laughed while he smiled sheepishly, but the point is a good time was had by all. I think it's important to make it fun for kids when they all but burn your house down. It encourages them to try harder next time.
My alarm started going off early this morning, and as usual, I was doing my best to pretend I couldn't hear it. Every so often I would pound at it with my fist, and it would quiet down for awhile. It's a game we play every morning that I have to be at work. It normally results in my oversleeping and having to rush around like a madman to make it into work on time, or occasionally, a few minutes late.
The odd thing about this particular morning was after playing a few rounds of snooze-button-wack-a-mole, the shrill bleeping of the clock was joined by a somewhat softer, gentler bleeping, coming from downstairs. This new bleeping wasn't nearly as annoying as the alarm clock though, so I quickly decided I could probably just ignore it, as it wouldn't be that much of an impediment to my sleep. That's when my wife chimed in.
"Is that the fire alarm?"
"Yeah." I said, before rolling over to continue attempting to get back to sleep. I like to think of myself as a man of action, not just words.
"Do you think you should check to see why it's going off?" She continued, obviously not taking the hint that sometimes a comfy pillow trumps knowing definitively whether or not your house is burning down.
"Oh, ok." I said, and got out of bed.
About this time I began to realize that maybe the fire alarm going off was a cause for concern. Let's just say I'm not the brightest cookie in the jar first thing in the morning.
I hurry downstairs and hear my son start calling out for me or his mother. Smoke is billowing across the living room, but I notice no open flames there, a good sign to be sure. I continue on to the kitchen and behold, there on the stove top a cozy little blaze is burning away.
For awhile I watch it burn while my brain processes the possibility that this does not belong. It's a rather complicated thought process for this early in the morning, after all, it's a fire in the kitchen. Isn't the kitchen supposed to have fire? I mean, it is where we cook our food.
Eventually reason wins out and I pour a glass of water. Well, actually before I pour the water I try blowing on the fire for awhile. Yeah, I'm smart. Mensa member and whatnot. So, surprise, feeding a fire extra amounts of one of its key ingredients doesn't work, so that's when I pour a glass of water and dump it on the stove. Fire out, crisis resolved by the lightning quick response of a former member of a Naval firefighting team. Or something like that.
Apparently, what had happened was this. My son woke up early and decided to make himself a bowl of instant oatmeal. He turned the burner on under our teapot to heat up some water. Unfortunately, an oven mit was still on the handle of the tea pot, and at some point the mit slipped down onto the gas burner and ignited. How any kids survive past the age of 5 is all I can wonder...
After it was all over I dedicated the Talking Heads song "Burning down the house" to my son, tapping him on the shoulder every time they got to the part in the song where they sing "Burning down the house." We laughed and laughed, or at least I laughed while he smiled sheepishly, but the point is a good time was had by all. I think it's important to make it fun for kids when they all but burn your house down. It encourages them to try harder next time.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Thursday, September 15, 2005
My First Blog Recommendation
I haven't made a habit of linking to other people's blogs. To tell you the truth, there are very few out there that seem at all interesting to me. Hypocritical you say? Do I envision myself as somehow superior? Not really, after all, I'm not 100% convinced that if I found this blog while surfing the net, and had no prior knowledge of this Michael Moore Jr character, that I would spend very much time reading this drivel that I keep typing day in and day out (with the obvious exception of the days and weeks that go by when I type nothing...) Nevertheless, I was at work tonight and stumbled across this blog: http://thevelvetgoldmine.blogspot.com/, and I really enjoyed reading it. I'm not sure why. The author is obviously from the other side of the political spectrum, from the other side of every conceivable spectrum as a matter of fact. His writing however is refreshingly clear and intelligent, and at the same time completely devoid of pretentiousness. Also he seems to read a lot, a trait I find endearing. So I'm making my first blog recommendation. Other than my blog. I still recommend it.
The Pudding Man
For those of you old enough to remember the heady days of Mike's House-o-Chocolate Puddin', today's post is a repeat. This story originally appeared on that site way back in 2000. Since that time I've toyed with the idea of turning the story into a three-part saga, and at one point actually started working on part two. Currently part two remains unfinished, but it shows signs of being ready for posting any day. In anticipation of this, I thought it might be a good idea to post Part 1 here first. Enjoy!
The Pudding Man
His descent into madness had occurred quickly and had started with that last, fateful chocolate pudding run. His mind was ablaze with hatred, hatred for those who so thoughtlessly paraded their seemingly endless supply of pudding in front of him as if to mock his own inability to supply pudding for his family. He knew it was through no fault of his own that his children frequently came to him in tears over the lack of pudding in the cupboard. What was he to do? He owned an extremely successful advertising firm and brought in well over six figures a year. When he was younger this had seemed like more than enough to support a family of four, but as the years passed, so did his hunger for chocolate pudding grow, until it had eventually become something beyond his control. He laughed cruelly as he found himself checking once more for any stray pudding cups that might have fallen behind some of the other dried goods which he stored in the pantry. Not that there was much other food in the house these days. He sullenly recalled the reaction which he had garnered from his wife on his return from his last trip to the grocer. She had become uncharacteristically enraged as she watched him unload case after case of chocolate pudding cups from the back of their SUV.
"Didn’t you buy anything besides PUDDING at the store, Harold?" She had screamed in what seemed to him to be a rather unprovoked attack.
"Umm, no honey... why would I? We need the pudding. The... the kids... they need the pudding. I tried to get some Raman noodles, but the cashier said it brought the total over my credit limit so I had to put them back. You understand, don’t you sweet’ums?"
And just like that, she had left him, taking the kids, the dog, the SUV and, most painful of all, at least to Harold, a case of his sacred chocolate pudding. She had left over a week ago, and still Harold felt certain that she would return at any moment, possibly with the unfinished case of chocolate pudding in tow. How sweet would that be, to be reunited with his beloved pudding? Oh yeah, and his family too, as long as they stayed away from his pudding cups.
But Harold knew this kind of thinking was getting him nowhere. Sure mistakes had been made, mostly on his wife’s part for never fully appreciating his powerful need for chocolate pudding, but now was not the time to point fingers, now was the time for action. He grabbed his coat, a pair of his wife’s nylons that she had fortuitously left behind and his 9mm, and made his way outside to hail a taxi.
When he arrived at the grocer’s he exited the taxi, politely thanking the cabby for the enjoyable conversation, and slipped through the grocery store’s automatic doors into the harsh, glaring light of his destiny. He would have his pudding, all the pudding he ever needed and more. He slipped the nylon stocking over his head and purposefully wrapped his sticky fingers around the handle of his 9mm pistol. The other customers, engrossed in intense mathematical equations involving cost to package weight ratio comparisons, did not even notice as Harold strode to the storage room in the back of the store.
"Hello there." Harold calmly intoned as he entered the office of the store manager, who was busily poring over invoices and had failed to notice Harold, "This is a stickup. Please have one of your boys load the chocolate pudding into a truck for me. I mean no harm, and if you do what I say you’ll be back to your paperwork in no time."
The store manager looked up slowly from the mound of papers. He squinted thoughtfully at the figure standing before him. Then it came to him.
"Harold? Harold... Peterson? That’s you, isn’t it?"
"Yeah... I mean no. I mean... don’t worry about who I am, just get your boys loading that pudding," Harold answered, trying to fight off the embarrassment of being recognized. He knew he should have gone to a store further away from his home, but he had been a little short on cab fare.
"Harold, what in blazes do you think you’re doing? First of all you look ridiculous in that pantyhose and secondly, you just came in here last week and bought up the last of my pudding. I told you then that I don’t have anymore, and I don’t."
Harold was not about to be thwarted that easily. He had been ready for the manager’s lies.
"Don’t GIVE me that crap. I KNOW you keep extra stuff in the BACK here, so just get your BOYS to load it into a truck and I’LL be on my WAY." He jabbed outward with the pistol in his coat pocket with each stressed word, to emphasize that he was not fooling around.
"Now Harold, just calm down. You don’t want to..."
"Don’t tell me what I want! And stop calling me Harold! Now do what I say or you’re going to be sorry!" Harold liked the feeling of power that was coursing through him, and even more he liked the anticipation of all the sweet, delicious pudding that would soon be his.
"Okay, okay, I admit we’ve got some extra boxes of pudding cups laying around, but the thing is..."
"Just shut up! I’ve heard enough of your mouth. Now go get your boys to load them up or there’s gonna be trouble!"
The store manager could tell that Harold was out of control. Sighing heavily, he stood and led Harold into the storage room where, much to the surprise of the boys working back there, he ordered them to load up a truck with the extra boxes of pudding. While they were loading, the manager tried again and again to plead his case with Harold, but Harold would immediately shush him before he could get more than a few words out. Harold was enraptured watching all of that wonderful pudding being loaded into the truck, cases upon cases, more than he had ever imagined would be there.
About a half hour later, Harold rushed into his house carrying a case of the chocolate pudding. Ripping off the top of the box he proceeded to devour pudding cup after pudding cup until he was soon feeling quite bloated. He knew that he didn’t have much time, since the store manager had surely alerted the authorities by now, but as he was getting up a sudden sharp pain cut into his midsection. Harold dropped to the floor, grasping his belly and writhing on the ground in agony. What was happening to him? He suddenly felt quite dizzy and noticed the room around him start to go blurry. Just as the last corners of his vision began to close in around him he heard a door open and his wife’s voice seeming to come from a great distance.
"Harold, I’m back, I thought maybe we should try to work through this together. What’s that truck doing in the driveway... Oh my! Harold! What’s wrong?" She ran forward to her dying husband, throwing the case of pudding and a newspaper that she had been carrying onto the kitchen table as she passed. The headline of the paper read: "Poisoned Pudding Delivery Baffles Local Grocer."
Back at the grocery store, the store manager was shaking his head. "Poor bastard," he said quietly to himself, "Poor dumb bastard."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
The Pudding Man
His descent into madness had occurred quickly and had started with that last, fateful chocolate pudding run. His mind was ablaze with hatred, hatred for those who so thoughtlessly paraded their seemingly endless supply of pudding in front of him as if to mock his own inability to supply pudding for his family. He knew it was through no fault of his own that his children frequently came to him in tears over the lack of pudding in the cupboard. What was he to do? He owned an extremely successful advertising firm and brought in well over six figures a year. When he was younger this had seemed like more than enough to support a family of four, but as the years passed, so did his hunger for chocolate pudding grow, until it had eventually become something beyond his control. He laughed cruelly as he found himself checking once more for any stray pudding cups that might have fallen behind some of the other dried goods which he stored in the pantry. Not that there was much other food in the house these days. He sullenly recalled the reaction which he had garnered from his wife on his return from his last trip to the grocer. She had become uncharacteristically enraged as she watched him unload case after case of chocolate pudding cups from the back of their SUV.
"Didn’t you buy anything besides PUDDING at the store, Harold?" She had screamed in what seemed to him to be a rather unprovoked attack.
"Umm, no honey... why would I? We need the pudding. The... the kids... they need the pudding. I tried to get some Raman noodles, but the cashier said it brought the total over my credit limit so I had to put them back. You understand, don’t you sweet’ums?"
And just like that, she had left him, taking the kids, the dog, the SUV and, most painful of all, at least to Harold, a case of his sacred chocolate pudding. She had left over a week ago, and still Harold felt certain that she would return at any moment, possibly with the unfinished case of chocolate pudding in tow. How sweet would that be, to be reunited with his beloved pudding? Oh yeah, and his family too, as long as they stayed away from his pudding cups.
But Harold knew this kind of thinking was getting him nowhere. Sure mistakes had been made, mostly on his wife’s part for never fully appreciating his powerful need for chocolate pudding, but now was not the time to point fingers, now was the time for action. He grabbed his coat, a pair of his wife’s nylons that she had fortuitously left behind and his 9mm, and made his way outside to hail a taxi.
When he arrived at the grocer’s he exited the taxi, politely thanking the cabby for the enjoyable conversation, and slipped through the grocery store’s automatic doors into the harsh, glaring light of his destiny. He would have his pudding, all the pudding he ever needed and more. He slipped the nylon stocking over his head and purposefully wrapped his sticky fingers around the handle of his 9mm pistol. The other customers, engrossed in intense mathematical equations involving cost to package weight ratio comparisons, did not even notice as Harold strode to the storage room in the back of the store.
"Hello there." Harold calmly intoned as he entered the office of the store manager, who was busily poring over invoices and had failed to notice Harold, "This is a stickup. Please have one of your boys load the chocolate pudding into a truck for me. I mean no harm, and if you do what I say you’ll be back to your paperwork in no time."
The store manager looked up slowly from the mound of papers. He squinted thoughtfully at the figure standing before him. Then it came to him.
"Harold? Harold... Peterson? That’s you, isn’t it?"
"Yeah... I mean no. I mean... don’t worry about who I am, just get your boys loading that pudding," Harold answered, trying to fight off the embarrassment of being recognized. He knew he should have gone to a store further away from his home, but he had been a little short on cab fare.
"Harold, what in blazes do you think you’re doing? First of all you look ridiculous in that pantyhose and secondly, you just came in here last week and bought up the last of my pudding. I told you then that I don’t have anymore, and I don’t."
Harold was not about to be thwarted that easily. He had been ready for the manager’s lies.
"Don’t GIVE me that crap. I KNOW you keep extra stuff in the BACK here, so just get your BOYS to load it into a truck and I’LL be on my WAY." He jabbed outward with the pistol in his coat pocket with each stressed word, to emphasize that he was not fooling around.
"Now Harold, just calm down. You don’t want to..."
"Don’t tell me what I want! And stop calling me Harold! Now do what I say or you’re going to be sorry!" Harold liked the feeling of power that was coursing through him, and even more he liked the anticipation of all the sweet, delicious pudding that would soon be his.
"Okay, okay, I admit we’ve got some extra boxes of pudding cups laying around, but the thing is..."
"Just shut up! I’ve heard enough of your mouth. Now go get your boys to load them up or there’s gonna be trouble!"
The store manager could tell that Harold was out of control. Sighing heavily, he stood and led Harold into the storage room where, much to the surprise of the boys working back there, he ordered them to load up a truck with the extra boxes of pudding. While they were loading, the manager tried again and again to plead his case with Harold, but Harold would immediately shush him before he could get more than a few words out. Harold was enraptured watching all of that wonderful pudding being loaded into the truck, cases upon cases, more than he had ever imagined would be there.
About a half hour later, Harold rushed into his house carrying a case of the chocolate pudding. Ripping off the top of the box he proceeded to devour pudding cup after pudding cup until he was soon feeling quite bloated. He knew that he didn’t have much time, since the store manager had surely alerted the authorities by now, but as he was getting up a sudden sharp pain cut into his midsection. Harold dropped to the floor, grasping his belly and writhing on the ground in agony. What was happening to him? He suddenly felt quite dizzy and noticed the room around him start to go blurry. Just as the last corners of his vision began to close in around him he heard a door open and his wife’s voice seeming to come from a great distance.
"Harold, I’m back, I thought maybe we should try to work through this together. What’s that truck doing in the driveway... Oh my! Harold! What’s wrong?" She ran forward to her dying husband, throwing the case of pudding and a newspaper that she had been carrying onto the kitchen table as she passed. The headline of the paper read: "Poisoned Pudding Delivery Baffles Local Grocer."
Back at the grocery store, the store manager was shaking his head. "Poor bastard," he said quietly to himself, "Poor dumb bastard."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Feel free to treat this picture as though it were not really here
I know I said no more pictures today, but that was before I stumbled across this guy. How could I keep this guy all to myself?
Michael Moore's Day Off - Pt 2
Ok, I obviously have far too much free time on my days off during the week. Case in point, the pictures I'm about to upload to my blog. Just downloaded the picasa software that automatically uploads photos to your blog, so now I feel obliged to try it out a little...
Truly Underdeveloped Thinking
I just downloaded Blogger for Word, so I thought I’d test it out. I’m also going to be updating a couple of past posts, and who knows? I might just babble about a couple of new things while I’m at it. First I want to address the Kanye West post. It actually surprised me a little that of all of my recent posts, this would be the one without anyone making a comment.
Nobody has any opinions on this? I mean, I obviously think the man is retarded, but I’m sure there are tons of people out there who disagree, and think that he eloquently summed up the situation. I would particularly like to hear from those people, not to make fun of them or debase them in any way, but merely to let them know how stupid they are. Anyway, a friend of mine sent me a link to a lovely article about President Bush’s reaction to Katrina and if you’d like to read it, just click here.
The second post that I feel needs updating is the one where I mentioned a quote by Douglas Adams, but didn’t at the time specifically know what it was. Well, I’m all about information dissemination, so since no one else was nice enough to supply me with it, I went ahead and found it my damn self. It is as follows:
"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
It’s a good quote, I think, so I felt like I should share it with you. Any search engines out there who want to make life easy on people should feel free to link the search “Douglas Adams technology quote” to this page. You’ll save everyone a lot of time and effort I promise. Google I’m talking specifically to you. Stop being such a little bitch about how you rank pages and just give the people what they want.
Well, I do have some more stuff to talk about today, but right now I’m hungry, so instead of finishing what I intended to, I’m going to go eat a salad. Before I go, did you notice the new thing on the side of my blog that tells you how many people are on my blog? How cool is that?
Nobody has any opinions on this? I mean, I obviously think the man is retarded, but I’m sure there are tons of people out there who disagree, and think that he eloquently summed up the situation. I would particularly like to hear from those people, not to make fun of them or debase them in any way, but merely to let them know how stupid they are. Anyway, a friend of mine sent me a link to a lovely article about President Bush’s reaction to Katrina and if you’d like to read it, just click here.
The second post that I feel needs updating is the one where I mentioned a quote by Douglas Adams, but didn’t at the time specifically know what it was. Well, I’m all about information dissemination, so since no one else was nice enough to supply me with it, I went ahead and found it my damn self. It is as follows:
"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
It’s a good quote, I think, so I felt like I should share it with you. Any search engines out there who want to make life easy on people should feel free to link the search “Douglas Adams technology quote” to this page. You’ll save everyone a lot of time and effort I promise. Google I’m talking specifically to you. Stop being such a little bitch about how you rank pages and just give the people what they want.
Well, I do have some more stuff to talk about today, but right now I’m hungry, so instead of finishing what I intended to, I’m going to go eat a salad. Before I go, did you notice the new thing on the side of my blog that tells you how many people are on my blog? How cool is that?
Michael Moore's Day Off - Pt 1
When I first envisioned writing this post, I imagined that it would turn out a lot like that classic 80's movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I'd ride around all day in my friend's father's convertible, visiting museums and possibly becoming a central figure in a huge parade. It didn't take much of my actual day transpiring before I realized that being a 32-year-old father is not quite the same as being the main character in a John Hughes's coming of age movie...
My day did start with a little John Hughes-like tension. Comfortably wavering in bed between blissful sleep and the uncomfortable state known as "wakefulness" which has marred so many of my otherwise pleasant days, a frenzied commotion began to assert itself into my limited consciousness, and before I was even fully aware of what was happening, wakefulness had won out, and sleep was no more than a faint memory. It seems my son was on the verge of missing the bus.
I heard my son frantically running around upstairs, asking for lunch money, of which my wife apparently had none. I myself was rather short of any coinage or currency, so my first words of the morning were along the lines of suggesting to my son that he use his own money for lunch and that we would reimburse him at some later time, preferably one in which he was not in danger of missing his ride to school. This offer must have seemed reasonable enough to him, because he was soon running downstairs and out the door. As he was running downstairs I heard a sound coming from outside which resembled greatly the sound that a bus makes as it drives off without my son.
Sure enough, my son soon reentered the house to declare that he had missed the bus. I finally found myself with enough motivation to actually get out of bed, knowing that since today was my day off, I would be the one tasked with taking Caleb to school. As I began to dress the incriminations, rebuttals and recriminations began. Why had Caleb missed the bus? What was he doing instead of getting ready? From what I could gather he had had 40 minutes to get dressed, during which time he maintained he only dressed and watched a pair of his socks dry on a chair. My wife believed that there was more involved, and that he was withholding key information, information that quite possibly involved his interactions with electronic equipment, not to exclude a Gameboy, a certain downstairs television, or a PC version of his favorite video game, Zoo Tycoon. I personally fealt that the Zoo Tycoon angle was a much more likely scenario than the 40 minutes of watching socks dry on a chair, no matter how much I like to try to believe my son.
In my son's defense, the sock-drying story does have at least some basis in reality. A day earlier my wife had informed me that Caleb was out of clean white clothes. I had loaded the washer with whites that night, but had failed to move said whites into the dryer. So it's completely possible that my son fealt he had to let a pair of his socks dry on a chair. A better solution may have been to throw the same socks into the dryer for 15-20 minutes, but my son is only 10 years old, so cut him some slack here. His story only breaks down when he begins to maintain that while his socks were drying, he spent 40 minutes doing nothing other than dressing and watching them dry.
I tried to ascertain the truth of what happened through logic, a poor tactic to use on a 10-year-old under any circumstance. I went so far as to offer to recreate the experience tomorrow, watching him while he dressed and watched socks dry for forty minutes. I tried to point out the ridiculousness of his claims. All of my efforts were for naught however, and my son was still maintaing his story as I drove him to school.
What are those victories that you win that aren't really winning? Anyone? Anyone? A Pyrrhic victory. That is what I eventually won that morning as I pulled into his school's parking lot. I had told Caleb that if he wouldn't tell me what really happened this morning I was going to punish him. All I wanted was for him to tell the truth about what he did that made him late for the bus. I asked him time and time again and he maintained his story time and time again. Caleb is nothing if not committed to his stories. He'd make a good mobster. Finally, as we pulled into the parking lot of his school, I offered him one last chance. Admit that he did more than watch socks dry and get dressed or he would be punished. His response?
"Well, I guess I'll lie and say I was watching television."
Game, set, match. He's a wily one this child of mine. I still have no idea what he spent his time on this morning. I'll probably never know.
So that was the start of my big day off. After the excitement of the morning I took it down a couple of notches by fixing myself a bowl of oatmeal and watching President Bush address the United Nations, while I typed up this blog entry. What adventures await me for the rest of my day? Only time will tell. I might do more laundry. Or even fix myself a second cup of tea. I'm crazy like that. All I know is you'd be crazy to not check back and see...
My day did start with a little John Hughes-like tension. Comfortably wavering in bed between blissful sleep and the uncomfortable state known as "wakefulness" which has marred so many of my otherwise pleasant days, a frenzied commotion began to assert itself into my limited consciousness, and before I was even fully aware of what was happening, wakefulness had won out, and sleep was no more than a faint memory. It seems my son was on the verge of missing the bus.
I heard my son frantically running around upstairs, asking for lunch money, of which my wife apparently had none. I myself was rather short of any coinage or currency, so my first words of the morning were along the lines of suggesting to my son that he use his own money for lunch and that we would reimburse him at some later time, preferably one in which he was not in danger of missing his ride to school. This offer must have seemed reasonable enough to him, because he was soon running downstairs and out the door. As he was running downstairs I heard a sound coming from outside which resembled greatly the sound that a bus makes as it drives off without my son.
Sure enough, my son soon reentered the house to declare that he had missed the bus. I finally found myself with enough motivation to actually get out of bed, knowing that since today was my day off, I would be the one tasked with taking Caleb to school. As I began to dress the incriminations, rebuttals and recriminations began. Why had Caleb missed the bus? What was he doing instead of getting ready? From what I could gather he had had 40 minutes to get dressed, during which time he maintained he only dressed and watched a pair of his socks dry on a chair. My wife believed that there was more involved, and that he was withholding key information, information that quite possibly involved his interactions with electronic equipment, not to exclude a Gameboy, a certain downstairs television, or a PC version of his favorite video game, Zoo Tycoon. I personally fealt that the Zoo Tycoon angle was a much more likely scenario than the 40 minutes of watching socks dry on a chair, no matter how much I like to try to believe my son.
In my son's defense, the sock-drying story does have at least some basis in reality. A day earlier my wife had informed me that Caleb was out of clean white clothes. I had loaded the washer with whites that night, but had failed to move said whites into the dryer. So it's completely possible that my son fealt he had to let a pair of his socks dry on a chair. A better solution may have been to throw the same socks into the dryer for 15-20 minutes, but my son is only 10 years old, so cut him some slack here. His story only breaks down when he begins to maintain that while his socks were drying, he spent 40 minutes doing nothing other than dressing and watching them dry.
I tried to ascertain the truth of what happened through logic, a poor tactic to use on a 10-year-old under any circumstance. I went so far as to offer to recreate the experience tomorrow, watching him while he dressed and watched socks dry for forty minutes. I tried to point out the ridiculousness of his claims. All of my efforts were for naught however, and my son was still maintaing his story as I drove him to school.
What are those victories that you win that aren't really winning? Anyone? Anyone? A Pyrrhic victory. That is what I eventually won that morning as I pulled into his school's parking lot. I had told Caleb that if he wouldn't tell me what really happened this morning I was going to punish him. All I wanted was for him to tell the truth about what he did that made him late for the bus. I asked him time and time again and he maintained his story time and time again. Caleb is nothing if not committed to his stories. He'd make a good mobster. Finally, as we pulled into the parking lot of his school, I offered him one last chance. Admit that he did more than watch socks dry and get dressed or he would be punished. His response?
"Well, I guess I'll lie and say I was watching television."
Game, set, match. He's a wily one this child of mine. I still have no idea what he spent his time on this morning. I'll probably never know.
So that was the start of my big day off. After the excitement of the morning I took it down a couple of notches by fixing myself a bowl of oatmeal and watching President Bush address the United Nations, while I typed up this blog entry. What adventures await me for the rest of my day? Only time will tell. I might do more laundry. Or even fix myself a second cup of tea. I'm crazy like that. All I know is you'd be crazy to not check back and see...
Sunday, September 11, 2005
I think crap like this is funny
Do me a favor. Open up yahoo and do a search for "greatest quote of all time". Feel free to include the quotation marks and the lower case format there, because that's how I found it. Afterwards, come back here and tell me what you found. Right now I'm particularly interested in the 10th site that comes up...
Funny thing is, it doesn't even point to the greatest quote of all time, which we all know to be from Donald Rumsfeld...
Funny thing is, it doesn't even point to the greatest quote of all time, which we all know to be from Donald Rumsfeld...
Ancient wisdom from the west
The following comments do not reflect the opinions of anyone I know who is not terminally ignorant.
“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!”
“George Bush doesn't care about black people!”
- Kanye West, Sep, 2005.
I encourage everyone to help anyway, despite the fact that apparently George Bush does not like black people.
“I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They're looting." You see a white family, it says, "They're looking for food." And, you know, it's been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I've tried to turn away from the TV because it's too hard to watch. I've even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I'm calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help -- with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way -- and they've given them permission to go down and shoot us!”
“George Bush doesn't care about black people!”
- Kanye West, Sep, 2005.
I encourage everyone to help anyway, despite the fact that apparently George Bush does not like black people.
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