Two Minutes...

For we who grew up tall and proud, In the shadow of the mushroom cloud
Convinced our voices can't be heard, We just wanna scream it louder, and louder, and louder
What the hell we fighting for?
Just surrender and it won't hurt at all
You just got time to say your prayers
While your waiting for the hammer to, hammer to fall

-Queen (Freddy Mercury)

Like new curtains

I'm thinking about adding some blog things to liven up the place. Some of them were kind of fun, and some (I.Q. & Observation ones) made me realize that I might be smarter than the people who wrote the things. It really does depend on which side of the fan you're standing on and if you can't provide me with a multiple choice selection that includes the right answer, how do you expect me to get it 'right'?
We'll see how it goes.

The Universe Song

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And people are stupid, wicked, or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite enouuuuuuuuuuuugh . . .

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.
It's orbiting at ninety miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
Through an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars,
It's a hundred thousand lightyears side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand lightyears thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand lightyears wide.
We're thirty thousand lightyears from galactic central point,
We go round every two hundred million years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions and billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz.
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know;
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
Cause there's bugger-all down here on earth!

And The Winner Is!

When I started this thing I'd been reading lots of blogs. The one thing I noticed was a lack of comments and interaction. So I wondered how long I'd go without a comment. I didn't have to wait long. I guess it pays to make friends with cool and intelligent people. Thanks to Wynwyn for stepping up and posting. (Thanks Wyn!)
If anybody reads all the stuff I ramble about here and decides to surf over to her blog, she's smart, funny, good looking, and kind to people in general (maybe that's a Canadian thing?) - so play nice, people.

STNR

How bored do you have to be? Myspace.com - where illiterate skanks go to hang. The signal to noise ratio over there is truly depressing. Yeah, there are some regular people having regular conversations, but look at the crap you have to wade through to find them. Girls are 'surprised' by how popular they are - well yeah, you're also half naked. Hookers get attention that way too. Not that the guys are much better, they seem to let the little head do the thinking most of the time. Is this the future of the nation? Is it that hard to use sentences?

Kids these days.

I've been surfing blogs again and I've run across several belonging to under-aged kids. I think it's cool that they have access and a voice with which to address the world, but golly gee whiz kids, don't give away so much personal information, huh? Giving out your real name, age, hometown, and the name of the school you go to is more dangerous than you know. I don't live any place you could call heavily urban, and there's a registered child molester within walking distance. The information is out there if you look. Play it safe, okay?

Ten Thousand Monkeys

You know that saying about letting ten thousand monkeys type for ten thousand years? Well, thanks to a recent pseudo-scientific experiment we've discovered that it only takes one thousand monkeys and you only have to let them bang on the keys for about ten years for them to come up with the 'theory' of Intelligent Design.

I don't like Spam!

Still funny after all these years.

Women Drivers

Ladies, ever wonder why the man in your life is reluctant to let you drive his car? We've seen how you drive shopping carts. While talking on the phone. While holding the glass door to the cooler case open long enough to fog up four more. And then going through the 20 item line with a heaping cart-full. And then discovering you don't have your wallet with you. And then, after holding up the line while you find your checkbook, you go out and load your stuff into the car but can't be bothered to take the ten extra steps to put the cart in the corral. And then drive up the asile the wrong way and don't use any turn signals - because you're still talking on the phone.
Ladies, if this *isn't* you, you should be aware there are women out there giving you a bad reputation.

What's wrong with this moron?

"US Evangelical leader Pat Robertson sent a letter of apology Thursday to Omri Sharon for his remarks last week suggesting that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for the Gaza withdrawal, The Jerusalem Post has learned." It just never stops with you, does it?
From his own website:
"God is good. Pat Robertson encourages us to taste and see." Eeewwwww. Broke-Pat Mountain?
"I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it." Tune in next week to 'Pat's Whack a World Leader Contest'.
"I resent people who deliberately distort the truth for their own political aims. " What about Religious aims?
I could go on for days, but just go here:
THE ANTI-PAT ROBERTSON / CHRISTIAN COALITION SITE

By himself this guy would be funny, but people watch him, listen to him, and send him money. Be afraid.

Anonymity

The Internet gives more people a voice than ever before. Unfortunately some of them have a seemingly endless reservoir of vitriol and derision that they've tapped with a fire hose and are eager to spray all over anything they lay eyes on. Reproving responses only seem to make it worse, while ignoring them seems to deprive them of whatever reward they glean from this behavior.
Another interesting thing about this electronic forum is that it's much harder to get by on your looks. People are more likely to evaluate you based on your intelligence, strength of personality, and communicative skills. How cool is that?

Frey-cuss

Obviously, I don't know all the legal details and wrangling involved in the James Frey mess, but I think if I were the publisher of this book, I'd stop shipping the thing and donate whatever copies I still had to libraries so people who are curious could read it for free. Then I think I'd put the text up free on the web for anyone to download. That way, I don't look like a greed driven, uncaring, corporate machine and Frey doesn't get to profit from lying. Nobody gets another cent from the thing. Most people will do the right thing for their society, while most companies will do the right thing for their bottom line. Greed sucks, Ted.

Hype

Are we tired of the Marketing hype yet? Are we tired of being lied to and hearing implied promises that products could never live up to?
Take, for example, the Segway scooter. Wasn't this thing going to change the face of our cites? Revolutionize the way we travel? Save the earth? Maybe eliminate world hunger or some such thing?
And where is it? Disappointing sales, a recall, outlawed from the sidewalks in some cities? Is it possible that at the price of some used cars, it's just an expensive toy? Is it possible that normal people could have told you that the day they announced it?
And what the hell ever happened to Swatch Time? Did I miss the switch-over?
And aren't all these antibacterial products supposed to keep us from getting sick? Hasn't plain old soap been doing that since the Roman empire?
And while we're at it, how does anybody make money from spamming? It seems to be almost universally hated. If you want it gone, don't write laws against it, (like the war on drugs - how's that working out?) just take away the profit potential.
Sorry for the rant, but sometimes it just has to be done.

Crunchy Frog

"Nevertheless, I must warn you that in future you should delete the words 'crunchy frog' and replace them with the legend 'crunchy raw unboned real dead frog', if you want to avoid prosecution."
"What about our sales?"
"I'm not interested in your sales. I have to protect the general public. Now how about this one. It was number five, wasn't it? Number five, ram's bladder cup. What kind of confection is this?"
"We use the choicest juicy chunks of fresh Cornish ram's bladder, emptied, steamed, flavoured with sesame seeds whipped into a fondue and garnished with lark's vomit."
"Lark's vomit?"
"Correct"
"Well it don't say nothing about that here."
"Oh yes it does, on the bottom of the box, after monosodium glutamate."
"Well I hardly think this is good enough. I think it would be more appropriate if the box bore a large red label warning lark's vomit."
"Our sales would plummet."
"Well why don't you move into more conventional areas of confectionery, like praline or lime cream; a very popular flavour I'm led to understand. I mean look at this one 'cockroach cluster', 'anthrax ripple'. What's this one, 'spring surprise'?"
"Ah - now, that's our specialty - covered with the darkest creamy chocolate. When you pop it in your mouth steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through both cheeks,"
"Well where's the pleasure in that? If people place a nice chocky in their mouth, they don't want their cheeks pierced. In any case this is an inadequate description of the sweetmeat. I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the station."
"It's a fair cop."
"Stop talking to the camera."

Python back on PBS. Warm fuzzy feeling. Life is good.

Women, Meet Men

Men tend to be less complicated than women, no secret there. Uncomplicated is not synonymous with stupid. Sometimes when you think you've out-smarted us, you haven't, it just wasn't worth starting a fight over.
"He doesn't listen to a word I say." We're not deaf. We hear it all, but it isn't always a question and we have no idea what kind of response you expect since we can't read minds. If we say the wrong thing, we're in trouble. If we say nothing, we're in trouble. We're getting it either way, so why open our mouths and give ammunition for next time. You taught us that.
You can tease us, taunt us, temp us, insult us, pick at us, try to change us, take our money, take our innocence, test our patience, crush our hopes, try to break our spirit - and when danger threatens you, whatever it is, whenever it is, we'll still be right out there on the sharp end, selflessly putting ourselves between you and it, because it's who we are. It's what we do. Every time. And the only thanks we've EVER wanted is that you try not to have us do it needlessly. We'd like to count for something before we go.

Suicidal

I've been reading other people's blogs lately and I've discovered some people that I like. Honest, brave people. I've tried to talk, post, and interact with them, it's kind of a human connection thing. It doesn't cost me anything to be nice to people, and even less when they display qualities I admire.
But there's one that troubles me. There's a young woman on the other side of the planet who's blog is very dark and troubled. I gather that she cuts herself and thinks too much about her own death. It looks like she's trying to escape some deep pain, though I don't know what it is. I feel like I should say something, but I can't come up with anything that wouldn't sound small and useless. Maybe just making the attempt is the important thing. I'll ruminate on it for a while before I decide.

V.P. Dick

Hey, let's go hunting. Come on, it'll be fun. I promise not to shoot you in the face.

Not a Muslin

I'm glad I'm not a Muslim these days. The Danes print some cartoons that make them look like crazy, violent, mad bombing, martyrs. Musilms around the world are understandably upset and they protest and complain. Then a small, but very noticable, number of them go out and prove the catoonists right. What's that saying about it not being slander if it's true? I'm glad I'm not a Muslim as I imagine it must be frustrating to have your beliefs impuned and your voice ignored because some members of your group have no control their over their temper.

(Inhale) Hmmmmmmm.

Still has that new Blog smell.
Don't know if I'll try to something good and useful here, or just take my turn at spewing forth.
Ooooh, maybe I'll do both.