Saturday Night's Alright

Ahhhhh, the bagpipes, one of the most misunderstood and under-appreciated instruments ever invented. It seems that many instruments have limited applicability when it comes to what kind of music you can play with each. However, any instrument that can play "Amazing Grace" and "It's a long way to the Top (When you want to rock and roll)" with equal aplomb is alright by me! File this observation with the rest of your "I don't know how to respond to THAT" thoughts.......

The wife has returned from her exhausting job at shoe department hell to a dinner I've thrown together of barbecue sauce marinaded chicken breast, corn, and baked potatoes. She tells me how wonderful it is and I'm grateful she hasn't had a point of reference in so long to know any better. After the meal, we lighted just about every candle in the house, opened a couple of windows as not to suffocate, and turned the lights out, while listening to "A Prairie Home Companion " . We've adapted to a slower, more meaningful pace since our income qualified for the endangered species act, After the radio program (radio program: an ancient form of entertainment utilizing sound and imagination, high definition visuals provided courtesy of excellent writing) we'll crank up the high RPM silver platter and watch The Lake House, a movie having something to do with a house on a lake, I imagine.
Twenty, thirty years ago, if you'd told me I'd be content with such an evening, I'd hath protested too much, being the clueless youth predicting so much more in those halcyon days of high expectations without a road map to guide me to an understanding of things that matter. I must confess, however, that IN those times, anything was possible. I had yet to be introduced to probability.

It was a good movie.

Blogging While Bored

Dress like you'd rather be naked.

Forget haircuts.......if you still have it, celebrate it!

Eat when you're hungry, and only when you're hungry, and enjoy each meal like it's your last.

Think of money as oxygen, and breath slowly.

Treat your dog like your buddy, not your pet.

Remember the cats could care less.

Just know you're gonna die, and it's no big deal.

Get rid of pain when you can, and when you can't, paint it purple and laugh.

Don't fix what ain't broke.

If you break it, you own it.

Take people for granted, and you will be.

Be nice. Or kill them. The first is easier than the second.

If life hands you lemons, add vodka.

If you don't tell her you love her 7 times a day...........maybe you don't.

If you have to look up coherency, please don't blog.

Paris doesn't matter; if she does, it's YOUR fault.

If I piss you off now, I always will.

If you don't get me, we're even.

Don't tell me you support our troops while sending them to die.

Spoil your own damn nest; leave mine alone.

You might die richer than me but you won't die happier.

Islam is NOT a violent religion. There. You happy now? I didn't think so.

Evolution is real, it's just too damn slow.

Never blog sober, this is the kind of shit you come up with.

Blog like nobody's reading.

Visage

Slowly but surely, as their comfort level with "being out here" has increased, more and more of us have revealed ourselves with a photograph, allowing the world to know us by our faces. Surprisingly, many of these photos have not been the carefully crafted, airbrushed, or photoshopped-to-death portraits so many people put out here to show their best side. I find that rather refreshing.

Bloggers, at least in my mind, are a lot like radio Disc Jockeys, who you try to picture in your mind, creating a face out of that voice, only to discover when you finally meet them or see them on TV that they look nothing like you imagined. However, there have been some remarkable exceptions in that many of my blogging breathren have looked exactly like I imagined them, and perhaps that is because it is their words that crafted their personas rather than their voices. The moment Buffalo leaked a picture of himself on his blog, it was "Yep, that's what a Buffalo looks like!".

Many of our bloggers of the fairer sex have included pics of their husbands, and I am not the least bit surprised to notice that no matter how hot the sister, the hubby is rarely a Mel Gibson, but is more often of the "everyman" variety. I have yet to encounter a buck-ugly guy in our group, except for maybe Tim when he gets a little bit crazy with the photoshop. I exclude myself from these assessments as the only jury I have been so far subject to, I'm married to, so she's biased. But, no, she wouldn't rate me a Mel Gibson material either.

I, personally, have this love-hate relationship with the camera. When I look in the mirror, I really have no quarrel with my visage. The camera, however, seems to have this evil purpose in mind whenever it records my face, for whenever I look at the results, it's like "Who in the hell is THAT?" It doesn't mesh with my mental view of myself. Perhaps the mind does it's own form of photoshopping whenever you study yourself in the mirror, making you see only what you WANT to see, except when you focus in on that zit or that nose hair escaping from a nostril. Perhaps I have this inability to freeze on my face that carefully crafted expression I paint on my mug in the mirror whenever a camera is involved. Who knows, all I know is that I have one hell of a hard time coming up with a picture that I'm willing to share with the world, being so critical of my own visage. Thank Bob my wife doesn't share this affliction.

Then there's podcasting........and that's a whole new can of worms altogether........

Hell is served in Handbaskets

I'm watching World News Tonight with Charlie Gibson, and they are reporting on the awful weather now bedeviling Seattle, a city more famous for it's rain, although the truth of the matter is plenty of places actually see more rain than Seattle ever did., at least historically. I now understand why Tim was devoting a post to the subject. It's BAD! I think someone pissed off Mother Gaia......




Also was a report concerning big business getting in on the organic foods craze, and how that might be impacting the true definition of "organic". We all know what happens when mega-producers of just about anything get ahold of a product, service, or idea. It goes to hell. When profit trumps all concerns, industrial producers will cut whatever corner they can to maximize profits, the quality of the product be damned. So, if you are one of those individuals who really cares about what goes into your body, and can afford the premium such a concern commands, then I would look real close at that product claiming to be "organic". Remember, Starkist and Bumblebee Tuna will laude the benefits of the Omega-3 fatty acids in their products, while conveniently failing to mention the mercury levels in same said fish. Talk about fishy!

Predictably, the situation in Anbar Province (in Iraq) has gotten so bad that the Pentagon is giving serious consideration to abandoning the area altogether, turning the province over to the Iraqi army (Iraq has an ARMY? No kidding......) and focusing their efforts on Baghdad, where the insurgency is on it's last legs and the capital is not descending into civil war. Meanwhile, it seems that the guy who's playing our president suddenly wants to TALK to two of the countries who are supporting those nasty insurgents, namely Syria and Iran. It's simultaneously funny and sad to hear the nutcase president of Iran telling Bush that if we would just "behave", maybe he can put in a good word with his Shiite friends. When and IF this nightmare ever ends, I SOOOO want to sit on the jury that convicts Dubya of embarrassing this great nation of ours.

Even after the Kennedy's were gunned down, I still had this naive notion that the world was going to advance into the future, bringing peace, prosperity, an end to hunger and warfare, because, after all, this was the "modern" age, full of promise, and tired of the barbarity of the past. Being a young man, I suppose I did not have my ears and eyes open to the reality of how the world really was and how simply intractable the nature of man was. I am older, and arguably wiser now, and I think I understand the true meaning of the phrase "ignorance is bliss".

Perspective

I invite anybody reading this who has ever thought of themselves as significant in any real sense of the word to take a look at these.........







...........and adjust your attitude accordingly.



Photos courtesy of the Hubble telescope.