Bullet Points That Will Kill You

[boink] - Where is the data that proves gay marriage erodes the viability of American culture and values? And which is a higher American value that should trump the other; that people of the same sex can't fool around in the bedroom or that everyone has equal protection under the law?

[boink] - Dear North Korea. Dude... no one is going to attack you. You're not sitting on a vast pool of some untapped, massive resource that big multinational companies are conspiring to steal from you. Geographically you are strategically insignificant. You're of no economic value anybody can think of. No one wants to take you over. Nobody cares if your Fearless Leader or Mr Big or whoever he is wants to keel Moose and Squirrel. Nobody cares if Korea is ever unified again. Everyone has moved on from 19fuckin53. Nobody cares what you think. Nobody wants to bother you. What the hell is your problem??

[boink] - Jon and Kate plus 8 - We care because....?

[boink] - By the way did you notice that Tom Cruise still can't fly? And on a related note I've been reminded that the fraud trial has begun in France. See? I KNEW it was wrong to stop calling them French Fries. FRENCH fries! FRENCH fries! Vive l'France!

[boink] - Once upon a time the general worldview of the American Conservatism was marked by a belief in less bureaucracy, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and keeping the intrusion of government into your personal life as checked as possible. I was on board! But then American Conservatism came under the control of the "neocons" where an intrusive bureaucracy that served Wilsonian interventionism and nation-building became acceptable, and all the other stuff was supported by the Christian Right - which wanted to uncompromisingly impinge government into your personal life - I complained! I said that "traditional conservative values" were being trampled on. I recall I was asked where I got off thinking I was the true arbiter of what does and does not constitute "real conservatism" and was labeled a dreaming, unrealistic, immoral isolationist. NOW the conservative movement in America struggles to find its footing again and none of them can agree on what "conservatism" means any more. Humph. The most prominent thinking, currently, amongst them is that they have to get back to the place where they were "true to traditional conservative values." But whose? Because apparently no one can decide who is the arbiter of what does and does not constitute "real conservatism". To usurp someone else's observation from an earlier time - if Conservatism fails it's epitaph should merely read "died of a theory."

[boink] - Does vodka go good with Jones Soda's Fufu Berry? Fufu Berry is actually pretty good. I like Fufu Berry lots! You got a problem with that?

Here We Go Again

It's not complaining, and it isn't against my will. In fact it's all about my decision. There's no excuse for having dropped the doing of it last fall (cold weather is not a good enough excuse when you LIVE here), and there's no excuse for waiting this long before I picked it up again. But it absolutely HAS to happen.

The workout & live right campaign commences again on Monday, and I am mentally preparing myself for it.

My stomach is hanging over my belt. I put the 10+ pounds I lost last summer right back on. I grunt when I tie my shoes. My back hurts all the time. I'm sluggish. I've increased my sedentary-to-active ratio (I just invented that). I'm eating too much fast food. I'm not regular on my vitamins or the magnesium that keeps the chronic headaches away.

It's all self-motivated, so no fishing for "oh you don't have to" comments going on right here. I'm going to do it and you can't stop me.

Can you?

I Am A Cultural Question Mark

I think it is finally getting to me that people talk about this or that actor, this or that band, these or those gadgets, and I have fallen into the old man trap of responding to it all with a blank stare and a mouth open in ambiguity. Or perpetuity. Or whatever.

And there was a time when I was proud of that - can you imagine. As if to say the stuff that goes on today isn't HALF as good as the stuff that went on in MY DAY. And there it is --- "MY DAY." Yikes.

So I decided I would stay up with the music and follow the trends and keep track of the greater societal elements that swerve around my car head. I decided I was going to stop automatically nixing anything new that came my way. Start going to movies again and listen to the hum of the busy, bustling, newest things.

And now I'm an old man who is trying to seem with it out of desperation over the evaporating years.

I can't win. This is a good excuse for beer.

I Overanalyze Visions Of Jesus And His Mom

You know those pieces of toast and waffles and water stains on the wall that look like Jesus or Mary and stuff? OK so it's stupid enough that there are people actually thinking it's "a sign" or that it's an apparition with some kind of meaning trying to be expressed by the deity or sub-deity - but the truth is all they are resembling are representations of Jesus or Mary made over a thousand years after they were around. So what are people thinking when they say "that's Jesus" when in reality all they are actually saying is "that's an apparition that resembles an 18th century painting of Jesus." I mean the guys who painted Jesus and Mary didn't actually KNOW what they looked like. Like - those paintings of Jesus and Mary are representations through a 16th or 17th or 18th century eye of what they THINK they looked like. Nobody ever painted a picture of them in the era they were supposed to be around. So, like, it isn't just that people actually believe these are visions they bring flowers to and whatnot, but that what is really happening is that people are bringing flowers to stuff that looks like 16th or 17th or 18th century representations of Jesus and Mary. Which is even MORE insane. I mean it's, like, a Christian principle that there aren't supposed to be images of Jesus anyhow. So what the hell?

Uh....

Chia Obama

I...

Uh......

Am Me High Maintenance You Think?

Have you seen this one before? It's for both men and women. I caught it whilst checking my hotmail mail... mail. This was a featured quiz, and I had ten minutes to kill so I did it. I can't recall if I've done it before.

It wants to find out if you are a high maintenance partner.

I apparently am a limp noodle. I'm

The Patient Pleaser

"You're clearly a loving, understanding, go-along-to-get-along person. But you may want to address whether you're getting as much as you're giving. It may be that you're simply not addressing your own demands. It may be that you yourself are dating someone high-maintenance, even bossy. But whenever there's a hint of disagreement, you're willing to give up your aspirations for love and attention so that the other person can have his or her way.

"Don't for a second lose your pleasant demeanor. But don't be afraid to push back once in a while with a request for a change or a demand for attention. Even getting into an argument can be healthier in the long run than bottling up your emotions. And you may just find that the other person respects your love more when you stick up for yourself."
--------------------

That ended up harsher than I was ready for but I put in honest answers. I don't think for one minute that my needs aren't being addressed cuz I ain't got any.

See where you are. Be honest.

How Crazy Ya Wanna Get?

Reunion, IL is a stop or two east of Galena, and therefore is nearing the highest ground in the state. There are bluffs along the Mississippi and actual hilly vistas as you go - unlike 99.99% of the rest of the state. Anyway that's my excuse for adding a rise of ground that needs a tunnel, but really... what would a train set up be without a tunnel?

Well we're going to use a little modest one so we don't lose all correct perspective, just to go through a sharp outcropping just before you come into town. I'd show you the hills but they're drying right now.

Instead I'll show you the tunnel.

And the question posed by the title of the post relates to the excessive amount of detail we're putting into the project. And so the answer is... VERY crazy.

As in, just in case somebody peeks into the tunnel, instead of paper mache or wood slats or empty space going under the hill... we've put in an interior.

Railroad ties. Yeah. We're nuts. The chances of anybody looking are what? Well you never can tell. And it's because you never can tell that some of the houses in town are actually going to have people in them. I'll work out how we see them later.

In the meantime... take a peek. The first picture is what it would be in natural light. I flashed the second picture so you could all go orgiastic on the details.





Yeah. Railroad ties. Get the straight jacket...

Saturday Morning Waffle Special

1. A dollop of refried beans mixed with a dash of olive oil in a bowl. Add water to loosen just a bit to make spreadable if you have to.
2. Melt butter in a pan and fry 1 egg. Make sure the butter is hot so the edges of the egg brown and the yolk stays soft.
3. Toast a small frozen waffle.
4. Spread the refried bean mixture on the toasted waffle. Drizzle this with maple syrup. Put a slice of Muenster cheese on top of that. Put this combination in a broiler and keep in there until the cheese is melted (no dripping! No burning!)
5. Remove from oven, layer this with a slice or two of coppa ham (mild).
6. Put the fried egg on top of the ham. pepper and salt to taste.
7. Eat

This was actually an elimination round winner on Top Chef a couple years ago. It's cheap and YUMMEH. Vegetarians who still eat eggs, just take off the ham - I've tried it without and is good that way too.

You Know What?

When I hear people say or read people write that "religion is the biggest cause of problems on the planet and if it would just go away we'd be a lot better off" I get kind of ticked. In the first place, like with anything else, it isn't religion that is the problem it is the human nature behind the application of it. The Christian Jesus says "forgive your enemies" but some "Christians" beat the bloody pulpit for war and revenge and retribution and Protestants fight in the streets with Catholics and is that religion's fault or the people doing the dancing? In Islam if an enemy asks for peace you reach back to them and when you're fighting you make sure innocent people aren't hurt but some "Muslims", putting more faith in fatwahs than the Qu'ran, say "no one is innocent" and are happy just to randomly kill whatever happens to be around.

So is "religion" the cause of the problem or is it the humans doing things against what the religion teaches and saying their actions are based on their religion that is the problem?

The discussion between theists and atheists is the single most important and legitimate debate people can engage in. But I can't get next to theists who won't listen to the concerns of the atheist and say they are automatically condemned or atheists who dismiss theists out of hand as robots or fools. Both of those postures are also known as "prejudice" as in when you pre-judge someone without giving someone the benefit of an explanation or at least trying to get to know them.

I feel that when people say or write that "religion is the biggest cause etc etc" what I'm seeing or hearing is the result of someone who hasn't thought it out yet. It's like an incomplete thought. Like a lazy brain that gets to a point and stops, happy with a conclusion that justifies an easy way out of the subject. In other words a weak mind. Or at least an uneducated one.

Like the lady they interviewed on NPR the other morning who doesn't like Obama because now "all you see are blacks. Everywhere you look there's blacks. They're everywhere." Er... no I don't know what her problem is, but obviously she got to a point in her thinking and stopped. Never asked herself the next few questions.

This is why I sometimes go into a shell or embrace the "weird". Because what is societal and what is "normal" is incomplete. Or seems that way.

I don't know where this is going. have a nice day.