The "switch" has happened and I don't mean the roommate kind.

It happened yesterday. Every Macintosh computer owner on the planet has been waiting for it. And if you PC owners out there weren't paying attention, you should have been waiting for it too.

Apple made the switch to Intel processors yesterday. The first computers to switch were the Powerbooks, now called MacBook Pro's, and the computer that turned it all around for Apple, the iMac. The switch to Intel chips for the MacBook increased its performance over 400 percent over the old G4 Powerbooks. Yeah, that's 400 percent. The iMac speed only doubled because it was plenty fast anyway, but now it is using Intel's Core Duo chip which basically has two processors on one piece of silicon.

Unfortunately, the Mac mini's haven't been upgraded yet, but the iMac was probably going to be the toughest one anyway since it's an all-in-one computer.

Apple also updated iLife and iWork as well. ILife is absolutely awesome. The top two reasons to switch from Windows to a Mac is OS X followed by iLife. ILife, like the slogan says, is like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life. Or at least the creative part of your life.

Everything that you wish you could do with a computer iLife does(i.e. make movies, make music, manage your photos, create cool DVDs) and does it in a way that anyone can figure out the programs.

I haven't had a chance to get iWork yet. I've been waiting for them to ugrade it a little more, but it appears to be the beginnings of Apple's version of Microsoft Office. With the exception of it only costs $80 as opposed to almost $500 or more depending on what kind of Office setup you get. Anyway, right now it only had two programs called Pages and Keynote. Keynote is like Powerpoint on steroids and Pages is a word processing program.

Sooner or later I'll shell out the $80 for it and I'll be happy I did I'm sure.

I try and tell people all the time that they need to switch to a Mac and all they really seem to do is kind of nod their head. I also don't recommend it to people who are neck deep into Windows because they would have to change their lives to accomodate the switch. It would be a worth while change, but I don't want to accept that responsibility. However, most people know if they would be able to switch and whether you can or you can't, you are still missing out. If you can switch, do it. If you can't, I would suggest working toward being able to switch later.

That's not to say that you can't get some hardcore work done, but most people I know aren't power users and Windows really takes all of the fun out the little things they like doing that make them happy. And just stop and think about how much time you devote to Windows crashing and fixing problems or just randomly having problems. Just knowing they won't have to worry about viruses is enough for most of my family and friends to switch.

Most people don't consider it because they fear change and they know how crazy Windows can get and they think that every computer is like that.

Well, Macs aren't because I haven't worked on a computer in two years and that's because all of my PCs have crapped out.

And Now for the Important News for the Day

Good Morning All,

I haven't blogged in a while, as I am suffering from a slight case of writer's block at the present time (no, that's not the important news for the day). However, I've decided to simply write about what I am thinking presently and forget about trying to give a profound opinion on anything important.
Because I am currently in a career crisis, I basically have to go to bed most nights not knowing if I will get a call requesting me to work that day or if it will be another penniless day at home. Because I am substitute teaching while waiting on a more permanent position to open in the fall (God willing), I have decided that it is best to get up and be ready to leave the house by 6:30 a.m. just in case the call comes in. By 7:00 a.m. it was painfully obvious that I would have today to catch up some slightly neglected areas of daily living (phone calls, errans, emails, bills, etc.). However, because everyone, including the bloggers of this fine Blog Spot, seem to much more educated on current events than myself (probably because I avoid all things news---I know, I know, it's a crime for a functional adult member of our society to intentionally remain ignorant of the world around them), I decided I would skip the "Who's the Boss?" rerun selection on my home satellite guide and opt for "Good Morning America". Surely I could at least get the highlights of what's currently going on in our great country by watching this show--I mean, the name alone suggests it, right? Wrong!!!!
Let me just give you the highlights: the average American consumes ten pounds of cereal (yes, the breakfast food) in a year--and some great recipes using cereal were generously supplied; morning grogginess clouds the mind, thus creating dangers for those it effects; EPA mileage stickers (now you better sit down for this) may be misleading, by generally displaying a higher number of miles per gallon than what is truly accurate; a woman's husband bravely calls 911 after he over hears her getting robbed at work (and the shocking footage of this crime); Angelina Jolee and Brad Pit are having a baby ('cause no one suspected this); baby boomers are retiring and the husbands are driving the wives crazy, thus creating the "Retired Husband's Syndrome", which in turn could cause a 50% increase in the divorce rate, but don't worry-they gave plenty of suggestions on how to battle this particular epidemic in your own home. Are you bored with this yet-because if you think you've wasted your time reading this, be glad that you've only spent about one minute reading it, and my stupid a** spent ONE HOUR watching this crap! Oh yeah, they did have about a three minute segment on some man who set through "a grueling interview" to become either a justice or judge of some important government position (I am sure that I should know all about this, but guess what--it wasn't any more interesting to me at 7:00 am this morning than it has been all my life).
Now, before you all go silently criticizing my choice of programs to begin educating myself on world (or at least national) news, just know that I must take baby steps! The very idea of CNN makes me cringe, and I have no desire to torcher myself for an hour that would seem like an eternity. So please don't make that suggestion when I pose the "big question" a bit later. I know that, as a functional member of society, and a teacher at that (if you can call me that without a full-time job), I should stay up-to-date on the goings on in the world. And it was only recently, when I heard about the "mining tragedy" only AFTER it was over, that I realized just how much of a shell that I live in. But when I decided to begin rectifying my ignorant existence, I am met with useless information that only serves to take up valuable space in my brain---AHHHHH!! WHAT SHOULD I DO!!!????!!!
My problem is: I'd rather be reading a book, listening to an audio-book, or even writing a book than watching the evil tube or playing on the internet. I've found that I don't have a routine enough schedule to waste non-existent money on a newspaper, so I remain ignorant!
Here's what I am looking for: a source of information that will keep me well posted, in plain English, on current events around the nation and the world as a whole. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, so I certainly am not interested in watching or reading other people's opinions on these events; just the facts--then, after I've formed my own opinion, and if I'm interested enough to care about the opinion of others, I will explore the subject further--otherwise, I just want to be kept up to date so that I don't have to sit ignorantly through boring conversations covering subjects on which I have no knowledge, interest or opinion. HELP ME!
Can anyone give me a source as I've just described or am I just up that proverbial creek without a paddle?
Now, I must shut off this useless waste of electricity (the television, not the PC) and do something constructive.
Thanks for any help you can provide,
Lady Bird
(I know there are quite a few of spelling mistakes that I am sure you will kindly overlook--thanks)

UK Wildcats victims of a government plot? Plus Marcus Vick, the Bengals, and the Colts, that's right, it's hodge podge.

Back from a few weeks of not having to think and I am now ready to play catch up with a little column I like to call hodge podge. Let’s hunt.

UK Wildcats go from bad to worse.

Just when you thought it was safe to enjoy the UK Wildcats, Saturday’s game happens. The Cats appeared to have not shown up for the game and I am not sure that the players are not in the process of undergoing a secret government plot to replace them with alien replicates. At least that is what the Wildcats’ fans are hoping. There has to be an explanation for the horrendously horrible, putrid display that was put on in Lawrence, Kansas. It got so bad that it appeared that Rajon Rondo and Joe Crawford were going to engage in fisticuffs after a turnover.

I said after the blowout suffered at the hands of Indiana that UK could not play that bad again all year. I was right, technically. They waited until 2006 to play a worse game. I would just say go ahead and write that game off except that UK has already had about 4 games to write off. This not being able to score has become a bit of a problem.

There is hope that the upcoming return of Randolph Morris will help the team recover some dignity, but I am not so sure about that. Last we saw Morris he was averaging about 8 points and 4 rebounds a game. By the end of the season UK could get their seven foot triple headed monster, and I do mean monster, to put those averages up. Morris, by all accounts, is becoming very dominant in practice, but that would be natural since most teams look dominant against the Cats at times.

Will Morris be the answer? I think he can help. I believe that if he is even close to what they say he is like during practice that he will help open up an inside outside game because UK right now has no game. That being said, the Wildcats are going to need more than that to be a contender for the NCAA title. You can cancel your hotel reservations for April 1-3 in Indianapolis.

Brother needs a keeper.

Marcus Vick has declared that he will enter the NFL Draft. That is not surprising, what is surprising is that he did so because Virginia Tech got tired of his antics and dismissed him from the football team. Vick, if you have not seen the replays, stomped on the leg of Elvis Dumervil a defensive end for the University of Louisville. Vick had claimed that it was an accident, but you can clearly see in the replay that it was not. Vick had already been in plenty of trouble before, including being suspended for the entire 2004 season. Now he has been arrested for brandishing a weapon in a McDonald’s.

I am not sure what is going on with this young man, but it appears that he does not realize that because he is Mike Vick’s brother he has a bull’s eye and a magnifying glass on him at all times. Maybe being Mike Vick’s brother is the problem. Maybe he has issues with being “little brother.” Perhaps he is lashing out, I don’t know. What I do know is that he better shape up or he will end up like Lawrence Phillips or Maurice Clarrett.

I just wonder how his actions in college and the way he was let go will impact his draft position. At times this year there was Heisman talk surrounding Vick and discussions of him being a better quarterback than Mike Vick was at this point in his career. Now Marcus is just another story about what is wrong with sports and the embarrassing younger brother of Mike Vick.

That’s not to say that Mike Vick has been a saint (calling Dr. Mexico, Dr. Ron Mexico) but he has kept himself from being known for his indiscretions off the field and more for his on field performance. Perhaps the elder Vick should sit Marcus down and explain to him that if he expects to be a professional, he should act like one.

All in all, I think Virginia Tech did the right thing and should be applauded for their action when some schools might have just given a slap on the wrist. I am pretty sure that a player as exciting as Marcus Vick brings in some pretty good coin at the box office and I am not sure they have an experienced quarterback to replace him. So, kudos to Virginia Tech for taking a stand.

Bengals go down, hard.

The poor, poor Cincinnati Bengals made their first playoff appearance in 15 years and what happens on the first pass play of their first possession of the game? They lose quarterback and MVP candidate Carson Palmer for the game and perhaps into next season with a torn ACL and MCL. That was a big loss to the team and you could tell this by the dazed look in the eyes of the offensive players on the sideline. Jon Kitna did come in and play a superb game for a guy who has not had any meaningful snaps in two seasons, but it was not enough. The game was over when Palmer went down.

The big debate that comes from this game is whether the hit on Palmer was dirty. It seemed to me that it was unintentional. That being said, I do believe that Pittsburgh nose tackle Kimo von Oelhoffen was going for the legs of Palmer. Like Skip Bayless said on ESPN2’s Cold Pizza, it was an unintentional dirty play. It happens; unfortunately for the Bengals this play may have cost them a win. While Kitna played admirably, he just doesn’t have the arm of Palmer and the deep ball was taken away from the Bengals. Hopefully Palmer will recover fully and the Bengals can build on the season they had this year and make a nice playoff run next year.

Patriots are not dead, yet.

The New England Patriots do not seem to notice that they are, supposedly, not as good as they have been in the past. The Pats destroyed a solid Jacksonville team 28-3. I stupidly predicted that this would be the end of Tom Brady’s perfect playoff record and the Jaguars would slip into Foxboro and get the win.

Because of this, I believe now that the Patriots will indeed win the Super Bowl this year. Why not? The Colts have come back to earth, the Broncos still have to pray Jake” The Snake” Plummer doesn’t complete more passes to the other team than his own and the Patriots have gotten some key players back and their run defense was the best in the second half of the season. This means that Jake Plummer will have to beat the Pats with his arm and that is not what the Broncos want to happen.

I think New England will beat the Broncos then move on to the rematch of the most over hyped game of the regular season in Indianapolis. If the Pats can get past the Colts, and I think they will, they will have no problem defeating whatever poor team comes out of the NFC. It looks like the new boss is the same as the old boss.

A Chinese Democracy is coming soon, but which kind?

Here’s a trick question. Which will come first a Chinese democracy or the Chinese Democracy? According to Slash, former lead guitarist for Guns ‘N’ Roses, he believes that the long awaited GNR album will be out this March. The album titled Chinese Democracy has been rumored to be coming out for years now. Axl Rose even put together a band to tour a few years ago, until he had an attack of the crazies and skipped some dates and then cancelled the majority of the tour never releasing the new album.

Slash says, “I’ve been told a lot of things over the years, but it definitely sounds like it’s coming out in March.” Dare we believe it’s true? Dare we believe it will have been worth the wait? I say no and no. After all the release dates that have come before we can’t be expected to believe this is the one. If it does come out this year, there is no way that it can be worth the wait. I believe that there is no way that Axl Rose can recapture the spirit of the original GNR and I'm definitely do not believe he can recapture the audience.

Axl got caught up in a crazy game of can you top this with himself. It is hard to top a double album that had many hits and sold millions and millions of copies and I believe that drove Rose crazy. Rose has been trying to make the perfect record and whatever the outcome he will not succeed without the original members.

I hope it does indeed arrive because I have been anxious to hear this masterpiece that has been in the works for almost a decade. I do not believe it will be enough to return Axl and GNR to the mountain that they were on top of in the mid to late 90s.

Hell hath no fury like a mouse burned.

I have seen and been involved in some crazy things in my life. I have been in a car that hit a friend who was trying to run away from some fireworks thrown at them, sending them rolling across the hood of the car. I have been in 3 head on collisions. I have won a trip to a Final Four. I could think of other things, but I actually have to do some work so I will move on.

I just saw this on Yahoo and I would have given my left…eye to have been there to witness it. Apparently a man caught a mouse and wanted to dispose of it. He just happened to be burning a pile of leaves and inspiration struck. He would just throw it in the fire. He tossed the mouse into the fire. That was that or so he thought.

The mouse, perhaps frightened by being engulfed in flames, ran from the pile of burning leaves back into the home it was so rudely evicted from. Something in the house caught fire, the flames spread and the house was burned to the ground. It also did not help matters that this took place in New Mexico, the armpit of the devil. So things were ripe for an uncontrollable blaze.

While this is a sad story for the 81 year old owner of the house, it is also pretty awesome. I can’t even imagine someone dreaming this up for a movie, much less happening in real life. So word of warning, if you catch a mouse, flush it. You never know when you have captured a kamikaze mouse that will not go down without trying to take you down with him.

The lost art of real radio

I guess the only think I can link to for this post is xmradio.com. So, click on the title to go there.

Friday morning I was late for work because I was listening to The Shadow on XM 164 Old Time Radio Classics. Well, technically I wasn't late because showing up is all that is pretty much somewhat required.

I was just talking with Piccu about it and while he is big into old movies, I'm getting big into old radio. I don't know what it is about these old shows, but I guess it's just that the stories are good, it's different from current radio formats and there are actual stars you have heard of in them. And the DJ that introduces everything will tell you interesting facts about the actors like what they did other than radio.

This morning I woke up shortly before dawn and listened to the ending of The Six Shooter starring Jimmy Stewart before going back to sleep. I guess one of the reasons that these old shows are so good is because all of the great actors back in the 40s, 50s and 60s also did a lot of radio work in addition to TV and especially movies.

Unless you are completely oblivious to everything before you were born, you can find a notable star in most every show. I'm not a big fan of the comedy stuff, but I dig the westerns and mysteries. Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger(Tonto, while ridiculously stereotyped, is hilarious), Suspense, The Shadow, Mr. District Attorney, Dragnet, Boston Blackie, The Adventures of Nero Wolfe, I like them all and those are just the ones I could come up with off the top of my head.

I'll tell you what really hooked me. On Christmas morning at about 5 a.m. they played It's A Wonderful Life. It wasn't just the movie audio, it was a complete radio show with nearly the entire cast from the movie. I only caught the last 15 or 20 minutes, but that's the kind of thing they did back then and it was great.

I guess why I'm so caught up in it right now is because it simply isn't done anymore. Where can you find a radio show like these? Now it's just music, talk or sports. I believe that XM 163 Sonic Theater is new radio shows like that, but sometimes I listen and it's crazy obscure stuff. But I have heard a good show or two.

I would have to say that the TV shows of Gunsmoke and Dragnet did in the radio shows since they were very popular. Although with computers these old style radio shows would be very inexpensive to produce. The sound effects were probably the only real expense outside of getting actors like Jimmy Stewart and Sidney Greenstreet.

TV pretty much killed creative radio other than morning talk radio which can only get into funny songs and skits. There used to be a time when people gathered around their radios maybe even more than we do TV now. Now some people only listen to radio because their cars came with them. And the creation of these type of shows is a dead art, in my opinion. Other than satellite radio there is no other venue to showcase these types of shows and be able to make even a modest living at it.

Back in the day NBC and CBS produced radio mysteries and dramas that, in my opinion, keep me hooked better than TV does now. The old shows were written and directed each week with composed music and really put together well. And radio was like TV back then. The Six Shooter starring Jimmy Stewart only lasted a year and got moved to different time slots never getting any sponsors.

I realize that TV gets you the big bucks, but TV also costs big money now to produce shows. Sure there are a few sitcoms that are done in studios, but think of all of the shows that are shot on location. That stuff is expensive. I heard that actors love to do voiceover work for commercials because it's easy money, but back in the day actors actually worked in radio and I'm sure they made a nice living at it.

I guess those of us who dig it are lucky that satellite radio has a library of 30 years worth of weekly radio shows with big name actors that dwarf most stars we watch on TV today.

The Eye is worth watching or How the Japanese are ripping me off.

So now that I expressed my disappointment in the latest horror movie trend, let me tell you about a movie I watched the other night. If it is to be classified, I guess I would use the new Hollywood buzz term, J-Horror. This movie is a Japanese movie, so there were subtitles. I am not sure I would classify this as a horror movie, unless you count The Sixth Sense as horror. It is called The Eye and it is a very interesting and suspenseful movie that seems very familiar to an idea I had, well, somewhat.

Here is the synopsis, a girl who has been blind since the age of two is going to receive a cornea transplant. When her bandages come off and she starts to see again, she starts to see “things.” Independent Film Channel, which is what channel I saw it on (check you listings) described what she saw as malevolent visions. She then tries to find out how to stop these visions, if she can stop them.

The Eye has some pretty good scares, it is not a slasher flick and there isn’t much blood and gore. It is just a good psychological scare movie with some cool twists and turns. I had read a few years ago that Tom Cruise has bought the U.S. rights to this film and his production company was going to make an American version. There is also a sequel, but I imagine Japanese sequels are like American sequels, rarely good, but you can check that out on Amazon or imdb. If you have IFC on your cable or satellite system, use your guide to find it (if it coming back on in the near future) and DVR or record it and check it out. I will link this to the Amazon page in case you want to purchase it. I believe the cheapest price is $8.75.

As I said, The Eye seems very familiar to an idea I had at one time, or something like that. I had an idea for a book, movie, graphic novel, or something, a few years back about a woman who has an accident and goes into a coma and has a near death experience. She meets God and is told she is to come back to earth. It is not her time yet. She is told she will return but she will be changed. When she returns and wakes up, she is blind. She can however see shapes, as in a person’s aura, I guess you would say. She would be able to tell by the color of a person’s aura what kind of person they would be, whether good (white or a light color) or evil (dark color or black). Or in some cases grey, as in this person could go either way, their soul has not gone to one side or the other. That was about as far as I got except I wanted her significant other to be grey and the ending has her seeing his aura turning to black.

It sounded pretty cool to me but I never got my lazy butt in gear to do anything about it. I originally envisioned this as a comic book/graphic novel and she would use this gift/curse to fight demons or evil. Then I just moved on to more TV watching and less thinking. I wonder if I can sue the makers of The Eye. I better get Jackie Chiles on the horn.

Horror movies going back to their roots.

The Yahoo article that is linked to this piece is about horror movies returning to their 1970’s roots and becoming more and more “real.” It seems the Scream type of horror movie is going the way of the dodo. Horror movies are not interested in making fun of themselves anymore. They seem to not be interested in having any fun at all anymore. They all want to be gritty, raw, and grisly. Sometimes that is not bad. I enjoy a good scare flick every now and again. I also enjoy believing that the “heroes” have a chance of surviving, that there is some shadow of hope that things just may work out. I am not looking for the big happy ending, but it seems like the horror movies being produced now are not interested in leaving some hope alive. Things are so bleak that there is no one to root for. It just seems as though you are watching a straight snuff film. It appears that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the model for horror and every movie is trying to be more, well, everything.

I thought TxCM was creepy and very uncomfortable to watch and it was a cool experience, but it is not a movie I would want to watch over and over again. Halloween, on the other hand, is a movie I watch over and over again. There is a difference between the two that is hard to explain. If you watch many horror movies you know what I am talking about. Rob Zombie was on this bandwagon very early with House of a 1000 Corpses. I saw this movie on Cinemax late one night and it seemed to be horror for horror’s sake. I had no idea why the things that were happening were happening. I believe that all you need is a script with all kinds of grisly gory ways someone is tortured with no story or no reason why these things are happening and you could sell it to Hollywood. Especially now, when these type of movies are big. In a few years this type of film will fall out of style and a new “old” style will come back. Perhaps a campy late Friday the 13th style will come back. I am not sure I like that either, but at least I might have something to root for.

Adding to the Old School

The title is linked to my original post about the old school songs I was downloading. I've just added more.

Again, they are mostly songs that your normal 28 year-old doesn't listen to. In fact, I pretty much have to listen to oldies radio or discover them on my own.

Anyway, the first song I added is Keep Me Hangin' On by none other than Diana Ross & The Supremes. This is my favorite song by The Supremes. I think what hooks me on it is the "whoawhoawhoa" part before they hit the chorus for the last time and the the background vocals are solid too. The guitar that runs throughout the song seems to have very little rhyme or reason, but that kind of makes it cool. I like Reflections, but this song is the Supremes at their best. Again I downloaded this song from iTunes. I'm kind of disgusted that The Fifth Dimension's Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In isn't available. They are individually, but I'm not going to download them separately when they are known for being together.

The next songs I got from the Time-Life CD's Piccu and I got for Dad a few Christmas' ago. From like 1954-1969. Pretty solid set.

The first song I got is Along Comes Mary by The Association. What makes it good is definitely the horns and the creepy little vintage 60's organ that's in it. When you hear this song it just screams crazy pastel colors in the shapes of flowers. Solid background vocals too and hand claps which set off any song from the flower power era.

My third song is Elenore by The Turtles. I'll be honest, I just happened across this song, but I have heard it a thousand times. I just didn't know what the name was or who sang it. The beginning reminds me of One by 3 Dog Night. I like the bass work and the piano really makes it. And the fact that they call Elenore their "pride and joy, etc." is pretty funny. It has a Monkees feel to it as well. That might be good or bad depending on your feelings about the Monkees.

Number four, is the quintessential Joe Cocker tune, With A Little Help From My Friends. I'll be honest and tell you that the Wonder Years with Fred Savage darn near ruined this song for me. What makes this song is of course Cocker going completely nuts and the background singers. Without his background singers, Cocker is nothing, bottom line. This too has good bass work which is a major thing for me. Not necessarily essential, but it scores extra points with me. This is the studio version to which is clean and they probably had 10 takes of him going nuts to throw together the vocals.

I have four more songs from the old school, but I'll save those for tomorrow as this post is getting a bit long.

"I'm going to destroy you." Paris Hilton

I will admit that during my lunch hour I have been known to watch a soap opera. This is not a daily thing, but I guess I would call it a regular thing. Soaps are some of the worst crap on TV, but they are like crack. You know you are hurting yourself, but you are hooked and you can’t quit now. Soaps are usually about rich evil people versus middle class good people, for the most part. Also all the guys are stupid and naïve and all the women know exactly what’s going on. Talk about a fantasy world.

One thing you hear quite regularly on a soap opera is the phrase, “I will destroy you.” This is often said once a week. I have wondered many times, sometimes aloud, do people really say this stuff? And do they sit around and plot and scheme and find a way to destroy someone? I now see that yes, some do indeed do this.

Paris Hilton is in legal trouble for “rellegedly” spread “vicious” lies about some other rich girl. The diamond heiress Zeta Graff is suing Hilton for $10 million dollars. Graff dated Paris’ ex fiancé and one night Paris went "berserk" and told Graff, “I’m going to destroy you.” And according to Hilton’s publicist, she fabricated a story to plant in the media to ruin the diamond heiress’ rep. (Some rep, I have never heard of her.) It worked, but now she may be paying for it. Unfortunately for Hilton, that publicist that she had plant the story has already testified to those “facts” in court. Whoops!

A hearing is set for Jan. 17 on this case. It also seems that there is another hearing on the same day involving Hilton. This one involves a man named Brian Quintana who claims Hilton harassed him, bad mouthed him in the press, and threatened his life. What did she threaten to do to him, sex him to death? Anyway it looks like Paris better grow up and stop spreading bad info on people she dislikes; otherwise she may not be nearly as rich as she is now.

Good news, good news?!? David Lee Roth and the Van Halen boys to reunite?!?

I was browsing the internet just before I was actually going to do some work and I ran across this on livedaily.com. David Lee Roth, in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, claims that he has been talking with drummer Alex Van Halen and a Van Halen reunion with original members is “eventually…inevitable." Could this be true? Does Eddie know about this?

This is very surprising to me considering Eddie Van Halen seems to be a bit prickly (I’m sorry, Eddie, I love you, Eddie). It seems to me that the reason there has been no reunion or failed reunions is simply Eddie Van Halen. He has always seemed to have a temper and can hold a grudge for an unlimited amount of time. It is also no secret he has been fighting a long hard battle with the bottle. In fact, Eddie losing his battles on the last tour with Sammy Hagar was the reason Hagar left the group.

I know DLR can be “out there” and I can’t imagine being on the road with him for months, but this is an opportunity. I hope that they can put aside their petty differences and at least go on tour so those of us who were too young to see the original recipe can experience that experience. We do not have to mention the fact that this tour would make a ton o money. I mean if Motley Crue can sell out all over the world surely a Van Halen reunion would do the same.

I realize that we are taking this from what could be termed an unreliable if not squirrelly source. I choose to believe because this is something I have hoped for since I reached concert going age. And if you think this will happen when the guys are too old, DLR says that it won’t be “rockers with walkers” so that sounds like it could be a reality in the next few years. If and when this happens, I do not care where I have to go or how much I have to pay, I WILL BE THERE!!!

New Daddy Diary, Entry #5? (I can't keep up)

What is fear? Simple, fear is the absence of knowledge. Yeah, that sounds profound and deep, but really to me there are few things more frightening than not knowing. When you're a new father, you are in an almost constant state of fear because the baby won't stop crying, or you don't hear him breathing, or you have no clue if you're doing anything at all correctly.

But those are common fears and they come and go with time. I've been told that the subsequent children that follow your first are much easier because your fears become less and less a problem. Tuesday I had a rather uncommon fear.

Let me preface this story by saying that in emergencies I tend to be very level headed on the outside and run every worst case scenario through my mind on the inside. Keeping that in mind, while at work on Tuesday, I got a frantic call from my wife. She had obviously been crying and still was. Her words were pained and her breath was short. Her voice trembled as she told me she had a pain in her chest, radiating through her back. She asked if I could come home, which of course, I did, dropping literally everything at work to rush home.

For those familiar with Bowling Green, KY where I live and work, you'll appreciate this. I got from my job at the 31W end of Scottsville Road to Plano Road which is across I-65 and beyond Greenwood High school in literally six minutes. For perspective, it takes me about 15 to get to work each morning going that route.

However, once on Plano road, I got locked behind a school bus letting kids out and the eight cars between me and the bus. I fought every urge to go around all nine vehicles on a blind hill because I had no idea what was happening with my wife and mother of my son. I did finally get home and found my wife in tears and agony. The last thing she had told me as I got off the phone was, "I can't take care of him (my son.)" So my thought was that she was having a panic attack. That turned out not to be the case, which scared me more because I think thought it was a heart problem.

I called 911 for the first and hopefully last time in my life. The paramedics arrived and ruled out heart problems and decided to take her on to the hospital in the ambulance. I was to follow behind, but was cautioned if the ambulance turned on its lights and siren, not to try to keep up. When they left the drive, the siren came on and they were gone. I loaded my son into his car seat and sped to the hospital, staying just within sight of the ambulance.

That leaves a man with too much time to think. My biggest fear was losing her in some way. I suppose that's every husband and father's biggest fear. For me I feel like it's amplified. My wife is the best thing short of salvation of my soul, to ever happen to me. And the two really aren't mutually exclusive because she keeps me inline and inspires me to be a better man, husband, Christian, and father.

So what is fear? Fear is not knowing, for those few minutes, if your wife is ok. Fear is not knowing if you're going to be raising a 6 week old boy on your own. Fear is not knowing how life's pendulum is going to swing.

My wife is ok. She's scheduled to have surgery on Tuesday to correct the problem, which turned out to be gall stones. It almost seems comical now, me thinking the worst and the problem turning out to be so minor, relatively. Fear like that is healthy I think. I appreciate my wife probably more than most men, but I do even moreso now. I look at my son and love him because of who he is and because he's part of my wife. And I want to try, even harder to be all of those things I mentioned.

So while the new daddy diary has been fairly light-hearted thusfar, I wanted to get this all off my chest. I apprecaite you obliging me that. I hope none of you who might read this ever have to fear like I did Tuesday. But if you do, I hope God grants you the outcome He did us.

Hodge-Podge

I thought I would throw together a hodge-podge post about somethings that are croppin' up in the ol' skull.
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Paid Newspaper websites

First off we have the Messenger-Inquirer.com website switching over to a paid site last month. I exclusively read that newspaper online just like every other newsaper I read. My reasoning behind it is that you'll never overlook something. When the headlines are simply stacked on top of one another, you rarely miss one.

They tried to do this a few years ago and I was younger at the time and just quit going all together. In about a month it was free again, if memory serves. Now it looks like they aren't backing off of this one and want 7 bucks a month to view it. The incentives are that you can look at all the pages in PDF form and see all the display ads.

My thoughts are, if I wanted to download the paper everyday and see the display ads, I'd probably just get the actual paper and save the download time. I read it online because it's easy to skim over the tons of the crappy AP stuff they put in and find the stuff that relates to me.

I might end up caving and paying the 7 bucks, but I'm going to give it a while to see if they can stand a third of the web traffic they used to have. Either way, I have a free copy I can read every single day anyway.

So there.
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Who was the most angered by last night's football game?

Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons. Why? Because Vince Young scrambles and runs just as effectively as Vick, but was also the most efficient passer in all of college football this year.

Vick is a tremendous athlete, but quarterbacks have to be able to pass to keep defenses honest. There's already a running back and a full back on the field to run the ball anyway.

Young will struggle in the beginning like all young QB's do, but like I told Sivart, Young will fix his flaws and learn quicker than Vick will learn to pass because Vick has been in the NFL for a while and shows no signs of changing.
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West Virginia coal miners

I realize this was a horrible situation and the families are devastated, but in a few days I hope the relatives of those miners that died realize that no one intended for the wrong information to get out claiming that they were alive. It was just a misunderstanding. It was terrible the way it came out with all of the newspapers running with the story, but while people are going to lose their jobs over this, it was simply a misunderstanding. No more, no less.

The governor of West Virginia spoke of relatives and friends who were in a terrible mining accident back in 1968. In fact, he probably has friends that are still in that mountain. Of the 78 or so miners that were trapped, 19 were never found before the mine was sealed. He feels their pain.
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Bill Gates unwraps Windows Vista.

Bill Gates showed off all the new cool features of his new Windows operating system with the new look and new search functions and new TV and music functions. Of course Mac OS X does all of this better and will undoubtedly have fewer problems still after the new Windows finally pops up. And the difference is that Apple's OS X has been around for over 2 years.

But more importantly, I haven't had to dig around in an operating system to fix any problem since I switched to Macs. I suggest you do the same.
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One last thing from a local perspective.

I read an editorial yesterday from the Messenger-Inquirer about the building of an "advanced technology center" in the Owensboro area. They have been given about half of what it will cost to build this place and are going to have to lobby for the rest. The reasoning behind wanting this place is because they want to educate students for high tech jobs in this area. Hopefully, getting them to stay in Kentucky and more importantly, in this region.

Here's my argument.

How many "high tech" companies are in this area? None. When this technology center is built in the next few years, how many "high tech" companies will be here? None. In five years how many graduates from this techology center will have to leave this region or state? Roughly all of them if they want to make real money.

The editorial wanted to see tech centers moved ahead of everything to be funded because if they are built, they believe that it will attract high tech companies.

The $13 million dollars that was given to Owensboro would have paid for the regional sewer system we need to expand the Bluegrass Crossings Industrial Park. But for some reason, despite 5 counties looking to benefit from this project, we can't get any funding here.

When that sewer system is finally funded and finished, this county and region will see economic impact almost instantly since we'll now be able to recruit factories with high water needs. You just hide and watch. We already have 2 companies with 3 factories built there and this project will help a wider range of people than just those who attend a technology center.

The M-I thinks that technology centers being built will attract high tech companies. Well, we already have industries looking to build here now. Unfortunately, they can't move in because water is needed for their manufacturing process and without this regional sewer system, it simply can't be provided.

This sewer system will explode this region and it costs half as much as a single techology center muchless all of the techology centers that the M-I thinks should be completely funded ahead of everything else.

As Mom would say, we might have to march on this.

New conspiracy in the death of JFK and it's not that crazy.

I’m not one to believe in conspiracy theories, but check this link out and read the article. It is a piece on a new documentary coming out called Rendezvous with Death that explores the possibility that JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. For some, that is big news. It goes on to say that Oswald was acting on the behalf of Cuba. Apparently Oswald was a bit of a Marxist and Cuba exploited his bitter feelings towards the country. Oswald met with some Cuban higher ups and was paid to assassinate the president. There was an investigation into Cuba’s involvement, but it was called off after a few days. The lead investigator now calls it, “the worst investigation the FBI was ever involved in.”

It goes on to say that while Cuba was behind it, it was unknown if Castro knew about it. Robert Kennedy ordered nine assassination attempts on Castro’s life so a Cuban attempt on JFK would not be so far fetched. It was said that Lyndon Johnson ordered the abrupt end to the investigation into Cuba’s involvement because he did not want to have to invade the island and something like this would seem to be heading that way. The U. S. and Russia had already gone through the Cuban missile crisis and Johnson did not want to put the country at risk of entering into a nuclear situation.

It is an interesting article and I would like to see the film, but this subject is one of the best for conspiracies. I do believe that this conspiracy sounds better than a second shooter on the grassy knoll. It would make sense that Cuba would want JFK dead because we had been trying to kill Castro for years. Did Castro get the last laugh?

John Lennon's Imagine is Britain's favorite song.

In a radio poll in England in which 7000 listeners placed a vote, John Lennon’s Imagine was voted Britain’s favorite song. The Brits always seem to be doing some kind of poll like this. Every year there is a new favorite song or favorite movie. When I heard this I started to think about what my favorite song is. I admit that I have never thought about this before because you never ask the question, “If you were stuck on a desert island and could only listen to one song forever what would it be?” I then began to think about my favorite song of all time. To start with, there must be some parameters. I can’t just pick something out of the air. A few guidelines must be followed.

First, I think the song should be by an established artist or band. If you check the link, you will see that Britain’s 10th favorite song of all time is You’re Beautiful by James Blunt. James who? I would normally think that with a name like Blunt it must be a rapper, but I saw Mr. Blunt on SNL a few weeks ago. He does not belong on the countdown. Not only must the song have been a relative hit, but the artist needs to be someone you could pick out of a lineup or they must have another song or two that you know, this isn’t favorite one hit wonder of all time.

A second condition must be that 3 out of 5 people walking down the street must have heard this song. Your favorite song can’t be Pawnshop Guitars by Gilby Clarke, no one has that CD or heard that song, except me. This isn’t a condition, but I don’t think that my favorite song is going to be a “slow” song. Imagine is a beautiful song, but I do not believe it could be a country’s favorite song. Some may love it and it may be their favorite, but a group of 7000 should not pick that song. I am assuming they were pressured into it. I “imagine” that the DJs kept reminding the callers what song was in the lead. I must say that I can see Hey Jude as a favorite song and it is slow, so my whole line of thinking may be flawed, but these are just my opinions.

What is my favorite song? I thought about this. I am a rocker so I automatically think Stairway to Heaven, but that is a great song, but I can think of other Zeppelin songs that I like better, Black Dog, Ten Years Gone, and Babe I’m Gonna Leave You being three of those songs. I love Back and Black by ACDC, Master of Puppets by Metallica, That’s All by Genesis, Kiss by Prince, Let's Stay Together by Al Green, Eastbound and Down by Jerry Reed, just to name a few. One song kept popping into my head and that was Won’t Get Fooled Again by the Who. Not only is that a great song, it contains the greatest rock ‘n’ roll scream of all time. It has loud guitars, a quiet breakdown in the middle and it finishes with raw power until the end. By the way, the end of the song is probably the best ending to a song of all time. You have best scream and best ending and geniuses at work. That is my favorite song of all time.

Cat dials 911 and saves owner's life.

Dateline: Columbus , Ohio

Tommy the cat dials 911 and saves his owner who has fallen and can't get up. According to the responding officer this indeed seems to be the case. Tommy's owner, who was wheel chair bound, fell out of his chair and couldn't get to the phone. He also was not wearing his medical alert necklace and could not reach a cord that alerted paramedics. The 911 operators received a call from the address but no one would answer them. The call ended and when operators called back they got no repsonse and decided to send someone to check things out.

Tommy's owner had been teaching the cat to dial 911 and to simplify things, because, well, he's a cat, the owner designated 911 to a speed dial button. When the cops arrived Tommy the cat was laying beside the phone. So much for Tim Bedore's animal conspiracy.

You're my boy, Blue!!!

Sad news out of Hollywood last week, Patrick Crenshaw passed away Wednesday of natural causes. Who is Patrick Crenshaw? As you can surmise by the title of this piece, he was Joseph "Blue" Palasky in a little movie I like to call Old School. In the linked article from Yahoo it explains how much he loved it when people on the street would recognize him and shout out, "You're my boy, Blue!!" Crenshaw would apparently turn around and yell back, "I'm your boy Blue!" Looking at IMDB.com you can see the many other roles he had in life including a role in the great movie Bonnie and Clyde.

Satan Worshippers Get a New Look

Apparently, there is a brand of jeans called Cheap Monday in Sweden. The label and the company may be selling satanic propaganda. One thing is for sure though: the label is anti-christian. Now, whether they are actually antichristian or just trying to get their name attached to controversy to boost sell, I don't know.

I have recently read in the Columbia, SC paper (The State) that a fair bit of controversy is arising in the Chrisitan community as the jeans are starting to hit the states. Not surprisingly, the range of opinion is broad. I wish it were simple enough that Christians just wouldn't buy things that are either anti-christian, non-christian like, or just morally questionable. Unfortunately, we are inundated with these things through our media daily. At the very least I won't be buying these jeans.

Kong rules.

Well, I finally saw the movie to end all movies last night, King Kong. I thought that it was a very good movie, although it could have been shorter. It could have lost some scenes and still been a great movie. The effects in it were excellent and except for the bronto run which got a little squirrely, everything looked fine. The battle between Kong and the Rexes was awesome. It was a huge spectacle of a movie and it delivered on everything I expected.

The one thing I did not expect was the emotional wallop it would pack. This movie truly was a love story and I will liken it to Ol Yeller. They try their best to make turn you into a blubbering idiot by the end. I was so surprised at how much emotion and understanding you could read on the face of Kong. Naomi Watts was truly excellent considering she was most likely reacting to a green screen.

I am so surprised this movie is not making a huge amount of money. I would think that the opposite would occur for this movie that occurred for Titanic. I would expect that guys would be taking their better halves to see this and the chicks would get something out of the love story and the guys have the action. I would recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of action or tearjerkers, you won't be disappointed.

Playstation Portable graffiti ads? Ingenius

Check out the link to the article from Yahoo! in the title, this is the most original ad campaign ever. The people at Sony are thinking outside of the box.

While mildly illegal this will become something they'll get a ton of press over and if they choose to be law abiding citizens, they'll pay the tiny fines.

Basically what they did was come up with somewhat large stencils of cartoon character kids interacting with Sony's Playstation Portable (PSP) handheld video game system. Some are skateboarding on them or riding them or something like that. The stencils are very basic line art type creations so that you could probably get one on concrete in about 45 seconds with a good can of paint.

The idea that they are doing this type of thing really cool, but for my money I would have gotten on some graffiti websites where the pros hang out and hired some of them in different cities to do it up right. Probably even give them creative control as long as they worked in the product well.

Good graffiti is truly and artform. If you don't believe me do a Google search on it and check out the paintings that are out there. Unreal. How they can put that many hours into a huge painting in a public place without getting arrested is crazy. Some of the trains that come through here have some nice work on them too, but of course there are even more issues with getting into a train yard and starting on a train that won't be there the next day.

I did a little research on it for a headline for a story we did last January after seeing a train with some cool lettering on the cars. I got an idea to create the headline on a local alley's brickwall in a graffiti script and it turned out really well in my opinion. More than one person questioned whether we actually spray painted that wall, but while that would have been awesome, it was only Photoshop.

I hope Sony takes this illegal ad campaign to another level because it's too cool to let die. Even if they have to start finding a way to get permission or whatever. I say do what you have to do.

If I were them I would sell the stencils. Mention on the package that they are meant for kids to decorate their rooms or something like that, and specifically not for public graffiti painting.

You know kids would be out trying to put them up in public. So not only would they be getting the advertising, but the kids and their parents would be paying them to do it through the buying of the stencils.

Now that they have the publicity, this is the logical way to go depending on the public backlash after a few kids get caught.

Actually, the selling of the stencils should be done after commissioning real graffiti artists to do some wild paintings. They are going to paint anyway, so why not pay some of these gifted artists a little coin for their trouble?

Holiday Spirit III: Out With the Old

Hello All!

Well, this is it! The final piece of the cliff-hanging trilogy of Holiday Spirit, then its OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW!
(Forgive me if this blog is not up to par but I've been up all night, and this is the last thing I will do before taking a quick nap and starting a new day.)
At the risk of giving up my alias to the two remaining people who know me (but don't), I am going to write about the 2005 holidays as experienced in my world (and some of yours).

At the onset of the holiday season this year, it would be putting it kindly to say I was feeling kind of bleak about the prospect of, at least a "Merry Christmas". One of my siblings trekked off across the country with his significant other to celebrate Christmas, thus forcing our family to either celebrate Christmas early or (worse) away from each other. (What's the best choice between a rattlesnake and cobra, again?) Anyway, we chose the former, celebrating "Christmas" a week early. Because it is our unbroken (until this year) tradition in our family to celebrate on Christmas Eve, this really was quite a disheartening idea.
Well, if it was a disheartening IDEA, the reality of it was down CRAPPY!! First, instead of the regularly scheduled evening activities, it was held in the afternoon (yes-it makes a difference!). Moving past the beautifully prepared Cornish hen dinner and the "children's program", which was excitedly uneventful, we continued on to the adult "exchanging of gifts"'. Now, a little background here: the rule USED TO BE: 'no exchanging between "kids" (meaning my generation), only gifts for Mom and Dad and the little children. Yeah! FAT CHANCE! But, if you'll refer back to Holiday Spirit I, you will recall how I chose to handle THAT problem. No--the truth is, we did something I swore I would never do, this year. We actually gave out pictures of ourselves. Now, normally, this would be number one on my: "what not to give list" (Okay--people with kids, don't freak out, I know it is acceptable after that point), but all the families wanted one, but they were EXPENSIVE, so instead of taking them up on their offer to buy their own, we gave them as gifts. I digress....so, it ended up that Dad's gift (that was from ALL of us), didn't come in, and he sat looking like the puppy who couldn't get a teat, during this whole event. Oh, well, things were bound to get better. Right? Wrong!
On to ROUND 4: Dirty Santa. Poor Mom, always trying to make things more enjoyable for everyone, tried to jazz up this, sometimes vicious game. Well, right away, one of my sister-n-laws figured out that she may not end up with exactly what she brought (as she aims to every year), so she demanded that we revert back to the old way. The truth is, I really wasn't crazy about the prospect of this new version either (you had to perform silly little jigs or what have you, before selecting a gift from under the tree), but Mom had put heart into it, and I wasn't about to so blatantly disregard this fact. But, this particular sister-in-law got a few followers behind her little riot and managed to overthrow Mom and get the game changed back to regular "Dirty Santa". Without going into the rules of the game, or a long detailed account of how it went down in this specific "CRAPMAS", I will just say that Dad ended up opening over half the gifts(each time someone feeling sorry for him and stealing his so he could try again),and complaining about every single one , and wound up giving away the gift he DID end up with. Oh, yeah---and that one sister-in-law---DID manage to go home with the gift that she had brought! Mercifully, it finally ended!

For most of the next week however, it seemed as if Christmas was over, literally. This breaking of tradition really threw off my Internal Seasonal Clock. But low and behold, Christmas was brought back to life, when we chose to reunite with an old Christmas tradition on Christmas Eve night. Before my grandmother passed away, our family always gathered there on Christmas Eve to celebrate Christmas (got me yet?). After she passed away, our immediate family, having grown a great deal, went our separate way. This year, however, with our regular plans foiled, many of us rejoined our Aunts, Uncles and cousins.

Earlier that day, I had to make a last minute Christmas shopping run to pick up 'Big Bird's' present. I rode with a friend, and along the way she told me of a game that cost little money, everyone got a present (some crappier, some good), and was an overall good time. Since their was not "present exchanging" plans on the agenda that night (and let's face it, that IS one of the funnest parts of family Christmas), I decided to get the gifts together and play this game with my family. This friend and I sat in her car at Sonic and laughed on this rainy Christmas Eve and enjoyed Christmas for what it is: spending time with loved ones-great friends and family (See Holiday Spirit II), and giving for the pure joy of it, not out of obligation or with expectations of a gift in return (See Holiday Spirit I). After lunch, we raced home for a quick wrapping party (which couldn't have been more fun with spiked eggnog!) I had THE MOST FUN buying these cheap gifts and elegantly wrapping them, laughing about "what if so and so get this or that-tee hee", than I've had at Christmas in a loooong time----since I was a kid!

That night, I walked into my Grandmother's house with two huge Rubbermaid containers full of presents, and I was as giddy as a child on this (historically) fateful night. My family--my faithful and familiar undeniably wonderful family-- was there, the house was decorated and happy. A feast complete with Turkey and sweet potatoes was spread out on the table, just waiting to be devoured. It was almost as if it had nothing was changed or was out of the daily ordinary--like this was what one would expect to find ANY day of the year when walking into that house--Christmas trimmings and all......Its' always Christmas at Grandmother's house--because that is how I choose to remember it.

The game turned out to be a short-lived, unexpected holiday treat for my family. But for me, on Christmas Eve 2005, I made memories that will last forever. For around $50 and a lot of ribbons and bows, I was able to regain the Holiday Spirit that I was so desperately missing this year.

I hope you found your Holiday Spirit this year!
(P.S.) If you didn't, it's not too late....New Year's Eve party at my place!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS--

Lady Bird

I wish I played in the NFL.

More video for you and I have no idea how I missed this. Apparently some moron ran onto the field during a Browns and Steelers game. He was acting all "wanksta" and then he gets jack knifed by a Steelers player. It is unbelievable. I love it because the idiot reminds me of another idiot who plays Turtle on Entourage. If you hate wanna be gangsta looking white boys check this out. I must warn you that a soundtrack of Ludacris' Move B@#*h is used so if you do not like cuss words, be warned. Enjoy!!!

The Chronic (WHAT!) cles of Narnia!

I saw this on SNL a few weeks ago and now I have found it on the web to share with you. White boy rap about going to see a fantasy movie. It's gold, Jerry, GOLD!

Speaking of collecting... Old school tunes

So I've starting downloading songs from iTunes again. I've been meaning to start downloading old tunes from the 60's and 70's for a while, but now I've actually started getting them. Some of the facts I found were at a website linked in the title called songfacts.com. Pretty cool site.

For the most part I tend to call them somewhat obscure, but that's just because either 1) the artist is obscure or 2) the artist had other songs that overshadowed these tunes. And I'm quickly realizing that most of these songs are on the list because they are obscure to your average 28 year-old like myself.

The first song I downloaded was "I Was Made To Love Her" by Stevie Wonder. He recorded it in the mid-'60s and it's just a great song and probably my most favorite. Really awesome bass work. In fact, the bass is practically featured and whoever was playing it probably made it all up as he went.

Now is where we get really obscure. "Lay Down (Candles in the rain)" by Melanie recorded in 1970 following Woodstock. She played Woodstock when the rains came and the fans lit candles and if you listen to the lyrics (which I found on the net) you'll see it in the song. It's great because she got the Edwin Hawkins Singers to back her up. Like I told Piccu, she belts it out and that means a lot. They also recorded the lead vocals at near break neck levels. Loud and ragged which adds feeling. At least in this song Melanie strikes me as a female version of Joe Cocker (who is next on the list) except with a little more control, like Stevie Nicks on acid. Cocker just goes nuts.

Speaking of Joe, "The Letter (LIVE)" is the next song. It was originally written by The Box Tops and was the last song under 2 minutes to reach number one, allegedly. This version is well over twice that long. The reason I put the live version on there is because it's the absolute best. I doubt that Cocker did anything in the studio that he didn't top every night on the road. The version I got was from Joe Cocker's "Definite 1964-1986--His Greatest Songs" CD. All I gotta say is that, while Joe Cocker doesn't have a lot of great songs in my opinion, his best songs are great because he gives it all he's got. At any moment it always seems like Cocker could explode and that would be the end of it. In this live version the horns and background singers ice the proverbial cake.

My last song for my currently small collection is "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers. It won a Grammy for best R&B song in 1972 and this is the studio version from Withers' album Just As I Am. Honestly what makes this song really great is that it's 2 minutes and 10 seconds long and when it's over you wish it was 10 times as long. Just a slow ballad with all acoustical instruments and strings which I dig. You can even hear him tapping his foot in the beginning before the strings build into the guitar and bass.

That's my collection so far. My next download could be "Use Me" by Bill Withers as heard in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I intend to use my XM radio to help me find out more songs because we all have a song or two that we love, but have no idea who sings it or maybe what the title is. XM solves that by telling you all of that. I'm also flirting with "Across 110th Street" by Bobby Womack. Although Piccu has the Jackie Brown soundtrack somewhere I think.

Got any old tunes I need to check out? List them in the comments.

David Gilmour on the road again, unfortunatly he is alone.

Pack up the pickup, we are going to Chicago. David Gilmour is going on tour and Chicago is the closest place to the OC he will be appearing. Actually I will not be attending any of these shows mainly because I am sure the Mr. Gilmour will be too stubborn or pretentious to play any Pink Floyd songs. While I am sure that he will make a killing and I’m sure it will be a great show, the whole world is waiting for the real deal, a full blown Pink Floyd world tour extravaganza. I would be so there. And even though it will probably cost a thousand dollars to attend I would gladly pay that because the likelihood of a second tour would be slim.

Gilmour is releasing a new album this spring and that is why he is touring. I have no idea why he would tour because as he has said many times as a reason for not reforming Pink Floyd and touring, he is a fabulously wealthy man. I imagine that hasn’t changed. He must have gotten roped into this and had no way to get out of it. Would it be wrong for me to wish financial hardship for the members of Pink Floyd? I wouldn’t want them to go bankrupt, but just enough of a financial hit that they have to embark on the dream tour. That isn’t too much to ask. At least I don’t think so.

Films disappearing at alarming rate, but we saved 25 this year.

The National Film Registry has picked 25 films this year to be preserved for the rest of human life on earth by the Library of Congress. The 25 picked this year brings the total preserved films to 425. As I read the attached article, I found out something that I did not know. Apparently half the movies made before 1950 and 80 to 90 percent of the films made before 1920 have disappeared. Not only that, but more are being lost each year in part because of a newly discovered “vinegar syndrome” that attacks the safety film used to preserve the films.

I was shocked when I read that. I guess I thought that all films were shoved in a closet somewhere. If the Library of Congress only takes 25 films a year then they don’t seemed too concerned about the disintegration of all these films.

Here are some of the films they are preserving for eternity: Hoop Dreams, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The French Connection, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Toy Story. All fine movies, I personally recommend checking them all out. But shouldn’t we be worried about these films from the 20s, 30s and the like? Most of this year's selections are movies pre 1950, but why are we trying to save movies that I have on DVD? Haven’t I already saved them? I hope that something is being done to save more of these films.

Speaking of films, I have to tell you about my favorite Christmas present I received this year. I received it from Bratch and it was a movie poster of the film Walk the Line. It is not like most movie posters, this is more like a painting it is all red, yellow and black. Johnny Cash has his back to you with a guitar across his back and his head is turned to a profile and flames appear to be engulfing the space around him. Excellent, excellent poster. Authentic poster, it has been used but it is in great condition.

I do not think I have ever been so excited about a present I will probably only take out and look at once every few years. I am afriad that this will start me on some new nerd collecting jones and I will be buying a movie poster a week for three months. I have already been trolling the internet and that's not good news for my wallet.

Fortune Cookies Sell Out

Where was I when it was decided that Chinese fortune cookies would become Chinese proverb cookies? I missed that vote, obviously.

I guess I jumped on the Chinese food bandwagon pretty late. Growing up in Real OC, we didn't even have a Chinese restaurant in town until I was a junior or senior in high school. I eased my way in the way most cautious first time foreign food eaters do. With chicken. Sweet and Sour chicken. I since have progressed. Today I just finished off something called Subgum Lo Mein. It was a dish with lo mein noodles, shrimp, chicken, beef, chinese cabbage, onions, carrots and some other unidentifiable stuff. It was great and for less than $5 I filled myself to the gills.

Then I opened my fortune cookie. What should be the paramount moment of any Chinese food experience.
"Affection is the broadest base of a good life." Blech! Suddenly my food tasted bad.
What is that? That's a proverb. I want something like, "You will find a large sum of money." "You will break a bone." Good news, bad news, whatever, just make it interesting.

I actually got one fortune cookie that quoted the bible. I kept it in my wallet for the longest time to show people who doubted me. It quoted Hebrews, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." A direct quote of Hebrews 11:1.

Now some people prefer to insert fun into the now worthless fortunes with the "...in bed" technique. Of course this is where you add the phrase "in bed" to the end of any fortune. Sometimes it's funny, usually it's not.

I want real fortunes though, darn it. Real fortunes. Prophesy (falsely) about deaths, births, inheritances, accidents, promotions, demotions, emotions, what have you. Just nut up and make a prediction. This kind of wishy washiness is wearing thin.

Merry Christmas, but not a Happy Festivus for me.

Merry Christmas to all. Just wanted to get on here for a minute to let you in on how my Festivus went. Well, I'll tell ya. Every year Bratch and I get our mom a nice flower arrangement or two because she is nuts about flowers. I always try to get the flowers in a vase or flower holder that she can continue to use when the flowers are long gone. We have done this for years now and things seem to always work out fine.

This year I went to the local flower shops looking for the perfect gift and I found it. It was a purple vase type thing and in the center of it was the nativity scene. The nativity scene was embossed if that is even a word and was white. I thought that since this year Christmas was on Sunday I would give this to mom on Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning and she could use it to decorate the church if she wanted. Good plan if I do say so myself.

I picked up the flowers yesterday and brought them home satisfied that this was one of the best arrangements we had gotten for her. There were lavender roses in the arrangement to match the color of the vase. It was pretty good and I know nothing about flowers. Bratch and I are sitting in the living room enjoying our nightly Seinfeld, while in the dark enjoying the Christmas tree, when mom comes home. I see her walk into the dining room carrying something. I noticed two candles sticking up. I thought, "that's funny, my arrangement had two candles in it." I then thought to myself, "surely that is not the same arrangement." It couldn't be.

I voice my concerns to Bratch and he poo poos them. Mom must have overheard us and asked if that was the same arrangement we had gotten her. I played dumb but sprang from my chair and walked into the dining room. Bad news, bad news. It was the exact same thing. Well, not exactly the same thing, this arrangement was with carnations and not roses so it was a cheaper version, but the vase was the same and that was what I liked the most. Apparently mom's department heads got her this little token of their appreciation. And their affection has ruined Christmas.

Well, not really, I began to come up with schemes to somehow return my arrangement and get another one, but mom likes both so I guess we will keep it. One on the piano and one on the organ in church will look nice. It has now come to my attention that dad has put Bratch in charge of getting a Christmas present for mom from him, so we are going for another arrangement. I just hope that mom doesn't receive the same arrangement before she can get his on Christmas day.

Internet sales tax...

Being the Christmas season I thought I would bring up a subject that is near and dear to all of us who would rather not leave our home when shopping for Christmas gifts...

Sales tax on internet purchases.

I bring this up because technically sales tax, up until recently, was only added if you were buying from a web site that was based in your state. Fogdog.com is/was based out of Kentucky and Pennsylvania therefore sales tax was included on purchases from those states.

Last night I downloaded a song off of Apple's iTunes music store for 99 cents and when I get the confirmation email it will undoubtedly be $1.05. I don't have a problem with that too much because it's only 6 cents we are talking about.

(I'm only using Apple as this example because buying Apple products is what caused me to notice this issue.)

Last February/March I decided to purchase a Mac mini desktop computer. It's relatively inexpensive, but we are still talking about a total of about $676 or so after extras were added to the $499 computer and I bought a cool keyboard too. I looked around at a web site I had used before, but for some reason I couldn't get the exact setup (i.e. DVD burner) I wanted from them so I had to go straight through the Apple.com website.

After I had configured everything I went to check out and noticed that, while Apple was so proud to be offering free shipping at that time, they added 6 percent sales tax onto my nearly $700 purchase. Which added up to about $42 give or take.

Now that I have a problem with.

If I had been able to get it through my usual web site they would not have charged me sales tax and would have only charged me shipping. And keep in mind that the box that the keyboard came in was twice as large as the box the 3 pound, yes that's 3 pound, computer came in. Shipping wouldn't have sniffed $42 for ground shipping.

I bought a laptop from my usual web site and shipping was $24 for the $999 computer which weighs 6 pounds. The box was large and bulky for it but sales tax would have been 60 bucks.

After purchasing my beloved Mac mini, I started looking around on the internet for an Apple Store in case I ever needed any repairs. They open one about once a month, but the closest full blown Apple Store to me is in Nashville, Tennessee. And at the time I don't even think there was but maybe one certified Apple repair shop in this state. But it still wasn't an official Apple business.

So my question is, will the state of Kentucky see my $40+ in sales tax money or is this just a way to squeeze a little more out of the consumer?

Do the individual states call up companies that are mainly based on the internet and get their sales tax money from each of them?

Or do the companies themselves operate within the confines of the honor system and cut each state a check for the sales tax cash?

With all of the different web sites I dealt with, some large and some small, it's insane to expect any state to be able to keep up with what they are owed for sale tax collected from all of these companies.

I would love to purchase a G5 Quad Power Mac, but I have to tell you that, even at probably 30 pounds or more, shipping will be a lot less than the nearly $200 in sales tax Apple will be charging me that Kentucky will most likely never see.

Troop Levels Going Down in Iraq

How long until the Democrats complain about this one? Let's quickly review a little. First Democrats voted for the war, then they were against it. Then they wanted more troops, then they wanted fewer.

Now Rumsfeld and Bush have announced a planned troop reduction. Two brigades scheduled to go to Iraq will not. And the initial reduction will potentially include some 7,000 troops. That will bring the troop level down under 138,000 for the first time in a long time.

What hasn't changed throughout all of this? Bush. Say what you will about him, but from day one he said it would take a long time. He said we were there to establish a democracy and allow Iraqis to vote for their own leaders.

That has happened and now troop reduction begins in earnest. Everyone should be happy about that, but there's no such thing as good news in Washington, D.C. This will be spun, like everything else, in a negative direction somehow.

Someone said recently that we won't know how we did in Iraq for about another 10 years. That may be true, but we unseated an evil dictator (who may or may not have been a threat to the United States,) the Sunnis who boycotted the last election voted in the last one, realizing it was their best means to get what they want. They've drafted a constitution. They're trying Hussein in an established court of law.

It's tremendous progress. And now we're bringing our troops home (starting to anyhow) and a good work has been done.

New Daddy Diary, Entry #5 (Colic)

Why colic stinks, by Sivart Worfner

Colic stinks because it is a generic term for a collection of symptoms, rather than a name for a condition. The symptoms aren't even necessarily present in every "case" of colic.

Here are some signs that your newborn has colic and Aiden's status on each symptom.
Excessive gas....check
Sudden screaming....check
Crying for more near three hour increments...check
Clinching of the arms and legs...check
Three or more of these "fits" per week...check

That all adds up to Sivart being one very tired individual. And Mrs. Worfner is likely worse because she gets all that fun plus has to stay up feeding the baby. Bless her heart.

How do you cure colic? Well, gee whiz, since we don't really even know what it is we can't cure it. I think it's basically another name for gassiness that has no obvious source. Mylicon drops can help the child get comfortable faster, but not that much faster.

Basically, you wait. It tends to last around three weeks and is less prevalent in breast fed babies. Luckily we bucked that trend! It's a taxing time for the child without doubt, but the parents (especially first time parents) really struggle. Aiden's colic tends to hit him hard around 11 at night (when it lasts for about three hours, you do the math.)

It's the toughest test of patience I've ever endured and I can CERTAINLY understand how a weak person could snap and shake the child. Never, ever would I condone it, but when you have a colicky child, you see the chinks in your own armor and you can understand.

I love my son and thank God daily for him, but it's no cliche to say it's the toughest job you'll ever have.

Eavesdropping revisited...

I was posting a comment about this and it got a little long, so I thought I would just post it here.

I've been listening to the Phillips Phile on XM radio and they've been bashing Bush over this every day since the eavesdropping story broke.

I'm kind of on the fence about the whole situation.

On one hand, it is a violation of the fourth amendment of the Constitution and the reasoning behind it was because of time issues with getting proper warrants to put in wire taps and other things. We've all seen how hard it can be to get warrants on TV cop shows, but that's not so different from real life. However, the federal law enforcement agencies have a judge on call 24 hours a day and his job is to do nothing but decide whether or not to give them warrants for these procedures.

That kind of makes things look a little worse than they actually are, but even I can understand how they may feel they don't have time to consult with this judge anyway. I've also heard something about a 72-hour window where they can start the spying while they are working on getting the warrant. I'm not positive on the truth of that, but I've heard it mentioned.

On the other side of the coin in this situation, I'm not a terrorist so I'm not worried about being spied on. But I sincerely hope that my tax dollars aren't being spent on spying on an idiot such as myself when there are better things they could be doing.

I haven't been watching much of the news so I don't really know exactly how the public feels about the whole situation, but I know that everything will probably be fine until they haul off an innocent man and he or his family sues the government for violating his right to privacy and pistol whipping him for information. And the media will run with it because they already hate Bush anyway.

We are also talking about amendment four and not amendment 25. When drafting our Constitution, this was the fourth most important thing they came up with, so Bush and the government had better be sure of everything before they start hauling people off to jail after illegally snooping on them.

In this day and age I think we all have to expect to lose a little bit of our privacy. I watched the World Trade Center towers collapse on live TV after being awakened by a guy on my radio saying that the Pentagon had been attacked. I don't care to see that happen again and I don't care how much you hate the president or how much you value your right to privacy, you should at least be able to acknowledge the reasoning behind this move.

I kind of have an idea that this wouldn't be such an issue if the media wasn't so against the current administration anyway. They act like Bush is making these moves like a slow-witted dictator without consulting with dozens of experts who advise him on these things.

People should realize that this president isn't smart enough to hatch a scheme like this on his own. LOL

Hilltoppers Hosed?

Western Kentucky University, my alma mater and favorite sports team, had a chance for a big regular-season win playing the University of Arizona in the championship of the Fiesta Bowl Classic. Coming in only the ultra-optimistic Hilltopper fans expected WKU to stay on the court with the high flying Wildcats.

Optimism was justified this time. The Toppers took the fight to the dog all night long and in the face of a hostile crowd and athletic team, the Tops never lost composure. For the game, the Red and White outshot 'Zona from the floor (46.3% to 42.5%) from behind the 3pt line (36.4% to 29.4%) and from the line (84.6% to 79.2%.) The good guys outrebouned the Wildcats 48-35 (including 20-17 on the offensive glass.)

So how did WKU lose? Easy, they got jobbed. Of course, at Arizona's tournament, on their floor, with them being a Pac-10 team and WKU coming from the lowly Sun Belt Conference, you knew Arizona would get the majority of the calls in the game. However, three big calls stand out as game altering.

1. During regulation with WKU clinging to a 6 point lead, Wildcat guard Hassan Adams leaked out for a dunk attempt. WKU guard Butch Jointer caught up and made a play for the ball but Adams lost his balance and tumbled over. Intentional Foul was the call. 'Zona made both free throws and scored a deuce on the ensuing possession. 6 pt lead to 2 pts just like that.
2. In OT with WKU trailing 83-81, Jointer wrestled a rebound away from Arizona center Chris Rodgers. Rodgers gave Jointer a push in frustration, causing Jointer to fall to the floor. Travelling was the call and the ball went to Arizona.
3. Two possessions later in OT, Adams drove the lane against two WKU defenders, air balled a finger roll attempt and grabbed the rebound. What is a text-book walk, Adams was not whistled and scored puttting 'Zona up 86-81, the final margin.

Think it's just sour grapes? According to Brian J. Pederson, columnist for the Arizona Daily Star WKU was robbed of their opportunity. Pederson writes in today's column entitled "WKU Seems Legitimate Contender," "It hurt even more to see all of WKU's work in regulation go for naught in overtime, thanks to a slew of home team-friendly calls. One in particular was a travelling call on junior Butch Jointer with 23.7 seconds left and the UA up 83-81."

I don't think officials honestly look for ways to screw teams like WKU out of wins. Surely they don't lack that much integrity and accountability. I think, however, that when a call seems 50/50 somewhere in their subconcious that see Arizona as the better team, therefore they are more likely to deserve the call. A theory that John Feinstein supports in his book, "The Last Amateurs."

I'm still very proud of my Hilltoppers. I think we're turning the corner and will maximize our potential before too long. If so, look out SBC and the NCAA's should be iminent.
HOWEVER, last night's loss effectively ends WKU's chance for a marquee win it would need for an at-large bid. So now the SBC becomes a one-bid league with all the marbles on the line in the SBC tournament in Murfreesboro, Tn this March. It stinks that it came down that way, but that's life as a mid-major.

A Piece of Holiday Cheer from the Old Days

My wife and I were in the living room last night doing something or other and there was a knock at the door. Well, actually there were two separate knocks a few minutes apart. The first was the UPS man who now visits our house nine times a week since french_toast's job requires things constantly being shipped. This guy will knock and run as fast as possible back to the truck to avoid human contact; I digress. Anyway, the second knock came soon after. I thought maybe it was the UPS guy again; however, I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of finding some guy in matching brown pants and jacket, there was a group of about twenty or so people ranging 6 months old to seventy-five years old. THEY WERE CAROLLING!! I have never had the privledge of hearing people carolling and only once in my life have I had the chance to do it. We caught there rendition of Silent Night, which as anyone knows the African American Church music is a little cranked up. We proceeded to watch from the window as the group made their way around the could-de-sac. Despite not being able to carry a tune, I remember the one youth group carolling trip very well. I wish we could have done that more, but just listening to those carols last night got me in the mood for Christmas.

Holiday Spirit Part II

Hello All!

This is Part II of the trilogy that started yesterday (because those of you that know me, know how much I love trilogies).

So after we talked about how to alleviate the stress of Christmas shopping, I told him the real reason this season is so special to me. As I noticed on the comment board, I am not the only one who "gets" this.

With the onset of Thanksgiving, lasting until just after the New Year, something cool happens. Families get together more, friends get together more, and although it may not seem like it at times, we all tend to slow down and make the time to "fellowship" more. The air actually smells different: sort of a cookie/pine/crisp aroma that is a constant reminder of what is upon us. (It is much like the smell of Spring and baseball or Summer and swimming, or Fall and Halloween) It's the excitement of a potential "snow day"-which we never really grow out of. I still secretly hope for a day or two of being completely snow bound (don't lie, you do too), a day when we can pull out the sleds, hot chocolate, old movies, Scrabble and maybe even snow man making supplies. I love it, and I won't deny it! Sometimes I even want the power to fail,just for a short while, but long enough to break out the kerosene heaters that only warm a single room in the house, and force all who inhabit it to gather in the same room without the company/distraction of a television.
I love that four wheel drives are the majority of the vehicles that are able to travel the roads, and that they creep at unnatural speeds, keeping it between the ditches, not the lines. When the snow is so thick that the world is white, and tree branches are heavy, and nights aren't dark because the moon reflects off of the glittering ground, I know why I love this time of year. It is the only time of year that I ever regret walking through my yard, because I don't want to flaw the perfection created.
When I was a child, my sibling and I always thought that you couldn't ever sit and watch for the snow to begin falling or it never would begin, but if you were able to start watching it as it was already falling, it would never end. The snow is a definite part of my love for this part of the year, but that is partly because it indirectly brings families and friends (with four wheel drives) together, and offers them a time to laugh and love without distractions.
I love looking at the Christmas lights and watching "Christmas vacation" with friends/family. The beauty my church exalts this time of year. All the advent candles have been lit, and all the 'special' services are over, and for a little while, I am sad. After this season, decorations come down and the whole world looks like a wet, undecorated wedding cake.
But during the holidays, I am peaceful and absorbent. I take it all in and smile at the Scrooges, in hopes that maybe it will help their day.
In short, I love the holidays because of snow and lights, Christmas hymns and poinsettias, power outages and four-wheel drives, giving for the sake of giving to see the joy on someone else's face (and the fact that you don't have to send thank you notes for Christmas gifts), hot chocolate and reliving of memories, games, love and laughter, and children who still believe and still read "Twas the Night Before Christmas". I love the holidays because they give us time to slow down and appreciate each other, and watch "Christmas Vacation", "Charlie Brown's Christmas", "Mickey's: A Christmas Carol", and "A Christmas Story". I love the holidays because of peppermint Bark, fudge, cookies, smoked weinees, ham biscuits and hot apple cider. I love the holidays because of family and friends, but most of all: friends who ARE family.

HAPPY Holidays to all and to all a good night,

Lady Bird

Holiday Spirit

Hello again!
Since I found success with my last blogging attempt, I have decided to carry on. Skip it if you get bored, but I feel compelled to write about the season that is upon us!

I turned to my best friend the other day (yes, I believe in best friends even if it sounds corney or childish), and I say: "I really do love the holiday season, in spite of all the stress they cause."

I won't go into what he said, but let's just say, although he saw hopes for sharing my feelings in the future, he couldn't agree with me at the time. He asked me why I liked them so much and I told him what I will be telling you now.

Although many people choose (and yes, choose it the correct word, because I am one of those people who believe we have a choice in all things) to allow the holidays become of a season of stressful, frantic shoping sprees, I choose to look at the other side of it. I pick up gifts all year. I have, only in recent years, decided that I would only buy for those whom I really WANTED to buy for, and not get into this game of: I'll get them a gift because they got me a gift last year....oh no, what do I get them....I don't really even know them well enough to buy for them. Then guess what people: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!! They are probably doing the same thing right now while they are looking for your gift. Do them a favor, don't give them a gift, and next year they will be grateful that you freed them from the stress of shopping for your gift. (Save your money and buy your self a $20 gift you want, they can buy themselves a $20 gift they want, and you're both happy. Seriously people, it's not rocket science. Call each other and tell what "you got one another" if it makes you feel better) If this seems to "cold" to you, relax, there is another option. Start weening them off. If you spent $20 last year on them, spend $15 this year. Oh, don't worry, they'll notice (and retaliate next year with a $10 gift), Eventually you'll be giving each other an oversized candy cane (oh don't pretend you've never gotten one)---and truthfully you'll both be happier that you saved the money and time out of your lives.

Anyway-I chose option A, and only bought for those I enjoy buying for, and that is easy because I see things these people would like all the time. As I said, I've bought gifts all year round and put them in "the present closet", and presently, on December 20, 2005, I haven't stepped into a store with a list of people and no idea what to get for them. Truth be told, I haven't even really Christmas shopped at all during this "holiday season", thus giving me time to actually enjoy them for what they are, which I will get into at another time (as this is getting long).

One more side note: Don't try any of these with your parents or immediate family, you've got to live with those people.

HAPPY Holidays,

Lady Bird

Incongruent-Affect

Hello Fellow Bloggers!!!
I'm the newest member of your esteemed group, and I've done my research. After reviewing several of the blogs in the archives of this fine bloggary (yes, I tend to make up words when there aren't any that are suitable-tee heh), and I've discovered that I should have been involved in this from the beginning. There were many that I would have cared to comment on, had I been a part of this all along. Oh well, life's to short to look back, so let's focus on the 'now'.
I have many ideas that I'd like to share with the lot of you in the near future, but let's get a couple of things out of the way first:

DISCLAIMER:
Because of warnings I indirectly received from some very close friends of mine, I have chosen to include this disclaimer, and reserve all rights to refer back to it at any time in order to defend myself, my submissions, and my general lack of regard for ignorance or intolerance for the opinions of others (such as myself).

All the opinions expressed in blogs submitted by one, Lady Bird, are the expressed opinions of herself, and not the opinion of any other blogger associated with this Blog Spot, including, but not exclusively, those of the "administration". These opinions, may at times, be offensive to other readers (though I doubt often).


ABOUT ME:

What needs to be known about me will all be revealed in good time. I will tell you this: many of you know me, I am opinionated, enjoy games (case in point), consider myself a thinker, fairly outgoing, and love life---now, after you've voted me Homecoming Queen, we'll move on with the program. In truth, I will tell you only a couple of things about me, (besides what you read on the blogs) until my true identity is revealed. What's important to know about me: I am one of those people who truly loves her friends and family. I wouldn't trade lives with anyone in the world, and I mean that (including the "blessed" rich and famous). My life is good! You may think that will make for a great deal of gushy blogs. WRONG! I said MY life was good, there are a million other f#!* ups in the world that I will be happy to express my thoughts and ideas on. (Oh, and you probably won't see much of the ^!%&*## from me, as I really don't curse that much-it just seemed to fit in that instance, as it may in a few others). Here are a few other notes/hints:
* My blogs may be long--I'm a little wordy
* I don't spell well, and although I enjoy writing, I don't care much for the rules of grammar
* I enjoy a good debate, so feel free to disagree with me, and bring it on--we'll have a good time discussing it (however, most of the time my writings probably won't be THAT controversial)
* I don't write about only one topic: sports, TV, books, people, animals, relationships--I'll probably cover them all, I'm diverse and have an opinion on everything---you know what they say about opinions.

Anyway-enough for now--I'm going to post this and see if it works. My next post will be about the Holidays and the one following that will be about a talk show host I have a love/hate relationship with.

Thanks for inviting me to the Blog!

Lady Bird

Intelligent Design? Not in Pennsylvania

Judge John E. Jones III, a federal judge, ruled Intelligent Design would not be taught in Pennsylvania schools. Judge ruled that it was not science. Essentially, he ruled it to be Christianity in cognito.

Well, as a christian and a scientist, I agree with him 100%. Intelligent design is not science at all. I'm not saying it doesn't play a role in my life, but I think my church or I should be teaching it to my children (figuratively speaking since I have none). The fact that we are a Christianity dominated country seems to confuse many Christians in the thinking that all religions are equal, but some religions are more equal (phrase adapted from Orwell's Animal Farm).

I don't understand why Christians get so hung up on evolution. I don't see it as shaking my beliefs. Is it that atheisists hang there hat on it? Believing it does not make you an atheisist. In my Christian way of thinking, it doesn't matter whether God created the earth in 7-24hr days or slowly over billions of years. God still created it, in my beliefs. Though I believe the latter, it is just as beautiful either way.

Is Eavesdropping OK?

This is more of a question than a regular post. President Bush recently authorized the NSA to eavesdrop of international phone calls and emails that originate from or are directed to those suspected to be linked to Al Qaeda.
On the surface it seems to be a huge infingement on civil liberties, mainly the right to privacy. However, the question is whether or not the current environment of paranoia caused by the rippling effects of 9/11 justify such action.
Everyone wants to be safe and secure, but at what costs do people want it? I'm attempting here to hide my true feelings on this because I want this to be an objective question and am seriously interested in what others think.
So in times of war or in anticipation of possible terrorists activities, should the government have the authority to eavesdrop on private conversation? If so, at what point does it become wrong?