Casual Observations of the Universe

I Didn't Vote for Obama Today

2008-11-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

I Didn't Vote For Obama Today
November 4, 2008, 9:37AM

I have a confession to make.

I did not vote for Barack Obama today.

I've openly supported Obama since March. But I didn't vote for him today.

I wanted to vote for Ronald Woods. He was my algebra teacher at Clark Junior High in East St. Louis, IL. He died 15 years ago when his truck skidded head-first into a utility pole. He spent many a day teaching us many things besides the Pythagorean Theorem. He taught us about Medgar Evers, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis and many other civil rights figures who get lost in the shadow cast by Martin Luther King, Jr.

But I didn't vote for Mr. Woods.

I wanted to vote for Willie Mae Cross. She owned and operated Crossroads Preparatory Academy for almost 30 years, educating and empowering thousands of kids before her death in 2003. I was her first student. She gave me my first job, teaching chess and math concepts to kids in grades K-4 in her summer program. She was always there for advice, cheer and consolation. Ms. Cross, in her own way, taught me more about walking in faith than anyone else I ever knew.

But I didn't vote for Ms. Cross.

I wanted to vote for Arthur Mells Jackson, Sr. and Jr. Jackson Senior was a Latin professor. He has a gifted school named for him in my hometown. Jackson Junior was the pre-eminent physician in my hometown for over 30 years. He has a heliport named for him at a hospital in my hometown. They were my great-grandfather and great-uncle, respectively.

But I didn't vote for Prof. Jackson or Dr. Jackson.

I wanted to vote for A.B. Palmer. She was a leading civil rights figure in Shreveport, Louisiana, where my mother grew up and where I still have dozens of family members. She was a strong-willed woman who earned the grudging respect of the town's leaders because she never, ever backed down from anyone and always gave better than she got. She lived to the ripe old age of 99, and has a community center named for her in Shreveport.

But I didn't vote for Mrs. Palmer.

I wanted to vote for these people, who did not live to see a day where a Black man would appear on their ballots on a crisp November morning.

In the end, though, I realized that I could not vote for them any more than I could vote for Obama himself.

So who did I vote for?

No one.

I didn't vote. Not for President, anyway.

Oh, I went to the voting booth. I signed, was given my stub, and was walked over to a voting machine. I cast votes for statewide races and a state referendum on water and sewer improvements.

I stood there, and I thought about all of these people, who influenced my life so greatly. But I didn't vote for who would be the 44th President of the United States.

When my ballot was complete, except for the top line, I finally decided who I was going to vote for - and then decided to let him vote for me. I reached down, picked him up, and told him to find Obama's name on the screen and touch it.

And so it came to pass that Alexander Reed, age 5, read the voting screen, found the right candidate, touched his name, and actually cast a vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Oh, the vote will be recorded as mine. But I didn't cast it.

Then again, the person who actually pressed the Obama box and the red "vote" button was the person I was really voting for all along.

It made the months of donating, phonebanking, canvassing, door hanger distributing, sign posting, blogging, arguing and persuading so much sweeter.

So, no, I didn't vote for Barack Obama. I voted for a boy who now has every reason to believe he, too, can grow up to be anything he wants...even President.

A good read from this blog, HERE.

King of the Hill

2008-11-01T08:51:00.001-07:00

One of the best TV shows, past and present, will be coming to an end as of next year. King of the Hill, an animated television show on FOX, is scheduled to stop airing due to other projects that the writers of the show are pursuing.

It's a very funny series chronicling the life of a fictional family in a fictional city in Texas. Unlike other animated shows where they try to create unrealistic plots, King of the Hill is basically a regular day-in-the-life of a family, but as a cartoon. I loved the wacky, dry humor that made each episode funny. Phrases like "Damn it Bobby!" and "I sell propane, and propane accessories" are classic, at least for those familiar to the show.

And despite me not owning a TV set, I am still bummed at the cancellation and demise of such a cool show. Hopefully something equally interesting takes its place.

2008-10-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

I was checking on the total number of miles that I've accumulated with my Hawaiian Airlines card, just in case I want to make a dash over to a slice of heaven, i.e. the Hawaiian islands, and I came across this paragraph. Please note the highlighted part:

Hawaiian Airlines is not responsible for and reserves the right to suspend or cancel the HawaiianMiles program in the event of war, acts of God or public enemy, fire, flood, hurricanes, strikes or other labor disputes, riots, insurrection, governmental orders or actions, beyond the control of Hawaiian, or in the event of bankruptcy, reorganization or merger.

WTF? What does THAT actually mean? Initially I thought they were referring to natural disasters, but they've already got that covered in the sentence. So now I'm a bit bewildered as to what type of act God can do to cancel my trip to heaven. Seems a bit ironic, if you ask me.

The Credit Crisis Explained as an Arctic Expedition

2008-10-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

The credit crisis as Antarctic expedition from Marketplace on Vimeo.

This is actually very informative and highlights some pretty interesting and sometimes complex things into a straight forward analogy. It's narrated by Paddy Hirsch, the senior editor of Marketplace at American Public Media.

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

2008-09-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

I found this book through either amazon or audible's recommendation or because people who had read another book that I read, don't remember which, also recommended this one. The whole time I was reading this book two words kept coming into my head, "chick flick," but in this case it would be "chick book." Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad book, but there were times when I was cringing at some of the cheesy, gushy details the author, Anita Amirrezvani, was describing throughout the story. Details that seemed to be written specifically for women in mind, since the whole plot centers around the coming of age of a 14-year-old Persian girl in 17th Century Iran. She's supposed to marry within the year but her father dies suddenly and she and her mother are forced to leave their small village to seek help from her uncle, who lives in a distant major city. A lot of the plot was in large part due to her naivety of coming from a small village to "the big-bad-city," which in all honesty made the story seem very cheap and contrived. She endures befriending a rich girl, then losing her friendship, and getting married, but then losing the guy to her friend. She basically ended up with about a years worth of bad luck due to some comet that had been seen by a mystic from her village at the beginning of the story.

The reason I finished it, other than the fact that I don't like starting things and not finishing them, was that the story also had a sub plot that was of interest to me: rug making. She was skilled as an rug maker but when she came to the city with her mom to her uncles she ended up learning so much more due to the fact that he happened to be the rug maker for the Shaw, the ruler of Iran. Being as the uncle didn't have a son to pass on the knowledge and family business to, he entrusted her with his wisdom and experience. It was barely enough for me to feign interest in the story, and they weren't really that great.

Would I recommend this book? If you've never read a coming-of-age story then yes, by all means read this book. The author does a pretty good job of describing the protagonist and the intricacies of her life and the world as it was seen in Iran at the time, and then weaving (pun intended) them into a respectable story. But steer clear if you're looking for some deep, eye-opening, philosophical meaning behind yet another coming-of-age story. This is not that book.

One thump up.

In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

2008-09-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

There is more to life than increasing its speed. (Ghandi)

Tell that to the modern world! Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, the modern world seems to be telling you to move faster, faster, faster! Magazine covers advertise how to achieve "30 second orgasms!" or how to "Loose your gut in 3 days!" Nowadays it's not uncommon to find someone driving, emailing/texting, and eating all at once. It seems as if the cool leisurely stroll we were doing on the treadmill of life has all of a sudden been warped into hyperdrive, and all we can do from falling on our buh-dunk-kuh-dunks is hold on and keep moving faster, faster, faster!

I was inspired to read Carl Honore's book after seeing the TED lecture, and though the gist of the book and the lecture are similar he goes into a bit more detail in the book regarding the Slow Movement, which is his central theme. The Slow Movement is just that, doing things at a slower pace than what has been mandated by the modern world. Things such as eating, sex, medicine, leisure, the mind/body, work, building cities, and raising children each have a Slow Movement associated with them. Despite not going into too much detail regarding any of those subjects, he still gives a base for most people to start from. Can't let the guy do ALL the work. ;-)

This is a great book for those that are questioning their slave-like attachment to time and the modern worlds incessant pursuit of the mantra that "faster is better." Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, that is not the case. In the West our relationship with time is very linear, meaning we think that time has a beginning and an end and thus must use up as much of it as possible before it ends for us. Hence our desire and need to fill it up with as many appointments, tasks, to-do lists, adventures, nights-out, sexual partners, etc. as possible to "better make use of our time." This thinking then implies that not doing anything equals to not being productive or even worse, wasting time! But that is furthest from the truth. There is a great point in the book that pretty much sums it up. It's a quote from Dean Harry Lewis of the undergraduate school at Harvard who wrote an email and dispenses it to every incoming freshman class. He wrote, "Empty time is not a vacuum. It is the thing that enables the other things on your mind to be creatively arranged, like the empty square in the 4 x 4 puzzle that makes it possible to move the other fifteen pieces around." I thought that pretty much hit the nail on the head. You need space to breathe and time to be able to look around and enjoy what you have. The Slow Movement is not saying that everything should be slow, but that there is a time for doing things fast and a time for doing things slow, as well as in between. The modern world has set everyones default speed at fast and he is just making a case to reassess what your priorities are in life and not let the temptation of getting things done faster in order to do more stuff blind you from what is truly important: the enjoyment of life at your own pace.

Two thumbs up!

The Slow Movement

2008-08-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

This is from TED:

Canadian-born journalist Carl Honore has written for The Economist, the Houston Chronicle, the Observer, and the National Post, but he is best known for his advocacy of the Slow Movement. A loose and international effort by the harried and haggard to decelerate the pace of their lives, the Slow Movement spans everything from telecommunications (slow email) and health care (slow medicine) to diet (slow food) and public space (slow cities).

Honore's bestselling book In Praise of Slowness plots the lineage of our speed-obsessed society; while it recognizes the difficulty of slowing down, it also highlights the successes of everyday people around the world who have found ways of doing it. Honoré traces his "Aha" moment to his son's bedtime, when Honore would race through storybooks -- skipping pages, reading portions of paragraphs -- to move things along. (He's since reformed.) His next book, Under Pressure, is about how we are raising a generation of overprogrammed, overachieving and exhausted children.

Marley and Me by John Grogan

2008-08-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

The story is about Marley, a Labrador retriever, and his owner John Grogan, a newspaper writer. I had heard great things about this book and being a dog/animal lover myself I was curious to find out what all the rave was about. The dog, Marley, is so poorly trained that at times I found myself shaking my head at the guys lack of knowledge and assertiveness over his little canine friend. The whole time I was thinking, "Give him to me for 2 weeks, just 2 weeks, and I'll put the dog in check." And the author blew it off as if the dog is just "living a care free life" or "living each day to the fullest" or some other B.S. excuse. Accept it pal, you just don't know how to raise a dog being the Alpha dog. He eventually ended up getting another dog which he then called on Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, to help train. The story was also weaved together with the life of the author and his wife, which eventually turned to kids, a house, a new job, blah blah blah.

The verdict is still out on this book. On the one hand I was a bit bored with the writing style and more importantly the predictable plot of the book, and yet I found myself still finding some good morsels of advice/information to at least finish the book. It's not like it's a bad book, just not as great a book as the reviews had one believe.

One thumb up.

The Entertainer and The Teacher

2008-07-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

We have lost two very important people this week:

Estelle Getty, who died on Tuesday at the age of 84, was best known for her portrayal of Sophia Petrillo from the 1980's TV show The Golden Girls. She was my favorite on the show because of her spunky, funny, and brutally honest character. Thank you for the memories and the laughter in my childhood.

Randy Pausch, who died today at the age of 48, was a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University. He will best be remembered by his "Last Lecture" speech that he gave at the university on September 18, 2007. He was diagnosed with a pancreatic cancer that eventually spread to his liver, spleen, and lungs, which meant that it had become terminal. He was given a few months to live and so gave to us what he had learned in life in a very powerful lecture. I had found out about him from an Oprah show he did a little while ago and was impressed by his acceptance and reaction to the fate life had dealt him.

Life is strange. It give us laughter. It gives us knowledge. It gives us death. And then we start anew...

May you both rest in peace.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

2008-07-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

There are 3 types of people on this planet: those who try to reach out and help others within their own circle of family and friends; those who extend that circle a little further to help their community; and then there are those that wrap their arms around the world, in an embrace that truly only a few attempt and even fewer succeed.

Greg Mortenson falls into the latter category. He is an American, who grew up in Northern Tanzania, and is the founder of the Central Asia Institute, CAI, an organization that builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. An avid climber who during his attempt at climbing K2 got lost and was subsequently found and helped by two Balti porters, natives of the region. For their help in saving his life Mortenson promised to build their community a school for the local children , a promise that he eventually delivered on. Somewhere along the quest for raising the funds and figuring out the logistics of the actual construction, Mortenson fell in love with the region and found his lifes calling. He would spend the next 10+ years building schools throughout the region, engrossed in the culture and lives of these people, both in north eastern Pakistan and northern Afghanistan, helping them out but also doing his part, and in my opinion a large part, of fighting the war on terror in a constructive manner: through education. Unfortunately the governments of most nations have yet to realize that fighting terrorist is more effective BEFORE they become terrorists and the best way achieve that is to get them out of the terrorist supported madrasas, religious schools, and into more sectarian institutions that teach them math, science and reading. For the most part the only schools built prior to Greg Mortenson stepping in were the madrasas, funded by Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and rich terrorist supporters, hence the spreading of the terrorist ideology and the recent strengthening of these groups. But now, because of Greg, the children of the region, and the rest of the world, have a chance at fighting terrorism at the root and in truly attaining peace in the world.

I don't want to give out too much of the story but Three Cups of Tea was a well written book, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, that kept me wanting to find out more and more about Greg, his journey, and the life/culture of the region.

2 thumbs up!

iAmoverit!

2008-07-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

For the past 2 months now the internet has been inundated with iPhone this and iPhone that. Will it be better then the original. If so, how much better? If not, why not and how can I go about getting one anyways because everyone else seems to think they're the best thing since the invention of God. Will it finally be able to do my taxes and mow the lawn while it walks my dogs? I've even heard the thing called the "Jesus Phone" on some websites. I wish I was making that up.

It begs to ask the question: Is there really nothing else happening on this little old planet of ours that we need to be informed of who's standing in what line, and where, to get the first one in their country? No illegal wars to cover? No proclamations of victory in illegal wiretapping laws that give immunity to the "Fearless Leader" and his count of cronies? No countries that brutally deform and at times kill those that vote for the wrong candidate? Not coverage of the insane gas prices and how to alleviate them? No coverage of how this country is not on the verge of a recession, but heading towards the middle of it by now?

Why should they? They have bigger and better things to talk about. Like iPhone 2.0. The Jesus Phone resurrected.

MUTO by BLU

2008-07-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Italian artist BLU is famous for painting politically and socially charged street murals, but his recent project involving street animation may be his most visually stunning. Called MUTO, the video is a series of digital stills assembled from sequential paintings on the streets/walls of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's one of the more interesting works from an artist that I have seen in quite some time. And the accompanying music is pretty damn good too. Enjoy.

Kucinich presents Bush impeachment articles

2008-06-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who represents the state of Ohio, has presented articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush to Congress. This is BIG people. HUGE! And the funny thing is that this story was not headlined in any of the big news sites such as NY Times, LA Times, DrudgeReport. Nothing. Nadda. Zilch. If you google it all you get are links that reference an impeachment against Cheney that Kucinich had started a year ago. Kucinich has some very compelling arguments, all-in-all a total of 35 articles that he is bringing against George W. Bush.

It's a sad state of affairs when even the "free media," i.e. the internet and blogger community, is not headlining such an important act by the only person in Congress who has ANY sense of mind and apparently the only set of real cahonys.

Link to the article I came across.

Never piss off a mathmatician!

2008-05-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

Reminds me of that song "What a Wonderful...

2008-05-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

My new favorite instrument: The Hang Drum

2008-05-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

The Hiphopopotamus vs The Rhymenoceros

2008-05-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of comedians who are actually pretty funny.

Dear Mail(wo)man,

2008-04-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

2008-04-26T16:34:00.001-07:00

This Modern Life

2008-04-26T16:29:00.001-07:00

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

2008-04-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

Homer+Wayne=BU(ll)SH(it)

2008-04-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

All I Need

2008-04-20T09:07:00.001-07:00

An oldy but a goody

2008-04-16T21:40:00.001-07:00

YOU WERE LOVED

dear friend,

i wanted to write you sooner
but the light was never good
or the crickets chirped too loud
to be able to hear my own thoughts

but i am here now,
yet i have been sitting
and nothing has come out
and all i hear are my neighbors going at it,
moaning and mattresses
or the silent echo of cars off the buildings
filling me with carbon dioxide
and driving me no where

It still rings in my head
like the first man to be shot
over the flatness of the world
that something must end
before something else can begin

Shakespeare died for this
and Napoleon was more hungry
than the lions he caged,
but I see no truth in keeping
this from you anymore: (insert title).

To jump or not to jump...that is the question.

2008-04-15T20:46:00.001-07:00

They're baaaaackkkk!

2008-04-14T14:33:00.001-07:00

Portishead is back y'all!
New album later this month called Third. It's different than their older stuff so listen with an open mind. This is the single off the album called Machine Gun.

I like...

Meatloaf

2008-04-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

It's a pen.

2008-04-07T19:56:00.001-07:00

Of late

2008-04-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

Of late.

Any day now
I tell myself.

Of late
I find meaning on bulletin boards
spattered with what's in the now
and what was then, now.

I remember the music man
the one who carried me to sleep
come without calling
to prove to me that things
can go even when you burn.
Not like the kind that paints houses black
but the kind that lights the
emptiness between the sun and the moon.

I am a better man
but I was not me
I was sharp and anything goes
when I find the true nature of dreams.

Of late
I capture near life moments
and showcase them to strangers and friends.
I am no magician I say
but I do have eyes to think
and an empty mind to see.

WTF?

2008-03-31T17:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit confused. We don't trade with Cuba because they are communists, but we trade with China like there's no tomorrow.

WTF??????

Cell phones and cigarettes...mmm mmm good!

2008-03-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

Back in the day when cigarettes were a new novelty for the masses, people smoked without abandon. You could find people smoking in grocery and department stores, gas stations, office buildings, hospitals, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if doctors performed surgery while lighting up. Suffice it to say that it was prevalent everywhere. Being a fairly new activity there was not enough data showing that it was bad for you. We know now that smoking can and DOES cause cancer. It doesn't matter whether it's first hand or second hand smoke, you have a much higher chance of getting any of the forms of cancer that are associated with smoking if you are a smoker or are just around smokers. Which makes sense, little bits of a bad thing, i.e. the smoke and pesticides in the cigarettes, do a number on the body over time.

Fast forward to our modern times and we have yet another new novelty on our hands: cell phones. It is a fact that all cell phones emit a certain amount of radiation, some more so than others. Cell phones work by transmitting radio waves to base stations that plug calls into a network. The waves are a form of non-ionizing radiation--unlike, say, X rays, which have the power to change the atoms in human cells to potentially hazardous ions by scattering their electrons. Non-ionizing radiation can also be dangerous. At the high levels found in radar or inside microwave ovens, it can heat and severely damage tissue. The antenna of a portable phone is integrated into the body of the phone. Because the antenna of a portable phone is close to the phone user’s head, portable phones pose greater radio frequency exposure than the other types of cordless phones. The question now is whether or not small amounts of this radiation that cell phones emit, over a prolong period of time, can cause cancer. There have been studies that show this to be true, like this new one here,
and then there are others like this one that don't.

I for one think and feel that cell phones will in time be found to cause cancer. It just makes sense. A little bit of radiation over 20, 30 ,40 years next to your head can not be good for an individual, just like smoking. And for those who use Bluetooth, not so safe either. Though they have a bit less radiation than cell phones they none the less still do, thus raising your chances. And let's not even get started on wireless routers and wi-fi...yikes!

In the end it's up to you and what makes sense to your mind and conscience. I for one try to limit my use on cell phones already, and will try to do even more if I can. Learning from your own experiences makes you wise, but learning from the past and others shows your wise.

Symbolllic Narrative Project - Spring 08

2008-03-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

This is a project for my photography class. We're supposed to write a story about an important personal event and then recreate it in a collage using old family photos and photos of personal objects relating to the story. The picture above was what I came up with for this story:

I came into this world being born breach, with my legs coming out first. The doctors pulled me out from my legs and in doing so pulled the hip joint out of its socket. After letting go the bones and muscles didn’t go back to its proper place because the joints and ligaments of a newborn are still pretty malleable. So most of my life I had a slight limp and one of my legs was longer than the others, a true “pimp walk” so to speak. For most people, one leg is longer than the other but in my case it was a bit more extreme. At the age of 8 or 9 my parents took me to a doctor to see if anything could be done about the situation. I still remember the doctors’ name, Dr. Barea. He wore glasses, always wore aftershave, and had a smile on him at all times. Nice guy. Through numerous x-rays and tests they confirmed that my left leg was indeed longer than my right and decided to perform surgery in order to correct the problem. A few months after the surgery they performed another series of tests and noticed that the problem also included my right hip as well and again performed surgery on me (though to this day I am still unsure why they operated on both hips). For 4 months I was placed in a cast from my chest all the way down to my toes, and with my legs held open with a bar. It was very hard for me because I was naturally a restless child and not being able to move around was unbearable to me. What sucked even more was that because the cast was also around my stomach area, and hard and definitely not going to move, I was not able to eat a lot for fear of not being able to breathe afterwards. And what made it harder than that was that the cast was placed on me during the hottest months of the year. I would get starches in very extremely difficult places to reach by myself and would have to MacGyver a long scratchy thing out of drinking straws. All I could do was either lay on my back or my stomach, sunny side up or sunny side down. Nothing to see but the ceiling or my pillow. After the cast came off I basically had to learn to walk again because not moving your legs for such a long time and your muscles lose their strength and forget their sense of control. After almost a year after the surgeries I was back to normal and have been ever since. Kind of. I still can’t sit Indian style. Oh well, at least I can say I was a true pimp back in the day. :)

I love this quote:

2008-03-15T16:16:00.000-07:00

Do not speak unless it improves upon silence.

Argument to Beethoven's 5th

2008-03-15T11:19:00.001-07:00

Hungry Wolf

2008-03-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

SOB

2008-03-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Hip Hop Violin

2007-08-06T21:24:00.001-07:00

Modernn Technology (where's the f'n hammer)

2007-07-16T22:52:00.001-07:00

I could not stop laughing while watching this. Wait until about 45 seconds into this video and you can feel this guys frustration ;-)
It'll be cool when it finally works consistently.

2007-07-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

Now this is a man's journal (men don't have diaries): link

The Paradox Of Our Age

2007-07-08T21:09:00.001-07:00

We have bigger houses but smaller families;

more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees but less sense;

more knowledge but less judgment;

more experts, but more problems;

more medicines but less healthiness.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back,

but have trouble in crossing the street to meet our new neighbour.

We built more computers to hold more copies than ever,

But have less real communication;

We have become long on quantity,

but short on quality.

These are times of fast foods but slow digestion;

Tall mean but short characters;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

It’s a time when there is much in the window

But nothing in the room.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

2007-07-08T21:04:00.000-07:00

Funny funny stuff:

# Give a man a match, and he'll be warm for a minute, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
# The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.
# Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
# House Guarded By Shotgun 3 Days A Week. Guess Which Days.
# Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
# It's your god. They're your rules. *You* go to hell.
# War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.
# I once prayed to god for a bike, but quickly found out he didnt work that way...so I stole a bike and prayed for his forgiveness
# If pro is opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress?
# Sarcasm helps keep you from telling people what you really think of them.

2007-07-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

This is definitely the type of advice M(A)r(Y)am would give...psh!

2007-07-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

Mi casa (click to enlarge)

2007-07-07T21:34:00.001-07:00

Dancing Queen

This is how...

2007-06-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

you get the police out of the Donut Shop/Internet Cafe's to do their jobs: link

2007-06-17T23:25:00.001-07:00

This web site brings together news from a slew of different news/arts/techy sites.

www.popurls.com

The Future...

2007-06-15T22:09:00.001-07:00

More than E=Mc(squared)

2007-06-15T21:49:00.000-07:00

Here

Talent

2007-06-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

KT Tunstall - Black Horse And The Cherry Tree

2007-06-12T20:53:00.002-07:00

Just in(book)case...

2007-06-11T09:18:00.001-07:00

I ever own a house, I'm going to make this for myself.

2007-05-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Reach out and touch...

2007-05-23T21:51:00.001-07:00

Link

Which came first...?

2007-05-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

Link

Hey Ya (Cover)

2007-04-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

Great version, by Mat Weddle, of a great song, by Outkast.

Garlics answers to test questions...

2007-04-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

before he found out how to study ;o) link

Can I get an AMEN?!?!?

2007-04-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

For Mars...

2007-04-26T19:46:00.000-07:00

Courtroom quotations: link

I rest my case(pun intended):

* Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
* Witness: "No."
* Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
* Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
* Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
* Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."

Hail Cesar!

2007-04-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

The Dog Psychology Center website. It's got a bunch of cool info: link

V. Kush

2007-04-26T19:35:00.000-07:00

This guy picks up where Dali left off: link

Deep Thoughts By Jack Handy

2007-04-26T18:38:00.001-07:00

Jack Handy

Some notable ones:

To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" You can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."

The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.

Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind."

What do these words mean? It's a mystery and that's why so is mankind.

Twenty Responses To Use With Telemarketers

2007-04-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

Twenty Responses To Use With Telemarketers: Link