Christmas, sex ed, and all that jazz...

Happy Chanukah from Sidney,

First of all, how can Hanukkah and Chanukah be the same thing?! Is it like Autumn and Fall, or is it more insidious??? Who knows?

Anyway, Happy Christmas to everybody out there good enough to read this silliness.

The other day I decided to see if the boys were interested in learning about human reproduction. I'm not a fan of speaking euphemistically, and I'm not afraid of speaking frankly with my kids, so I don't really have any problem breaking down the birds and the bees. I even asked Suzanne if she wanted to be involved, but she felt a little uncomfortable so I left her out of it.

If you've ever been my child, you'll already know that my teaching method is pretty technical. I don't make up names for things and I don't shy away from anything, I lay it all out there for the world to see. I also like to use a lot of illustrations. However, ever since the advent of the interweb, I don't really need to rely on my sketchy artistic ability. Sketchy... get it?

So, wielding pencil and paper, I launched into my spiel. I broke down the mechanics in excruciatingly technical detail, and used my little pictionary doodles to help me get some of the more abstract concepts across.

I have to remind myself to refrain from going into too much detail as I understand I often lose my audience in the minutiae - especially a 9 year old audience.

However, the boys were both quick to catch on and even asked some really good questions. For instance, when I was talking about the differences between fraternal and identical twins, Chase suggested that, since there were different sperm and eggs involved, the twins could be male-female. I think the only concept that they had difficulty with at all was cell division (mitosis vs meiosis). Granted, there are probably even some adults who would have difficulty contrasting the difference.

By the end of the afternoon, I was satisfied that they were both comfortably knowledgeable on the topic. Since then, they've asked me a couple of questions for clarification, but otherwise almost nothing.

I like to demystify stuff like this. As I told them, if it weren't for sex, nobody would be alive on the planet. It shouldn't be something to feel embarrassed about.

Now, obviously I didn't go into great detail about the lovemaking process. I didn't show them any naked pictures of women and/or men, either engaged or otherwise. I explained that it was something that people enjoyed doing and it was only seldom used for procreation. When they're a little older, we can talk about that, but for now it's enough to know how it works, if not the factors behind its motivation.

Anyway, enough of that.

We close on the house on Wednesday. You might remember from an earlier post that I finally gave up and basically just dumped the house. On paper, we're supposed to make $5k, but I think we'll probably just about break even after closing costs, etc. I'm really disappointed that it had to come to this, but with the market being what it is, this is probably for the best.

My advice to anyone relocating and considering two mortgages - don't. Just dump the sucker and move on. Even if you lose a few grand, it's better than the roller coaster of emotions you'll endure. I say, dump it and forget it!

I guess that's about it. Now I gotta go downstairs and start assembling crap. Thank allah for family and friends - the boys are going to make out pretty well despite our current financial unhappiness. In fact, one of Suzanne's best friends sent a really nice activity table (ping pong, bumper pool, foosball, etc.) - that's what I'm going down to assemble now. It looks like it will be a lot of fun - heck, I might even let the boys play with it!

If you got a girlfriend, kiss her for me... Use tongue, that's what I would do. If you're married - well, you have my sympathies. ;-)

Shalom. Oh, and thanks a lot for not buying my house. I'll remember this if you ever sell your house! Cheers.

Happy Birthday!

Holy Hangover, Batman.

Today is my rotten kid's 21st birthday! Unfortunately, being poor, I'm unable to get her something really nice for this most auspicious occasion. Therefore, I thought I'd make it up to her by featuring her in this most auspicious posting.

Actually, I've told everybody for whom I normally buy gifts that this year's Christmas is going to begin in March (bonus time!). I hate the thought of coming up with something cheap and crappy just to meet an artificial deadline. Deadlines are for bedwetting momma's boys, not for superstars like myself.

So, let me just say Happy Birthday, Steph! I love you and I hope you have a great birthday despite the fact that your hero lives 2,000 miles away... ;-)

Love,

DaD

P.S. Today is also Bart Simpson's birthday!! What a crazy coinky-dink!

Politics aside...

Disappointment from Sidney,

Well, it was a glorious run, but it looks like I'm finally going to have to give up after all. Yes, I'm talking about the house. For nearly a year, I've begged, pleaded, demanded and cajoled you people to buy my house, but did you?? No. Am I disappointed? You betcha. Do I sometimes ask questions just to answer them myself? Guilty!

I hate giving up on that house, but what with Winter coming, and the crops still needing to be harvested, and with the situation in Iraq, I felt it was time to do my part for America.

After doing the final tally, it looks like we'll end up having lost $10k when all is said and done. Am I happy with losing $10k? No. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to start that crap again.

I guess, at the end of the day, $10k isn't all that bad. What kills me is that, had I simply made the call when we first moved out, I would have been up $5k instead. So, really I feel like I've lost $15k. Not to mention the huge amount of stress and worry that Suzanne and I had to deal with.

Why didn't I make that call last January? Simple answer: Greed. We were convinced that we were going to make $30k on the house (go back to my earliest blogs to witness my foolish optimism). All we needed, literally, was just an offer on the house and the relocation people would have cut us a check. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.

So, at the end of the day, I only have to make December and January's mortgage payments and I will be done with the house. I have NO DOUBT that the sucker will sell three days later. Mark my prophetic words here, kind reader.

Oh, and Chase's birthday was the other day. The wife rented the local indoor pool ($50) and we had about a dozen 9 year old boys going crazy for two hours. He had a lot of fun and made out pretty well as far as presents, so it was pretty cool.

Chris is still crazy, Suzanne is still chubby, and I'm still just as fantastic as ever. I guess that's it for now.

Oh, and, uh, thanks for nothing for NOT buying my house!!

And now for something completely different... Politics!

(Before I get too far afield, here's a humorous religious link to enjoy: http://www.jameshartforcongress.com/prometheus/socvsjes.htm ...)

Happy Election Day from Sidney!

One of my rotten kids suggested I try something new, so here's a somewhat less controversial topic of conversation: Politics!

Note: I'm neither a republic nor a democrat. I like to consider myself a man of independent thought, not easily swayed by the media or the vast political machine. I wish I could say the same for the vast number of sheeple out there who will vote for the first guy who lies well enough to come off as "sincere". Or, worse yet, vote AGAINST somebody because of some underhanded efforts of the "other" side.

I was reminded of that today when I saw a negative ad e-mail concerning Barak Obama. It showed several people on a podium, all of whom had their hands over their hearts presumably reciting the pledge of allegiance. Barak, however, is shown with his hands down by his waist and apparently silent.

The conservative right ended the e-mail with something like, "Would you vote for this man who so clearly hates his country... yada yada yada."

Not surprisingly, the whole business was completely contrived, and certainly NOT sanctioned by the right wing (conspiracy). However, the damage may already be done as this will probably be all it takes to bring him down. Never mind that few if any of these sheep will bother to take the time to determine what his actual platform is. It's enough to know this unamerican bastard dared to exercise his 1st amendment right
to freedom of speech - I sure wouldn't vote for his ass.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sent a many-times forwarded e-mail which was originally generated by some right-wing whack-job - the gist of which was that, due to some recent legislation, the terms "mommy" and "daddy" were to be removed from textbooks in California.

I wasn't so much disturbed by the stupidity that was evidenced by the comments of the people forwarding the e-mail (ad nauseam) - I expect exactly that much from sheep. What bothered me most was the fact that the person who forwarded it to me should have taken the time to look into it a little bit before swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

Although, to be honest, the comments in the forwards were even more frightening than the original message. Frightening and sadly humorous. One person remarked that "Arnold Swarzenneger and the rest of them Democrats is trying to destroy the sanctimoniousness of the American family..."

That's right, Arnold the Democrat... Take a minute and think about it...

I took the time to read the actual legislation. Boring stuff, to be sure, but NOWHERE in the entire draft was there the first mention of the words "mom" or "dad". The entire message was about NOT discriminating against people who live in "alternative" homes (gay parents, for example).

In my opinion, the American people deserve exactly what they've gotten - a political body made up of the biggest crooks and snake oil salesmen the world has ever seen. Just remember - These bastards weren't foisted upon an unsuspecting populace... we actively sought them out and elected them over better qualified individuals, MOSTLY due to their height, coiffure, and marketability.

This is why the West Wing was so wildly successful. It was a fantasy land where government officials put in a full day's work and gave a hearty shit about the welfare of their constituents. The president was a genius and his staff bright, caring and able. What were those writers smoking???

I read this thing the other day that was pretty telling. It asked you to determine if it was the NFL or NBA who were guilty of this long list of crimes and misdemeanors. At the very end, it says, "Neither. It was congress." The list included numbers of DUI's, spousal abuse, poor credit, etc. It was funny and ironical, yet left me feeling disheartened.

I was talking with a woman at work the other day about health care. I brought up Hillary's Universal Health Care plan. She thought it was a terrible idea and said that "those people should just get some insurance... why should she have to pay for them? Most of them are illegal anyway."

I just looked at her and felt sad for a minute. This poor deluded woman has never had an original thought in all her 40 years. She didn't have the first idear about Universal Health Care - all she knew is what she heard on the radio or from her other right wing friends at work (Rhodes Scholars, all).

I asked her if any of her children had ever been sick enough to have to go to the doctor. Naturally, she said yes, so I asked her how she would have felt if her children were suffering but she couldn't afford to seek medical help - if she had to hold her babies while they cried against her shoulder because it was either food, rent, or medicine, but not all three.

She had no answer because she couldn't feel any empathy for poor people because, in her mind, they deserve to be poor. It's really their own fault.

(By the way, this is my "christian" co-worker - you know, the people who are supposed to care about other human beings. Other white, middle-class human beings I mean. OK, you knew I'd throw some religion in here somewhere...)

So, basically, I've given up on the whole political process. I'd like to think that, eventually, we will collectively pull our heads out of our asses. However, the more I talk to people, the less optimistic I become. In the end, we really have no one to blame but ourselves.

Now, I vote you get up off your apathetic, uninformed asses and go buy my house, godammit!!

The Power of Prayer

Just a quickie:

I just wanted to talk about the power of prayer. I was reminded of this the other day when a co-worker said she'd pray for me. I don't even remember what it was that she wanted to pray for me about, but I remember feeling ambivalent.

On the one hand, I understand that she thought she was being nice by telling me that she was concerned about me enough to ask for divine intervention. But, on the other hand, I was annoyed that she would try to foist her christian mythology on me knowing that it's not really my bag, baby.

This is aside from the fact that I question everyone's motives. I don't believe in the concept of a good deed. I think that everything we do is based on desire. For instance, let's say I love my kids so I want to do something nice for them. Really, at the end of the day, I'm really doing something nice for me. If it cost me more than the joy I would get from performing the deed, I wouldn't do it.

But, that's beside the point. The point is, what did she expect was going to happen? Did she honestly think that she could convince her god to do something different to/for me than he had been planning to do? For instance, let's say that god was going to kill me in a car accident. He was all geared up and had everything ready. Then, just as I was driving down the road to my doom, this gal phones in a quick prayer. Does god say to himself, "Shit - I had this punk in my sites!"

I guess my question is, can you change god's mind? Isn't that the point of prayer? Aren't you really asking god to NOT do what he had been planning to do and instead do what you want him to do?

This reminds me of football. Both teams usually have a little prayer session before the game begging god to let them win. Does god decide for one team over the other based on who prayed harder? Or, is there such a thing as free will and god stays out of it? If that was the case, then it's gotta be annoying for god to listen to all this begging constantly knowing he won't do anything about it.

I think the best explanation I ever heard for prayer was to use the analogy that it was like a child saying "please". But, whenever I hear somebody pray, it sounds a lot more like begging.

BTW, my favorite prayer is the food prayer. It goes something like this: "Dear lord, thanks for the food, blah blah blah... Please allow this food to nourish our bodies." Well, what happens if you DON'T mention that in your prayer? Do you eat a ton of food and nothing happens? "Damn, I didn't get any nourishment out of that steak whatsoever! I probably didn't pray right."

It just seems silly to me, especially when you consider what most people pray for - which is usually more material stuff.

Not to belabour the point, but I'm reminded of a christian "rock" song I heard back in the 80's. It was called something like "The never ending shopping list." They make fun of people who do exactly what I was talking about earlier, which is to use prayer as some kind of christmas list to santa.

I'd love to hear a well thought out rebuttal to my take on prayer, from either christian or philistine.

Now, excuse me while I pray for somebody to buy my house.

No hell below us - above us, only sky...

Heaven's blessings from Sidney!

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It's been 10 days since my last post..

I just found out one of my best friends at work is a Catholic. You'd never know it to talk to her, or hang out with her, or know her in any way, shape or form. I like to call those people "hypocrites". Basically, they're saying, "Yeah, I believe in God and the bible and all that, but I'm just gonna do whatever I want. If there's really a heaven, and assuming I get the chance, I'll throw myself on the mercy of the court."

If I truly believed that the bible was the word of god, and I thought I would honestly spend eternity in Hell, I'd follow that sucker like a fat man following an ice cream truck - an ice cream truck covered in gravy!

I accidentally got tangled up in a religious discussion at the bar last week. Some guy (again, who CLAIMS to be a christian) got bent out of shape when I mocked religion and religious people. Of course, good christian that he was, he was on his second or third beer at the time, so that might have made him a little less open-minded than he might have been otherwise.

At any rate, I asked him the same question I always ask people when they tell me that they're christians: "How do you know that the bible is the word of god?" I actually know the answer to this question, but I like to watch them stumble about for a bit.

The answer, of course, is that the bible tells you it's the word of god, right in the first couple of pages. How can you argue with that? (Well, you can, if you understand the concept of circular reasoning, but I digress.) It further states that god wrote the bible and that god is infallible, therefore the bible is true (because god is infallible, etc).

Most people will argue that they know that the bible is true "in their heart". I use my prefrontal cortex, but if you can think with various body parts, I say go with it. Now that I think about it, I often do think with my penis, so it's probably along the same lines... anyway, where was I?

I imagine the following scenario: some guy walking down the street, stops and has an epiphany, "Hey, you know what? I think that the bible is the word of god! Holy crap, that just occured to me... I should go to church or something." Or, is it more likely that somebody told you about the bible. Then, you went to church, had a little emotional moment, and now you're convinced you are one with the universe.

Imagine what would have happened if you grew up in Saudi Arabia or Iraq. Do you honestly think there are millions of christians running around Baghdad asking, "Where can I get me one of them holy bibles! I know in my heart that it's the word of god!!"

But, I'm getting off the point. I'm not here to tell you why the bible isn't the word of god, I'm here to talk about the soul.

The soul is a tricky concept. As I understand it, the part of you that is "you" is your soul. It's the part that has to fight all the temptations of the flesh and whatnot. It's also some kind of conduit to god, right? Apparently, the soul is aware of the supernatural, but you aren't... Yet, "you" are your soul.

Ok, if "you" are your soul, and your soul is a spirit (for lack of a better word), how is that when you drink enough alcohol, your soul turns into kind of an asshole?

Also, clearly, not all souls are holy. For instance, Chuck Manson has an "evil" soul, whereas you obvious have a "good" soul. But, according to John 3:16, Chuck could find his way to heaven if he were to accept jesus and all that. Even with an evil soul! I guess your soul can be either good or evil, it all depends on your free will to accept christ. But, if I have an evil soul, why would I accept christ??? Man, this is confusing!

Some people believe that your conscience is your soul. That's why you can get drunk and act differently. Your soul is the "good" part of you that cries with baby jesus over all the shitty things you do every day. So, my question is this: which of you gets to go to heaven? The awareness part of you (the mind), or the holy part of you (the soul). Or, does your awareness get sucked into your soul for the trip to heaven? If that's the case, what happens to the guy who used to be your soul before "you" got sucked in???

Holy hell - my head is spinning. Or, maybe it's my SOUL that's spinning... ;-)

It's funny that whenever I debate religion with a christian, the person that I'm debating with will argue my logic. They'll use their mythology to dispute my arguments. In fact, the bar conversation that I mentioned earlier ended something like this:

me: "Ok, so how do you know that the bible is the word of god?"
genius: "Well, let me ask you this, how do you know that Homer wrote the Odyssey?"
me: *shaking head in confusion* "Um, what does that have to do with the bible?"
genius: "Well, how do you know that the Oddyssey was written by Homer?"
me: "I don't. In fact, for centuries, scholars have debated whether an individual named "Homer" ever actually existed."
genius: "Oh my god, you're so stupid. Your logic is so completely flawed, I can't even answer your question."
me: "Um, well, here's a link to a wikipedia article that might help:" http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer
genius: "Wow, you're dumb. Only an idiot would fail to realize that god is everything and everywhere."
me: "Boy, do I feel dumb."

I understand why this guy lashed out like that, however. Religious people can't debate religion because, to them, it's not an academic pursuit. It's a belief system. It would be like trying to debate pedophilia with a pedophile, or conservatism with a republican, or nascar with a redneck. These are deeply held beliefs and anyone who would challenge that, even for the sake of debate, is personally attacking them. Not to mention, it's damn difficult to defend religion from someone who considers magical, invisible people to be preposterous (at best) or laughable (at worst).

But, back to the soul. If the soul is a magical, invisible presence that controls your body, then how is it you have free will? Do "you" control you, or does your soul control you. Is it a constant struggle? Does your soul have will-power, and, if so, does it therefore give in to temptation?? Maybe you're a good person, but your soul is a week-willed bastard dragging you down to hell in the same way that one half of the titanic sucked the other half down to the bottom of the Atlantic.

I imagine the soul as a little cartoon person being carried around in a papoose, being strapped to someone and being forced to watch and hear horrible crimes being committed on a regular basis. Poor little soul.

Well, if that hasn't convinced your soul to drive your body over and buy my house, nothing will!

(I'm looking forward to some fantastic comments! But please try to address at least some of my points.)

Imagine there's no heaven...

Holy Moses from Sidney,

First, thanks for all the comments! I sincerely appreciate all of you taking the time.

Second, I think my message might have gotten lost. As Tim helped to point out, I was only talking about the math. I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that the vast majority of humanity aren't (or weren't) fundamental christians. BY DEFINITION, they are guaranteed to go to hell if they never accepted jesus into their heart. If even 50% of all humanity are christians, that still leaves half of everybody who has ever lived going to hell. That's rough!

Today, I want to discuss motivation. My question is this: Why do most people become christians in the first place? It's unreasonable to assume that, immediately upon becoming a christian, someone instantly feels a deep and abiding love for their god. Therefore, there must be some other driving force.

I submit that it's fear that drives someone to become saved. "Saved" suggests that there's something from which to be saved, of course. Saved from hell is the presumption.

Consider this: If you don't accept christ into your heart, what's the alternative? Eternity in hell, right? That's an awfully serious "Carrot and Stick" scenario. I think the mafia has a similar program... You remember, it's something like "An offer you can't refuse."

Imagine this: I come to your house and offer you riches beyond belief if you'll only love me with all your heart. That's literally all I ask. However, you have to REALLY love me, not just say you love me. Also, you really should start living for me (although, in some versions of christianity, it's not absolutely necessary).
On the other hand, if you can't (or won't) love me, I'm going to have to kill you by burning you to death, slowly and painfully. I don't WAN'T to burn you to death, but I just can't abide you with me otherwise. I already burned my dog to death in your place so that you'd have the opportunity to love me, and if you can't appreciate that, maybe you're just an ungrateful bastard after all!

Is there really a difference with what I suggested and what the christian bible (the new testament, anyway) purports? IMHO, it's exactly the same thing. Naturally, given the scenario I proposed, of course you'd find a way to love me with all your heart. You might even convince other people to start loving me, too, just to show how much you love me. Also, they may not really believe that I will burn them up if they don't, so, really, you're saving them from the fate that they'd otherwise suffer!

And WHY do people deserve to be burned up if they don't take what I offer? Because they're great, great grandfathers were jerks and didn't do what I told them to do.

Another factor in the "fear as a motivator" series is, instead of fear of everlasting pain and suffering, it's the fear of being nothing. It is damn near impossible to consider not being. That there is no hereafter. I'll bet that you can't do it... that, whether christian or not, you'll always imagine something after death. Go ahead, try it... I'll wait.

Finaly, I think the last reason people are hoping for some kind of life after death is so that "bad" people get what's coming to them. I can't count how many times I've heard a christian talking about how they hope some guy fries in hell, etc, etc. I think it stems from a sense of powerlessness. If they weren't powerless, they'd take matters into their own hands and not wait on an angry god to do their punishing for them.

Next week: The soul! What is it, and how does it work?

Now, conquer your fear and go out there and buy my house!

Losing my religion... part 1.

Shalom from Sidney,

First of all, I don't want to shit on anybody's religion. I understand that almost everybody needs something to believe in, else they couldn't get their asses out of bed in the morning. That said...

First, let's start with the math. I think a lot of Americans consider themselves to be fundamental christians, which is, in their not-so-humble opinion, the only "true" religion. This immediately eliminates 95% of the human population, if you consider all the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, Mormons, Atheists, Luciferians, and Wiccans, just to name a few.

This suggests that god's plan initially starts with sending the vast majority of humanity to hell.

I was "raised" (for lack of a better word) as a baptist. I know for a fact that most baptists consider many (at least half) of their brethren to not be "real" christians. This always cracked me up, but that's beside the point. Let's assume that they're right - they oughtta know, after all.

Ok, that brings the grand total of humanity destined to hell up to 97.5% There are currently 6 billion people on the planet, which is roughly 20% of all the "humans" who have ever lived. Therefore, 97.5% of the 30 billion human beings who have ever lived (29.25 billion and counting) are slated for hell, while only a paltry 750 million get to go to "heaven". That's 39 to 1 for the mathematically challenged among you.

Baptists are pretty much black and white like that... if you ain't going to heaven, guess what?

This is primarily why I have such a difficult time buying fundamental christianity - it's the numbers. I don't even want to go into how much blood has been shed in jesus' name. I also will not bring up the stats on boy scout leaders, good christians all, who have been convicted of child molestation. Nor will I bring up any of those pesky televangelists who literally rob folks blind.

Nope, I'm taking the moral high-ground in all this.

To be honest, the only "religion" I've ever heard about that I think is remotely reasonable is Wicca. All I know about them is their motto: "An' it harm none, do what ye will." Translation, as long as you're not hurting anybody, do whatever you want. That's all I really needed to know. Hell, I might even convert! Well, I guess I can't convert since I don't really subscribe to any particular religion, but if I did, I'd convert in a heartbeat.

Ok, that's all for part 1. That's probably enough to shake the faith of at least half of you. On the other hand, if you can finish this multi-part post without losing your faith, consider yourself a true Christian.

Next, the Mormons!

Now, if you really were a good christian, you'd go out there and buy my house!

p.s. I purposely left all the proper nouns lower-case - I know it drives you crazy! hehehahahah.

Religion - it's what's for dinner

Hail Mary from Sidney,

I've got some good idears for a post on Religion. Unfortunately, I don't really have the time tonight to put forth my usual fantastic effort, so this is just a teaser.

I intend to come up with a full post in a day or two... be prepared to be challenged!

Muhwahahaha...

(Challenged to buy my house, that is!)

Paranoia

Latest "news" from Sidney,

First, I got a lot of response from my last post regarding advice for the college-aged geek. Thanks! I tried to limit myself to only 10 things because I figured more than that would just end up getting forgotten. I will probably send out more of these as they occur to me.

As for the title, I've found that I need to be careful what I put into my BLOG as my entries are sometimes forwarded on to those that I would rather they not. Therefore, I've instituted a self-editing feature. From now on, all of my posts will be scrubbed of any questionable content and instead posted on my new, SECRET blogspace. Those that I can trust will be sent the new address. Crap, I've probably said too much already... :-)

At any rate, here's what's new:

Christopher has begun playing organized football, and I've been volunteering as an assistant coach. It's a 3rd - 4th grade leage and, so far, it's been fantastic. He's not a natural football player, but he's got a pretty good attitude, and we're both having a lot of fun.

On Thursday night, all the coaches got together and we broke the 45 kids into two teams. It ended up working out really well - there were only two kids that I really wished I could have had on our team.

Chase is not playing football. He's 4'5" and 65 pounds, so he's tall and thin - not really built for football. Fortunately, he has little to no interest in playing so it works out well for everybody. We're thinking baseball or soccer for him, assuming we can get him off the computer long enough to play sports.

Obviously, we've still not sold our house. We dropped the prize by around 10k, so we're hopeful that that will generate some interest. If not, we've already been in contact with those "we buy your house" people, and we know that we can get 5k out of them in a worst-case scenario. If the house doesn't sell by December (when the contract is over), we're just going to give up and deal with these bloodsuckers.

We've also considered renting the house until the market turns around, but I don't know if I want to deal with that drama. Although, it may not be a bad idear to have a house to move back to if we ever decide to go back to Omaha.

I'd rather the damn place just sells and be done with it. We literally couldn't have picked a worse time to try to sell our house.

What else is going on? Um, I guess nothing, really. Just hanging out and trying to enjoy life, I suppose. Don't forget the super-secret blogspace coming soon!

With that in mind, sneak over and buy my house, godamit!

Ode to Cody Joe

First, let me explain the title: Our summer intern (Cody) recently left to go back to college. I imagined what advice I would give this kid, or any kid, heading out into the world. What advice would I give to my own kids when they were ready to leave?

So, with that in mind, allow me to present “Anthony’s Advice to the college-aged kid (Geek edition)”:

1. Be patient: Every kid thinks that they have to experience everything RIGHT NOW. For instance, they have to get married today, they have to get a career today, they have to do everything TODAY. Instead, enjoy being a kid today – the rest of that crap will come soon enough.

2. Get your ass in shape: As a geek, you will probably think that being in shape is a waste of time – you have a “mind” after all. But, the truth is, the better you are physically, the better your brain will perform. Also, no matter how ugly your face is, having a good body will make up for most of it (you’ve seen Arnold Schwarzenegger, yes?) You don’t have to be a body builder, just put on some muscle for chrissakes. This will garner dividends beyond mere physical fitness.

3. Take care of your appearance: You don’t have to be Tommy Hilfiger, but pay attention to what the styles of the day are, and force yourself to emulate them (within reason). Also, get a decent haircut, take a shower, get lasik surgery (or contacts), and shave that sad facial hair that makes you look smart (so you think). This, along with tip 2, might actually make you somewhat attractive. Being attractive is, sadly, critical to your future success, regardless of your career. If you think it isn’t, do the math.

4. Make friends with people outside your normal crowd: You might think that the football players are a bunch of Neanderthals who want nothing more than to play ball and beat up geeks. Ok, you’re right. But, there are bound to be a couple jock-types that find your particular brand of intelligence interesting enough to get to know you. These are the guys that can help you with tips 2 and 3, while you help them with the jock edition of this advice.

5. Fight your nerdish tendencies: I’m not saying “don’t be nerdy/geeky”. I’m saying keep it within reason, and try to avoid being super-geek in the wrong environments. For instance, playing D&D in your dorm room with a bunch of your friends is cool. Playing D&D in the cafeteria during lunch hour is not cool.

6. Go outside: Having a pale, sickly pallor is perfectly natural for most geeks. It shows the world that you are proud of your geek ancestry and upbringing. However, this won’t help you anywhere but at the geek Olympics or on Jeopardy. Also, a little fresh air opens the mind and invigorates the body. Try it, you’ll see.

7. Talk to girls: Ever since Bill Gates, girls have come to realize that smart geeky guys are likely to become smart geeky successful men with a lot of disposable income. They are ripe for the pickin’! The trick, however, is to NOT be creepy. Let the girl do most of the talking (there's a tough trick, eh?). A woman wants nothing more than to hear the sound of her own voice. Jocks understand this intuitively which is one of the reasons they get laid. Also, girls already assume you’re smart – if you are constantly reminding them how smart you are, there’s a good chance they’ll move on to less irritating geeks. People of average intelligence don’t want to be reminded that they’re of average intelligence.

8. Moderate your genius: Ok, this one is especially difficult, even for me. Apparently, and I find this really difficult to believe, most people aren’t impressed with how smart you are. They are not awed by the depths of your mind, nor your ability to perform complicated math in your head. Also, they DON’T want to be corrected even if they’re painfully, ridiculously wrong! They won’t appreciate your help if you try to show them when they’re making a mistake. The ONLY time that a non-geek will appreciate your help is when they ask you for it specifically. So, basically, fight your geek tendencies and try to be a little self-deprecating. It will go a long way!

9. Learn to defend yourself: Sooner or later, you’re going to be in a position where some jock-type is going to try to use you to show how cool he is by smacking you around a little. I suggest mixed martial arts (UFC-style). Karate or Kung Fu sounds cool, but it’s pretty much useless in real life. I’d much rather fight a karate kid than somebody who knows how to really scrap. If you can’t find someone or someplace to teach you UFC-style fighting, I’d suggest learning to box or wrestle. These are the things that will keep you from becoming a human punching bag.

10. Take risks: I can't stress this enough. It sounds foolish, but you have to prove to yourself that you can survive risky situations. It builds confidence. Granted, the risk vs. reward assessment will tell you NOT to take pointless risks, but sometimes you have to go against the stats. Every now and again you will fail (maybe even painfully), but that will also teach you how to deal with failure. You just have to ask yourself, "What's the worst that could happen?" As long as there isn't a good chance that you will die or become permanently disabled, I say take the risk. If you always take the safe route, you will just end up becoming an easily frightened, scared little man. You and your cats will be very happy together.

I’d like to add more, but these are probably the most important ones (in my “humble” opinion). Take this advice or don’t, naturally it’s up to you. But, having lived the geek life even back before being a geek was cool, I fancy myself something of an authority on the matter. If you think you know better, you’re wrong. ;-)

Now, go out there and take a risk by buying my house!

Where the heck are the comments???

Good Gravy from Sidney,

I'm curious to know what kind of readership I have here on the old blog. Therefore, I would really appreciate it if you would leave just a quick comment that says that you stop by from time to time.

Just sign it with your first name and last initial. Of course, you're welcome to leave more than just your name - for instance, you could tell me what a wonderful, thought-inspiring blog I've put together here. Or, you could remind me just how sexy cool I really am... :-)

I'd like to know the makeup of my audience, presuming I have an audience. I will begin tailoring my posts accordingly.

Thanks.

Short and Sweet

Good morning from loverly Sidney,

I just got back from "camping" in the freaking woods with my wife and her family. They went out there last Thursday, but I didn't join them until yesterday afternoon, and I only stayed the night. I left at approximately 7am this morning after having spent a fantastic night crammed into the front seat of my truck.

Allow me to explain: Suzanne's trailer will sleep 3 comfortably or 6 really uncomfortably. As it was, Suzanne and Chris slept on the floor, Chase and I had what could laughably be called the hide-a-bed, and Grandma and Grandpa had the real bed in the loft compartment.

Due to some miscommunication, Suzanne only booked the "modern" campsite for the first night, so they were stuck with the "primitive" campsite for the subsequent nights.

What's the difference, you ask? Basically, electricity. She couldn't plug in her trailer, so was forced to run her generator for the AC, lights, etc. This worked fine until 10pm when all generators were required to be powered-off. Naturally, no generator equals no AC. 6 people jammed into a space the size of a really large bathroom tend to generate a lot of stuffiness (and body-odor). I believe it was this stuffiness that caused her parents to snore like a couple of longshoremen on a bender.

If the AC had been running, it might have drowned out the noise, but alas it was dead silent except for those two up there sawing wood like a couple of deranged loggers.

Eventually, the noise and the mugginess drove me out of the trailer. But where to go, I asked myself. The only other option was the truck (I don't sleep outside). Naturally, the back seat angled back in such a way as to jam me into the same space between the seat and the backrest as those long lost seat belt buckles. I could stretch out but I couldn't breathe as my rib cage was getting crushed by the stupid angle.

So, I moved to the front seat, which wasn't bad except for the fact that the back only goes down far enough to make you ALMOST comfortable enough to fall asleep. Instead, it stops about 1.5 inches too short leaving you in a constant state of wanting more. Eventually, I nodded off out of sheer exhaustion, only to be awakened at 6:17am by our moron dog. The "neighbor's" dog wandered over and riled up our dog who, being stuck in his kennel, decided to make up for his lack of ability to sniff the other one's ass by barking his damn fool head off.

Suzanne, of course, was nowhere to be seen, so I had to get out of the truck, shoo away the other idiot dog, and beat my dog into frightened, subdued silence. By then, I was "up" and the only thing on my mind was getting the hell out of there. So, I said my goodbyes, and loaded up the truck and moved to Sid-uh-ney.

I got home about 8am, grabbged a little breakfast (trailmix - in honor of my recent camping adventure), and started mowing the lawn. By 9am it was already about 90 degrees, so I decided to leave the back yard basically unmowed while I guzzled water and googled "heatstroke". You can't be too careful. Eventually, my heartrate dropped back down to 120 or so, and I was able to consider what to do with the rest of my day. Why not blog it up, I asked myself.

So I did. The end.

(BTW, if you haven't bought my house yet, ask yourself what the hell you're waiting for and get out there and do it already!)

Possible Harry Potter spoiler alert:

Well, I just finished the final Harry Potter book. I was absolutely convinced some asshole would walk up to me and say, “Hey, did you hear how Harry Potter ends? Blah blah blah.” Or, I’d be reading some completely unrelated website and accidentally stumble across some crucial factoid or other.

Fortunately, that did not happen. I would have been quite cheesed otherwise…
I’m sure that people think it’s hilarious to watch me fume angrily while contemplating their imminent torture and eventual demise, never realizing how closely they've come to instant and complete annihilation.

If you’ve never read the HP books because you've heard it’s a children’s story, and certainly beneath your dignity, then I’m really glad for you. You’ve neatly excised any opportunity to enjoy a really well-written (and phenomenally well-received) story for the sake of your machismo! You, sir, are brilliant!

For those of you who happen to be a bit more open-minded, I’m sure you’re having a wonderful time discovering how Harry and his band of merry mates work to find the means to destroy LV (as I like to call him) once and for all… or do they??? ;-)

At any rate, I was pleased with the ending. It often seems that ending a series of books is difficult in the extreme and I seldom read a satisfying conclusion. However, in this case, I’d give it an A-.

For me the question wasn’t “Will Harry kill Voldemort?”, the question was “Will Harry and Voldemort both die in the end.” I know that American audiences love to see a happy ending, but I was really hoping that the author, being British, would insert enough reality so as to avoid the insulin rush I normally get. I wasn’t disappointed - in fact, I was pleasantly surprised.

You know, I can’t recall ever having read a book where the good guys lose in the end. I think that would be really novel (no pun intended… ok, maybe it was intended, but you have to admit it was pretty good). By the way, in deference to the non-HP readers out there, that’s “novel” as in “novelty”.

Ok, enough about HP, let’s talk about work. There’s a big re-org that just occurred in my area. One of the supervisors has become a manager, one of my co-workers has replaced the newly promoted supervisor, and yet another co-worker is about to head up his own new group. Notice that I didn’t mention my own promotion in any of that. Now, what I don’t know is what this will mean for yours truly.

What I’ve been told is that, in the short term, the “new” supervisor will be my supervisor. This isn’t a big deal because I was in the military and learned that I could work for anybody. However, what I don’t know is my eventual permanent position.

It’s been suggested that I become an application administrator while continuing to work for the new supervisor, permanently. (Pardon me as I chuckle heartily while shaking my head and smiling ruefully.) Naturally, being a Unix Admin, I consider application admins to be little more than semi-trained monkeys (that’s for you, David B.) Ok, I’m exaggerating slightly – they’re only partially-trained.

At any rate, I’m really curious to hear what the boss has to say on Monday when he gets back from Canada. I’m wondering if he will try to force me to “become” an app dude. I say, become but what I really mean, of course, is devolve. I imagine that, should I be forced to choose between staying in beautiful Sidney as an app admin, or moving back to Omaha as a Unix Admin, I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying some boxes and calling my old boss! ;-)

My wife, of course, would be ecstatic. She’s been pretty bummed lately and really missing her life back in Omaha. I’ve been telling her to suck it up, but if MY job starts sucking, we’re splitting! Heheh.

What I imagine will happen is that I will move downstairs with the other Unix Admins and start working on their hardware as well as my own. That’s pretty cool because they have some nice IBM gear (AIX) that I’ve got some familiarity with.

Speaking of work, I just got back from Omaha where we set up a new DR site. It was pretty cool – I got to see a lot of my old friends (Hi friends) while I was there.

Also, it was a lot of fun installing brand new hardware and trying to get everything working. It seems like we were successful, but we won’t really know for sure until next week when we get all of the remote network stuff in place.

While I was in Bellevue, I stopped by the old house. It still looks like shit – I wonder why it hasn’t sold yet…

Finally, Chris (the crazy one) got a Mohawk haircut the other day. His mom was out of town on some stupid horsey trip, and he asked me if I would give him a Mohawk. Naturally, I said yes and the next thing you know he was sporting a kicking new style. Long story short – his mom was not amused when she came home on Sunday. It’s since been cut down to where you can just barely tell it’s a Mohawk, but it was
cool while it lasted.

Speaking of Suzanne, her pop is in town this weekend and they’re out camping right now about an hour away from here. I’m going to drive out there tomorrow and hang out for the day. I don’t really want to stay the night, so I’ll probably come back early.

I guess that’s about it. I’m no longer hoping that the house sells because we may be moving back before long if those crazy app admins get their grubby mitts on me!
Oh, what the hell, buy my house anyway… I’ll get another one. I’m a big fan of multiple mortgages.

Love and kisses. Your hero,

Anthony.

Change of pace - Philosophy vs Politics

Moshi Moshi from Sidney,

Seems like politics isn't cutting the mustard around here, so I've been working on a little thought experiment:

Imagine that you suddenly discovered that you were a robot. That you were like that little kid in AI (Artificial Intelligence) that wasn't immediately aware that he was a robot, but instead thought he was a real boy. (His "mom" basically programmed him to love her and he did.)

The question is, if the technology existed such that you couldn't tell the difference between a human and a robot - or, that your memories/thoughts could somehow be transferred to a computer - and you never realized that you weren't human, but you KNEW you were definitely "you", could you possibly imagine that you didn't possess a soul?

Let's say I just now walked up and pressed a button on a remote control that opened a cavity in your chest where you could see all the little robot gears and wires. Would you come to the conclusion that a soul doesn't care whether you were flesh and blood or not. That YOUR soul was just as real as anybody else's?

NOTE: For the sake of this argument, you have to assume that absolutely nothing about your mind would be any different than it is now. If you think about it, it's a fact that you really have no way to know how anybody else feels/thinks, anyway, so you really have nothing to compare it against. We all presume that we all think and feel similarly. So, really, you actually MIGHT be a robot after all...

But I digress...

If you didn't come to the conclusion that you would somehow have a soul anyway, would you ever be able to come to grips with it? How would you reconcile that this existence was all that there was, for you, anyway. Would you become hopelessly depressed, or would you realize that nothing you did really mattered, so go out on some kind of wild hedonistic rampage? Would you stop caring about all the things you currently care about, and try to eke out as much pleasure as humanly (or robotically) possible? Or, worse, would you become some kind of crazed homocidal maniac, frenetic rapist, or vigilante killer? What difference would it make, you wouldn't have to worry about going to hell or being embarassed in heaven, after all...

Or, do you think that you (being you) would somehow come to the conclusion that YOU were somehow special. That all the other robots were actual robots, but you were some kind of spritual miracle. That god would eventually explain it as some kind of REALLY serious test of faith.

What would YOU do if you woke up to discover that you were a reject from an Isaac Asimov novel?

While you're at it, buy my damn house, you robot bastard!

Illegal Immigration - part deux.

(I don't normally respond to the comments, but I couldn't resist.)

I read Fred's response to my last blog entry (thanks Fred!) and wanted to rebut (look it up). I think he probably speaks for the majority of you. I realize it takes a good deal of courage to post your opinions, and I don't want to put anybody off the idear of commenting in the future. That said...

First, do most Americans REALLY make a distinction between legal and illegal Mexicans? When you see a Mexican walking down the street, do you withhold judgement until you see his/her green card? Also, besides Mexicans, are there any other kind of illegal immigrants that Americans give a shit about? I don't remember hearing anybody bitching about Canadians sneaking into the country (spoiler alert - Canadians are generally white). I don't know how many there are, but they're just as illegal.

Second, do you think that the coyotes would stop trafficking drugs if there was a significant drop in illegal immigration? I'm pretty sure they would traffic just as much if not more since there'd be more room in el truck-o.

Finally, if being an illegal alien is so horrible, why not just make all of them legal? Seriously. Give them all amnesty and instant citizenship. That way, they would have to be paid minimum wage and would then start paying income taxes (whether they liked it or not). Also, if there was blanket amnesty, and all they had to do was go to the Social Security office and get a card, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than having 11 million people get either deported or process the normal amount of paperwork.

Think about it - there are 400 million Americans and only 11 million illegal aliens. That's about 40 to 1 - hardly enough to even notice. To put it in perspective, if you invited 200 people to your party, and an extra 5 showed up uninvited, would you be significantly impacted? Would you run out of beer and hot dogs before everyone else got their fair share?

I do have a question for anyone reading these comments: What is involved in becoming a legal immigrant? People say all the time that they should just go through the process, but how much trouble are we talking about? How much time/effort/money does it take?

How much time/effort/money did you go through to become a citizen? Or, did you just happen to pop out of your mother's American vagina? If so, lucky you!

Ask yourself this, if every Mexican you met was legal, would it honestly change your opinion of Mexicans? Don't bother answering - I'm pretty sure I know already.

Now go out there and quit being a racist bastard. While you're at it, buy my house, dammit!

Immigration: Now it's ready for prime time.

!A, E, I, O, U, El Burro save mas que tu!

My wife sent me yet another illigal immigration diatribe e-mail today. This is about the 10th such message that I've gotten in the last 6 months or so. Apparently, people like sending these things to me because I am of Mexican descent. Usually, these things come from her German (read Nazi) relatives who can't think of anything worse in the world than poor old Jorge out there picking lettuce.

So I read the letter with less than an open mind because that's just the way I roll.

Spoiler alert - it didn't change my mind. The letter sounded exactly like the last 9 or so. Basically, it said, "Life was so grand back in the good old days when the immigrants knew their place and were really hard-working wonderful people who contributed so much to the prosperity of early America. They didn't ask for any special treatment, they just wanted to work 16 hour days for slave labor wages, and squeeze out a couple dozen 'legal' citizens. They certainly didn't expect society to show them any compassion or understanding - they knew better. And they were right!"

My favorite part of this is the fact that people actually harken back to a time when intolerance ruled the day. We should be a lot more intolerant because heaven forbid we might go out of our way for a bunch of sub-humans who won't even bother learning the language. It certainly takes a lot of effort to translate English into Spanish. If only we had some kind of "thinking machine" to do it for us. Alas, a pipe dream, to be sure.

My wife read the e-mail and said, "Well, yeah, they're trying to change the National Anthem!". (This is a woman married to a Mexican, by the way, with Mexican kids and other Mexican relatives.)

I pointed out that nobody was actually trying to change the National Anthem, but that some people wanted a Spanish version of it. This, to me, actually says that these people want to be in some way associated with America. I don't think I've heard anybody suggest that Mexicans are trying to supplant the American Anthem with the Mexican Anthem. That, to me, would be something worth mentioning.

But back to the point of the original letter. Basically, everybody loved the original immigrants and they loved being here (after tearfully kissing their families good-bye in their native countries, of course). It was all very Rockwellian.

Sadly, history is not an American's strongest subject - of course, neither is math, science, geography, etc. But that's the subject of an upcoming blog, so I won't go into detail here. My point is, I hear people say shit like, "Well, back in those days, blah blah blah..." when they have literally NO CLUE what the hell they're talking about. They "know" things because they heard somebody say it somewhere (they probably didn't read it anywhere).

You realize, of course, that when I say "they" in this blog, I'm really substituting it for "you". I would use "you" exclusively, but by saying "they", it gives you the chance to say, "Well, at least he's not talking about me". But don't kid yourself, I am. :-D

Before I go any further, I want to get this in before I forget. I love the way that white people compliment Mexicans. I have heard it only one way: "They're so industrious". (Actually, it's "They're real hard-workers - boy, those Mexicans work real hard." Industrious is just my word...)

This is exactly the same compliment that a black person is given when white folks say, "He's so well-spoken." It's allllmost a compliment if it weren't insulting.

Take Barak Obama for instance. The man is really bright and has a lot of really progressive idears about the future of the country. Now, go out and ask a white person about Barak Obama and he'll say, "That bastard! When we get him, he's gonna pay!!" You'll have to point out that Barak Obama is actually a half-black politician and not the leader of a terrorist group, at which point he'll say, "Oh, that guy. Yeah, he speaks real good." Which is equivalent, of course, to "He's so well-spoken".

My co-worker, David, has a great joke that really defines an average white American's mindset: "What do you call a black airline pilot?" The answer? "Captain". What the hell were you thinking? David is also the guy who checks everything I say for accuracy - kind of a walking, spell-checker. He's no doubt reading this blog right now and making comments in a little three-ring binder.

Ok, back to those dirty Mexicans and their evil ways.

From what I'm gathering, Mexican women will crawl over the border at 8.9999 months pregnant so as to drop a kid onto American soil. The kid (one of dozens, naturally) will become an automatic citizen. The hope is that the kid will, eventually, join a gang and begin raping and pillaging his nearest white neighbors, selling drugs to children, all the while engaging in numerous drive-by shootings. This must be where they get the industrious label.

Mexican men, on the other hand, only want to come to America so as to devalue the dollar by taking all those cushy, well-paying manual-labor jobs, and not paying any taxes! I can't count how many of my friends were forced into a white collar job becuase some damn Mexican stole his dream job of picking lettuce for $25 a day. Those jobs, I don't have to remind you, are in short supply after all.

To be serious for a minute, who's really to blame? Is it the desperate illegal trying to sneak into the country to try and force a better life for himself or his family, or is it the rich white fuck who's willing to hire the illegal in a short-sighted bid to save a couple of bucks? If there was no way to make a buck over here without becoming legal, would anybody bother trying to sneak in?

The solution to a lot of the social problems concerning illegal aliens has nothing to do with the illegals themselves. As I pointed out earlier, it's the kids who grow up in a world that views them with equal parts scorn, disdain and distrust. Their parents are illegal and would get deported if discovered. They're bombarded with images of the good life as lived by a good portion of the American population knowing that they don't have any real chance of ever realizing it for themselves. By the time they're teenagers, they've got a pretty good idear what's in store for them for the rest of their lives. It shouldn't be surprising that these kids feel disenfranchised because, well, they are disenfranchised.

(Hint: disenfranchised = trapped, powerless.)

The solution is pretty simple: Since they are technically citizens, treat them as such. Offer them the basics: health care, food, safety, education. These things are currently being offered, but only at the expense of self-respect. For instance, you can get food, but only if you apply for and use blaringly loud food stamps that announce to anyone around that you are poor and therefore inferior. You can get health care, but only for those maladies that are specifically listed and only by providers who have agreed to the government subsidy to bother seeing you in the first place. You can get housing, in a sense. If you ever lived in the ghetto (hah!) or the projects (hah!!), then you'll understand. Otherwise, you'll figure that that's really all they deserve anyway. Finally, you can get an education, if you can survive the journey to and from a school that couldn't give a shit less about you or your problems.

I'll concede that most adults are fucked-up, but every kid has potential. Even black and Mexican kids. You can either quash it, or foster it. Granted, it costs some of your hard earned tax dollars, but in the end, there will be fewer people to rape, murder, or rob you in the future, so consider it an advance.

Also, until recently, the majority of white America has had no problem spending billions of dollars financing the war in Irag for the last 5 years. I can guarantee you that taking care of 11 million illegal aliens is 1) cheaper and 2) yields much greater dividends.

On a side note, it amazes me that a lot of the people who consider Mexicans as second-class human beings are supposedly Christians. Aren't these the fuckers that are supposed to care about people? Didn't Jesus say something to the effect of how you care for the least among you, so do you care for me? I'm paraphrasing, obviously. But the point is, society really is only as strong as its weakest members.

Finally (yes, I'm nearly finished), a little history lesson. Once upon a time, there was a group of immigrants who were roundly despised. There were signs on business that basically said, if you belong this particular group, don't bother coming in. They were blamed for every ill in society to include crime and the stealing of jobs from real Americans. Their children were routinely denied basic comforts and were often forced to work alongside their parents for 12 - 16 hours a day, again, for slave-labor wages. Sound familiar?

The group? The Irish. Look it up - you can probably read it somewhere...

!Compra mi casa!

Not quite ready for prime time...

Buenos Dias from Sidney,

I just got done writing up a new blog post regarding illegal immigration. It's full of a lot of angry ranting and raving.

However, I'm going to sleep on it and look it over tomorrow. I don't want the message to get lost in the midst of my anger. If it still looks good to me tomorrow, then I'll post it as is. If not, I'll either modify it or just delete it altogether and start over.

I think there are a lot of good points, but I don't want to come off as some kind of crazy bastard.

Cya tomorrow!

p.s. Why haven't you bought my house yet???

Pursuit of Happyness, Sopranos, et. al.

Aloha from Sidney,

We recently watched The Pursuit of Happyness on the big TV. I don't know if I liked it or not... I hate movies like that. The movie spent most of its time just being kind of depressingly sad, with moments of Will Smith brilliance.

Also, and I didn't realize it until just recently, the kid in the movie is his actual son. I think he did a fantastic job. Normally, kid actors suck - not their own fault, it's hollywood and idiot directors who want to turn every kid into "Little Miss Sunshine". In this movie, they made the kid pretty believable.

There was one really powerful moment when Chris (the main character) and his son stay the night in a public bathroom. If you've ever been poor, you can really feel for the guy. I have no doubt that most of the people who see the movie will be well-fed, white people who just can't understand poverty or homelessness. Even so, for parents, I think it will affect them pretty deeply.

That said, the rest of the movie was just kind of depressing, though tempered by the fact that you know that, somehow, everything would work out in the end. The biggest problem I think I had with the movie, when all was said and done, is that 99.99999% of the time, the decisions that Chris made would have ended up just screwing his life up even more. The fact that this one time everything turned out for the best is a bad example to foolish dreamers everywhere.

Also, I think that Thandie Whateverhernameis (the mom) is one weird-looking chick. She looks like a preying mantis or something. Well, a preying mantis with boobs, I guess. The point is, she looks like a bug - and she's always pissed in every movie I've ever seen her in. She was in that movie Crash - the black woman who was basically felt up by Matt Dillon. She was also the power hungry Necromonger Dame Vaako in the Chronicles of Riddick. She REALLY looked like a bug in that movie!

Now, on to the Sopranos: What the fuck ??

I spent the last 6 or 7 years watching this show and loving pretty much every minute of it. At the end of every season, somebody integral to the show gets "whacked" in some generally interesting way. I was always like, "Whoa! I never saw THAT one coming!!"

But this finale was pathetic. I was sitting there with the wife and we're watching the last 5 minutes and just literally on the edge of our seats waiting for it to happen. The whole time, we're trying to guess how it's going to happen, and who's going to be doing it.

We were suckers...

Eventually, the screen just went black. This was especially frightening for me because I thought something was wrong with my big TV. The wife looked over and said (with some heavy sarcasm I might add) "What's wrong with the Tivo??"

After a minute or so, I started to get up to check the cables and such, when suddenly the credits start rolling with some faggity music playing. I even rewound it a little just to make sure I didn't miss something.

Nope - It was over. 6 years of my life, wasted.

The way this show ended was a lot like that season of Dallas, where the chick wakes up only to discover that the entire season was just a dream and her husband was still alive, yada yada yada. That sucked too.

This was worse... I expected better from this show. I guess all I can say is "boo".

My next blog entries will be political - probably not as humorous as my normal stuff. I'm guessing tightly controlled rage and disgust.

Now, go out there and buy my house, dammit!

SYTYCD

Holy shit! This is going to sound REALLY gay, but I can't stop watching last night's recording of So You Think You Can Dance. There was a routine in there that just freaking amazed me. Normally, I don't like lyrical/contemporary dancing because it's kind of like abstract art - it only makes sense to the artist. But last night's show had this bit that hit me like a ton of bricks.

I won't even bother trying to describe it because I'm sure I couldn't do it justice. There was one part where the chick runs across the stage and jumps onto the guy's shoulders (basically) and kind of like wraps herself around him. I had to rewind it a couple of times just to make sure I saw it right. The whole thing was ridiculous.

Now, I don't know how many of my faithful readership watch the show, but this season is shaping up pretty good. If you can get past your homophobia long enough to watch it, you might actually enjoy yourself.

I wonder if I can post the mpeg...

Ok, that's taking a couple minutes to load. In the meantime, life in Sidney is turning out to be ok after all. We still haven't sold the house, but I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of time. Even so, I'm playing softball on a co-ed team - which, yeah, kinda sucks, but at least I'm out there. Also, I got a bunch of friends that like to drink beer, shoot guns and play cards, so that's cool. Also, I love this house and Suzanne hates it, so that's really cool!

(Ok, it looks like I can't post mpegs, just weak-ass jpegs and stuff. Ah, c'est la vie.)

Ok, that's it. I'm going to try to get back on the ball with the blog activity. I've been a little off my game for the last month or so, and just couldn't force myself to come up with anything particularly witty or interesting. There's a lot of pressure in keeping up a blog, trust me. I can't let you kids down now can I?

On that note, I bid you all a fondue. Watch this space for more wacky, semi-homoerotic entries in the near future.

Now, where's my penis - this vagina thingy is really uncomfortable.

p.s. Buy my house, dammit!

A bit tardy am I

Belated greetings from Sidney.

Well, it's been a while since I posted anything new on the old Blog, so I thought I'd log in and entertain you folks. Actually, my buddy Fred's blog has been pretty brilliant lately, and if I'm going to keep my crown as the undisputed king of the posters, I've got to step up.

Here's a link to his blog if you're curious as to what the second-best effort looks like:
http://friscofred.blogspot.com/

Actually, Fred is a freaking comic genius. Do yourself a favor and check out his stuff.

Ok, that's enough of that. Back to me...

So, as you might suspect, we're basically all moved in. We've got the upstairs done except for a couple of boxes in the guest room, and the downstairs is laid out exactly as I wanted. Unfortunately, I'm not quite ready for pictures as the wife is still painting every bare surface in the house. Weird colors, too. I think she's going for a Sante Fe theme (although she claims to NOT have a theme).

Soon, however, we're going to have a house-warming party and that's when I'll snap a few pix for you, my adoring fans.

I'm inviting a bunch of guys over for the Chuck Liddel fight on the 26th. Also, my aged, infirm father-in-law will be in town that weekend getting his ass kicked in chess and poker, so maybe I'll even take a picture or two of him whilest I'm at it. He's probably reading this right now and shaking his fist saying something like, "Oh, yeah, wait till I get him on the ping pong table!" Of course, he pronounces it "Table Tennis" like the tennis part makes it an actual sport. Kinda sad, really.

I realize what it is I like best about this bl0g: I can conceivably mock anybody I want and they're powerless to stop me! It's a god-like power that I possess. Watch this: Tim Reilly is a weenie. Hah! What are you gonna do, Tim??? Nothing, that's what... muhwahahahah. Whew, what a rush.

Anyway, I just wanted to put something out here to dispel the latest rumors of my untimely demise. Go out and have some fun on me.

Oh, and please buy my house.

Fully moved in, yet...

Whattayaknow from Sidney!

Well, we're all moved in and got most of the upstairs finished. We've kind of been doing a little bit at a time with occasional surges of activity. For instance, Suzanne went nuts on the kitchen the first couple of days after our stuff showed up. Then, over the weekend, I went all out on the bedrooms. The living room just kind of came together by itself - I think somebody may have broken in and arranged things for us while we were at work.

This weekend we're looking at getting the little things finished upstairs and possibly starting the basement. It's pretty daunting down there, but we'll get it sorted sooner or later.

The problem is that we put everything we didn't want to deal with in the basement and the garage. I've already got my work-out gear setup and even found a decent-ish spot for the ping-pong table, so there's really no motivation (from my perspective) to get it sorted out.

However, I know that sooner or later, I'll get sick of seeing it like that and I'll drag my lazy ass down there ad get it sorted. Maybe today...

The boys and I went to see 300 the other night. It finally came to the Sidney theater (yes, THE Sidney theater). It was pretty good, but not as good as I thought it'd be. I was really surprised at how lovey-dovey it was. I was hoping there would be a lot more violence. Also, they threw in a bunch of nudity that just seemed kinda pointless. Don't get me wrong, I like nudity as much as the next guy (I asked him and he agreed), but it just seemed kind of jammed in without any good reason.

Even so, it was a pretty good flick. The fighting scenes were outstanding - it was a lot like God of War II (which I just finished the other night also). God of War had a kind of strange ending which makes me think that there will probably be a God of War III!

Oh, and my finger is completely healed! If you weren't really looking closely , you'd never know it was ever injured. There's a slight dent in the crease, but that's about it. Let me see if I can slap a quick picture or two in here:



I'm kind of like Wolverine...

Stay tuned for new pictures of the inside of the house (probably in a week or so).

Halfway moved in...

Gutentag from Sidney...

Well, we're halfway moved in and I have to say that it's wonderful! This house is exactly the style of house that I've been wanting. It's about a 3,000 sq. ft. ranch with a mostly open floor plan. Granted, it's a few years old (1994), but it's in really good shape.

We spent the last two days changing things around: I installed a new faucet, replaced the kitchen chandelier, installed two ceiling fans, and replaced the two outside lamp fixture thingies. I also installed a new dishwasher because the old one wouldn't drain. So, we ran down to the nearest home depot (40 miles away), and grabbed a pretty cool GE ($315).

I brought it in and installed it in a mere 2 hours (yikes), only to find that the new one wouldn't drain either. That's when I decided to do a little troubleshooting. It turns out that the new garbage disposal that was installed before we moved in never had the drain plug removed. 12 seconds later, it was draining like a champ. Had I looked a little closer when the first one (that was in perfectly good shape) wasn't draining, I could have saved myself a few hundred bucks and a lot of self-respect.

So anyyyywayy. The vast majority of our stuff will be here Thursday. Suzanne is madly painting the house before all the furniture arrives. She's got most of the living room done and has set her sights on the bedrooms. Sadly, she's a little on the (what's the polite euphemism?) sloppy side, so I might have to step in and help her clean up her margins. It's a dirty, thankless job, but somebody's got to do it.

Also, my finger is almost completely healed! I think I'll always have a bit of divot, but otherwise it's looking pretty good.

Oh, and the house still hasn't sold, but I'm told that April and May are the best months to sell a house, so I'm really hopeful that we'll be in good shape soon.

Please buy my house!

It's closing day!!!

Hallelujah from Sidney!

It's finally here - closing day! We've finally gotten our close-date for the new house. Wednesday at 3:30pm we will be the proud owners of two, count 'em two, mortgages. Fortunately, we're independently wealthy, so $2500 a month shouldn't be any problem.

We went by the new house tonight just to whet our appetites. The kids hadn't been in it before, so they were pretty excited. They were mostly impressed with the HUGE basement - that's my favorite part, too. :-)

By the way, thanks for all the kind words concerning my recent near-death experience. My finger is healing up nicely thanks to a healthy daily dollop of neosporin (that's Latin for "New Sporin"). In fact, I expect to be completely healed by the end of the week. Watch this space for the post-traumatic-injury pictures.

I can't wait to take a shower in a real bathroom, and wash the dishes in a real dishwasher, and take a crap on a real toilet, just like the goddess intended. Life will once again be sweet.

Suzanne asked me the other day if we would look back on this period of our lives and laugh. My answer, of course, was no. We will look back on the "Pit" with nothing but revulsion, thanking all things holy that we got the hell out of there.

Suzanne is looking to go back to Omaha on Wednesday, right after we sign the loan papers, to pick up her stupid horse and my wonderful motorcycle. If you've forgotten what my bike looks like, here's a little reminder:



Damn, I'm cool. Anyway, my bike is in her stupid horse trailer, so when she brings her dumb horse back here, I'll get my bike back. There's a really nice ride from here to Sterling (about 40 miles away). That will probably be my first official ride. I'd invite you to come along, but really, that would just be a logistical nightmare.

I suppose that it's for now. All that's left to say is "Buy my house, dammit!".

"Ouch!" from Sidney!

Ok, so I'm helping out one of my new co-worker friends here in loverly Sidney. He's got starter problems with his mini-van, and being the good Samaritan that I am, I offer to help.

No problem, just lift the hood, remove a couple bolts and Voila. Naturally, no good deed goes unpunished. The 15 minute job ended up taking about 3 hours because HIS minivan's starter is underneath the engine (about 3 inches of clearance), and it's wedged up underneath the manifold.

No problem. We borrow a jack and a couple of jack stands from another co-worker and a piece of cardboard to lie down on, and Voila! Oh, no, not quite so easy. The only tool that will really fit into the ridiculously tight space is a 15 milimeter box-end wrench. Guess what tool we DON'T have handy??? Eventually, yet another friend brings over the biggest 15 milimeter ratchet the world has ever seen. I jam this sucker into my the tightest space I've ever seen, mostly by sense of smell at this point, and just start turning. FINALLY, we get the last bolt off and the starter comes right out. A roar rose from the crowd.

Naturally, putting the starter back in is a lot easier than getting the sucker out, so we pretty much had it sorted in about 15 or 20 minutes. Being the good mechanic that I am, however, I decide to go in for one last sortie just to make sure all the connections are snug.

Somehow, while snugging up literally the last nut, the one that is connected to the positive side of the battery (can you see where this is going?), I managed to touch the end of the ratchet to the engine block while simultaneously touching the gold wedding ring on my left hand. SNAP, CRACKLE, POP went the sparks and suddenly my left ring finger feels like it's being branded.

Of course, my ring is way too small to come off comfortably, so I'm watching the smoke waft from my finger as I wait in agony for the thing to cool down. I didn't want to rip my ring off because I wasn't sure how much skin was going to come with it.

After a minute or so, it finally cooled to the point where I thought it would be safe to remove without degloving the finger. When I looked at it in the light, I saw about a square inch of skin hanging off the finger and blisters already starting to form around the rest.

Long story short, I burned my finger pretty good. Here are the photos to further illustrate my point (click on the picture to get a close-up):



Painful, you ask? Nah, only during the actual burning part. Since then, it hasn't really been particularly painful at all. Gross, yes - painful, no.

I'm now undergoing a little at-home neosporin treatment. I keep checking for blood poisoning, but so far, I'm clean.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: No good deed goes unpunished! ;-)

House pictures

Salutations from Sidney!

Well, you asked for it, you got it! Here are some pictures of both the "Pit" we live in currently and the new house we intend to move into by the middle of April. First the "Pit":


Exterior:



Living room - ish



Shower area (basement) - yikes.


Believe me when I say that these pictures do not do the place justice! ;-)


Now, the new house:


Front / Back

Kitchen / Living room

Basement! (It's Gigantic!)

Yes, my friends, in a mere 3 weeks, life will be good again! I'm so happy... ;-)

Latest house stuff - and a happy birthday.

"How-do, Honey" from Sidney!

My ex-step-grandmother used to say that to me every time she saw me. This is when I was about 12 or 13 years old. Of course, she thought she was "country", so she'd say it like "Howww-Doo, Huuuunnneee". Imagine that lady from Hee-Haw, the one with the price tag hanging from her hat. Yeah, that's it.

Why did I think of that, you ask? Unknown. Every now and again I hear her voice yodelling out that greeting, and it sets my teeth on edge. I guess I didn't really like my ex-step-grandmother all that much, come to think of it... Hmm.

Anyway, today is my best friend's birthday. His name is Daren and he lives back in Carson City where some of my family still live. He's also just turned 40, but he doesn't look nearly as good as I do! To be completely honest, I have five best friends, spread out all over the country, but Daren is my first,+ best friend.

He and I met when we were about 14. It was love at first sight - we were both thin and had long, luxurious hair. Ah, the memories. His first words to me were, "Hey, you wanna go in halves on a dime bag." He always did have a way with words.

Naturally, I was all for it, and the next thing you know we were smoking ourselves into obvlivion and bonding. I think we were bonding, anyway, it's all kinda fuzzy. All I know for sure is there was a lot of nakedness invovled.

When we were in high school, Daren, Chris, Brian and I all agreed to meet in New York for the Millenium's new year's eve celebration. We would be 33 years old by then, and would marvel at how exciting our lives would be by that point. Sadly, we never made it - mostly because those other bastards completely forgot about the plan. What a waste of money on those matching noisemakers!

But I digress. It's also William Shatner's and Marcell Marceau's birthday. I'll bet they never forgot any promises they made with their highschool chums!

The contract for the new house got signed yesterday. We sent it off to the VA Mortgage lady who will now schedule the VA inspection. Once that's done, it's a simple matter of closing on the loan. The annoying part is that the VA inspector has 10 work days to get off his ass and actually inspect the damn thing. If he finds anything that needs fixing, however, we'll have to work with the sellers to get it corrected before we can close on the loan. It's all a big pain in the ass!

On the plus side, we'll have two large-ish mortgages to pay every month that our old house fails to sell! Wait a minute... that's not the plus side... What was I thinking?? Silly me. (please buy my house)

If you haven't heard, the only good thing about the relocation to Sidney is that all we need is somebody to make a legitimate offer on the house (in writing). Once that happens, the relocation company will buy the house from me. They'll wire me the difference between what I owe on the house and the negotiated sale price. Then, they'll own the house, and they'll have to pay the commission and all the closing costs. And, if the buyer backs out at the last minute, they'll begin making all the mortgage, insurance and utility payments. Once they wire me the money, the house will still technically be in my name, but it will no longer be my responsibility whatsoever.

That will be great! I've already predicted an offer by tomorrow, so within a couple of weeks, we should be swimming in cash! I might buy a new shirt - a t-shirt that says, "I'm rich!". That will be funny.

Actually, I promised a guy at work that, when our house sells, I'll take his family out to dinner. He's a big boy and he's got four kids and a wife (who are all probably also all decent-sized - I've never met them), so it's probably going to be a bit spendy. But, that's ok - I'll be wearing my t-shirt and a big old smile!

Happy Birthday, Daren! You promise-forgetting bastard!!! ;-)

Nothing to add...

Good afternoon from Sidney,

Well, I don't really have anything of interest to post, I just got tired of seeing those nearly naked pictures of me with my rifle every time I started my browser.

We went and took another tour of the "new" house today. We don't sign the contract until Wednesday or so, so there's not much to do in the meantime. It's a really nice house with a huge basement and a good sized yard. I've got some pictures, but only of the inside. It's kind of pointless to post them, though, because the house is mostly empty and the only stuff in it belongs to an old woman - not exactly the same taste as ours.

I don't think we're going to be able to move in until the middle of April, though, as the owners (the old lady's kids) live out of town, and won't be around enough to get the paperwork sorted in a timely manner. I already don't like these people! ;-)

Suzanne's planning on going back to Omaha the first week of April to get her horse. Boy, I can't wait!! Nothing I like better than a big old stinky stupid horse.

Speaking of animals I hate, did I mention about the idiot cat the wife showed up with a couple weeks ago? Anybody who knows me knows I hate cats like no other animal on the goddess' green earth. Apparently, this was news to the wife who spent a hundred dollars of my money (or "our" money, I guess) on this ridiculous little thing.

I haven't decided exactly how this cat will meet its demise... The guillotine, the rack -hah! mere child's play to what I've got in mind. Actually, I don't really have anything in mind... I'll probably just "accidentally" leave the door open one day and it will wander away on its own. Our street isn't particularly busy, but you never know. Here's hoping.

I guess that's about all I have now. I'll take some pictures of the outside of the house and include a couple of the interior on the next exciting installment of "Anthony's Blog".

(Yeah, I really should have put more thought into the title...)

Peace out.

Sad day/Almost happy day

Hello from Sidney,

Strange title, you say? Well, yesterday was a sad day because one of my favorite comedians, Richard Jeni, killed himself. I can almost guarantee that you've never heard of Richard Jenni, but the man was a comic genius. He is probably only remembered from his starring role in the short-lived comedy series, Platypus Man (here's a link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112124/ ).

He was brilliant, but the show was pretty much boilerplate comedian-in-a-sitcom schtick. I seem to remember it was cancelled mid-season.

On the other hand, it was almost a happy day because the wife's little idiot orange Pomeranian (Fizzy) NEARLY choked to death on a piece of steak. It sounds horrible, but it was actually pretty funny.

The story goes like this: Chase, the boy, didn't want to eat his pot roast, so he was surreptitiously dropping large-ish bits of steak onto the ground in the hopes that one of the 100 pound German Shepperds would happen by and relieve him of the trouble of having to eat it. However, funnily enough (my own expression, thank you), the only dog small enough to fit under the table undiscovered was the 5 pound Pomeranian.

She took advantage of this once in a lifetime (for her, anyway) opportunity and began "wolfing" down the meat. Sadly, depending on your perspective, having no teeth, and an esophagus roughly the size of a soda straw, she got it just past the back of her throat where it wedged rather nicely.

Now, Chase and I both heard her scrambling about under the table, but neither of us particularly care for this dog, so we didn't bother looking under to see if she was actually in any kind of trouble. Also, Chase didn't really want to bring any attention to his underhanded activity, so he was doubly not interested in checking it out.

Fortunately, again depending on your perspective, Suzanne sensed the danger from the other room and came a-runnin'. She dove under the table and pulled her out, and began trying to pry her little jaws apart. It was pretty obvious at that point that something wasn't right, and Chase and I nearly paid attention. (Neither of us like this damn dog, remember.)

She finally jammed her fingers down the dog's throat but couldn't get her fingers around the half-dollar size piece of meat. So, she decided if she couldn't get it out, she'd help jam it the rest of the way down her throat.

When I saw this, my medical training immediately came to the fore, and I let her know that she was probably jamming the food down the dog's trachea, and not her esophagus. I guess the wife figured it was worth the risk and finally got it all the way down.

Well, long story short, the little dog's tongue went from blue back to pink and she survived. I guess it wasn't her trachea after all.

After the wife got done yelling at Chase, she took the dog into her bedroom to love all over her or something. This whole time, we neither of us stopped eating dinner or even got up from the table, for that matter. I looked over at him and he looked back at me, and I asked him if he felt bad about nearly killing the dog. He said, "Nah, I don't really like that dog."

I said, "Yeah, neither do I." And we finished our dinner. He asked if he could have some dessert, but I told him no since he nearly killed the dog. He shrugged and went off to play on the computer. Who says I don't punish my kid??

Anyway, tomorrow is the release of God of War II, and we're all really excited. Well, me and the boys are anyway, the wife really couldn't care less. She's just not much fun, I guess.